Loneliness is a byproduct of modern society
Recently, the WeChat public account 'Shidian Dushu' published an article titled 'At a 38-Year-Old Class Reunion, There Are Almost No Women at the Table,' which explored the life status of middle-aged women: they have significantly reduced social activities, and except for occasions like weddings or child-rearing where couples must appear together, they are not seen for months. The squeeze on time and energy brought by marriage and family has made most women no longer free. The article mentioned a very poignant sentence: The time that truly belongs to middle-aged women is probably only staying up late.
In the TV drama 'The Story of Rose,' there is a scene that impressed many people. Huang Yiwei said to Su Gengsheng, 'No one has called my name for a long time. I don't want the name Huang Yiwei to be replaced by Xiaochu's mother.' Since getting married, Huang Yiwei has not worked for three years, spending her days around family and children, not only losing her freedom but also gradually having her name forgotten. This is Huang Yiwei's dilemma, and also a microcosm of countless middle-aged women in reality.
In Japan, a survey of 30,000 people conducted annually for the consumer market prediction system shows that about 21% feel lonely (with 5.2% feeling 'very lonely' and 15.6% feeling 'lonely'). Especially among women aged 20-39, the proportion feeling lonely is the highest. That is, in Japan, about 1 in 5 people feel lonely, and among young women, about 1 in 4 feel lonely.
Source: 'Lonely Society'
In the past two years, China's economic development has also brought a significant tendency toward loneliness. I believe that loneliness is a byproduct of modern society:
The division of labor in modern society has gradually weakened traditional clan concepts (such as mutual help and resource sharing). The interest relationships between people tend to be contractual and rational. People no longer rely on resource relationships or help from relatives and friends, but can obtain the necessities of survival through their own efforts. This has led to the disappearance of traditional Chinese clan culture, and people's sense of blood ties is increasingly weakened. The disappearance of blood relations is not only a change in cultural form, but also makes concepts such as 'family honor' and 'ancestor worship' lose practical significance. This change makes people freer, but also lonelier, because the 'sense of community belonging' provided by traditional clans is weakened.
The division of labor in society makes people more like a screw, and it is difficult for individuals to complete a work independently. Work emphasizes division of labor and cooperation, and equality. The fine division of labor in modern society means that individuals can often only complete a small part of the work chain, making it difficult to see the overall results. This fragmentation greatly reduces individuals' sense of value and creative experience in labor, ultimately viewing work as a 'tool for making a living' rather than a 'platform for self-realization.' The lack of achievement caused by division of labor makes people's attitude toward work become a task that must be completed for survival. The disappearance of meaning makes it difficult for people to find pleasure in work. Marx said: In the capitalist division of labor, workers are deprived of control over the fruits of their labor, and labor becomes a pure means of survival. The bureaucratization and instrumentalization of the modern workplace further strengthen this feeling of 'people as tools.' Popular terms on the internet such as 'social animal' and 'cattle and horses' are expressions of people's feelings about this screw-like existence.
Enhanced self-awareness, rising marriage and education costs, increased female independence and economic capability have turned marriage from a necessity into a choice, weakening the stability of traditional family structures. The prevalence of non-marriage and non-childbearing concepts reflects individuals' pursuit of freedom and self-realization, while also making the social structure more fragmented. Urbanization and the phenomenon of living alone have gradually shrunk people's social networks, making lifestyles individual-centered and weakening traditional community interaction patterns.
Unequal distribution, widening wealth gap, and unfair resource allocation in urban development have led to migrant workers being unable to integrate into urban life and being marginalized for a long time. This phenomenon has caused a large number of people to be unable to integrate into the city or return to their hometowns, becoming 'rootless individuals.' This has led to a serious lack of belonging among many people.
The reduction of interests with relatives brings a reduction in emotional connection, and the sense of family affection disappears. The screw-like nature of work creates a split between people's sense of meaning in work and their own existence. Non-marriage reduces people's sense of social responsibility, and defects in the social system lead to a lack of belonging to a city. This is the root of modern human loneliness.
The severe erosion of human life by technological development. Social media has brought distant communication closer but weakened real emotional interaction, making people accustomed to 'algorithm-distributed socializing' rather than actively building relationships. Douyin's algorithm is intensifying the reduction of communication, gradually leading people into information cocoons, becoming paranoid, lonely, and emotional. Algorithm-driven emotional consumption has a significant trend of underground consumption, especially influencer live streaming, which is a typical form of underground consumption. They do not consume goods and cannot create material consumption, but they satisfy a large number of lonely people at the bottom of society due to emotional deficiency.
Max Weber had a viewpoint on this modern problem: The core of modern society is rationalization, especially the expansion of purpose-rational (instrumental) rationality. This rationalization has promoted the development of science, technology, economy, and bureaucracy, but it has also brought 'instrumentalization' and 'loss of meaning.' He warned that the rationalization of modern society would lead individuals to be imprisoned in an 'iron cage of rationality': People are forced to obey the logic of efficiency, rules, and calculation, losing the pursuit of life's meaning and spiritual values.
Why did humans evolve loneliness?
Loneliness is not a primary emotion, but it is a complex emotion, stemming from the state of unmet social needs in humans. Primary emotions refer to basic emotions formed in early human evolution and directly related to survival, such as fear, anger, and happiness. They are usually fast, simple, and involve basic brain regions like the amygdala. Loneliness is different; it is a more advanced, complex emotional state, closely related to self-awareness, social needs, and long-term psychological states.
1. Not directly related to survival threats: Primary emotions are usually rapid responses that directly affect survival and reproduction, such as fear making us avoid danger, and anger making us protect resources. Loneliness is more related to long-term social connections.
2. Complexity: Loneliness is a mixed emotional state that may include sadness, anxiety, longing, and other emotional components. It requires higher cognitive functions of the brain, such as the integration of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus.
3. Requires social cognition: The feeling of loneliness depends on the ability to recognize and evaluate interpersonal relationships, requiring individuals to have a certain self-awareness and understanding of social norms.
Reasons for loneliness at the physiological level:
1. Social exclusion and loneliness: Loneliness is often triggered by a lack of social connections, and the brain regards this state as a 'threat signal' because in human evolution, isolation may mean losing protection and resources.
2. Similarity of psychological pain: The emotional pain caused by loneliness has similar neural pathways in the brain as physical pain. For example, loneliness activates areas related to pain (such as the anterior cingulate cortex).
3. Reduction of dopamine and oxytocin: In a lonely state, the levels of neurotransmitters responsible for reward and social bonding (such as dopamine and oxytocin) decrease, further exacerbating negative feelings.
Evolutionary significance of loneliness
1. Promoting social connections: Loneliness makes individuals feel uncomfortable, prompting them to re-establish or maintain social relationships, which is crucial for group survival.
2. Protecting individual safety: The feeling of isolation prompts people to return to the group, avoiding risks associated with living alone (such as predators or lack of resources).
3. Long-term psychological adaptation: Loneliness provides an opportunity for introspection, allowing individuals to reflect on their own behavior and social interaction patterns.
Loneliness is not a primary emotion, but a complex, socially driven emotional state. It is a psychological mechanism developed during human evolution, closely related to social needs, helping individuals adapt to group life by improving interpersonal relationships. Although it is not as direct and fast as primary emotions, its role in modern society is particularly significant.
What consumption behaviors are driven by loneliness?
Loneliness prompts humans to take various actions to alleviate psychological discomfort and emotional deficiency. These behaviors are usually related to meeting social needs, improving mood, or temporarily distracting from loneliness. From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, these behaviors are aimed at restoring connections with others or satisfying the need for belonging through alternative means. The following are possible behaviors triggered by loneliness and their mechanism analysis:
1. Social compensation behaviors—Loneliness drives humans to establish social connections through actual or alternative means.
A. Actively establishing connections: Actively contacting friends, family, or colleagues. Participating in social activities, such as parties or club activities. Joining online communities or social media platforms to interact with strangers. Mechanism: Loneliness activates the desire for belonging, prompting people to seek opportunities for interpersonal interaction.
B. Alternative socializing: Watching movies or series (especially emotional or comedy types) to 'substitute' into social situations. Listening to podcasts or watching live streams to feel indirect interaction with others. Keeping pets. Mechanism: These behaviors simulate social experiences, activating the brain's reward mechanisms (such as dopamine release).
2. Emotion regulation behaviors—Loneliness is often accompanied by negative emotions (such as sadness, anxiety), and people may try to improve their mood through the following ways:
A. Watching comedy or entertainment content: Choosing to watch comedies, variety shows, or funny videos. This is also the social reason for the explosion of talk shows in the past two years. In 'Lonely Society,' Miura Atsushi mentioned the correlation between loneliness among young Japanese women and consumption of comedy content:
Among the upper class, both men and women, those who feel lonely tend to consume more comedy content, and this tendency is particularly prominent among women. Women with an annual income of over 4 million yen (about 200,000 RMB) who feel lonely are also more active in comedy consumption. Among men, those with an annual income of less than 1 million yen (about 50,000 RMB) and feeling lonely are more inclined to invest in comedy consumption.
Mechanism: Humor and laughter can reduce stress hormones (cortisol), increase endorphins and dopamine, and alleviate loneliness.
B. Tendency to listen to music: Especially music that resonates emotionally (sad songs or inspirational songs). Mechanism: Music meets emotional needs by regulating emotional states and provides psychological comfort.
C. Immersive consumption: Reading books, playing games, or immersing in a hobby (such as gaming, painting, sports). Mechanism: These activities allow people to focus on an alternative pleasure, temporarily suppressing lonely emotions.
3. Self-reflection and self-improvement—Loneliness sometimes prompts people to turn inward for self-reflection or improvement:
Writing diaries or creating: Recording one's feelings, writing, or artistic creation. Mechanism: Expressive behaviors allow individuals to release emotions and better understand and accept the lonely state. Learning new skills: Learning a language, attending interest classes, or developing new interests. Mechanism: The sense of achievement from learning can alleviate self-denial emotions caused by loneliness.
4. Negative coping behaviors—Some people, driven by loneliness, may adopt behaviors that provide short-term relief but are harmful in the long term:
A. Indulging in electronic devices: Spending long hours scrolling social media or the internet (but without actual interaction with people). Mechanism: Trying to fill emotional emptiness with rich content, but may exacerbate loneliness.
B. Overeating or consuming comfort foods: Eating desserts, fast food, or other high-calorie foods. Mechanism: High-sugar and high-fat foods stimulate dopamine release, bringing temporary pleasure.
C. Alcohol abuse or substance use: Using alcohol or drugs to numb emotions. Mechanism: Temporarily suppresses loneliness, but long-term may lead to dependence.
5. Behaviors seeking meaning—Loneliness may prompt people to explore deeper emotions and life meaning:
A. Faith or religious activities: Participating in religious ceremonies or meditation to find spiritual comfort. Mechanism: Religion and faith provide a sense of belonging and meaning, alleviating lonely emotions.
B. Volunteer services: Participating in public welfare activities to help others. The author predicts that the next five to ten years will be a window period for the explosion of volunteer public welfare services in China. Mechanism: Through giving and dedication, people establish social connections and rediscover a sense of existence and value.
Loneliness drives humans to adopt diverse behaviors, from social compensation to emotion regulation, from self-reflection to seeking meaning. These behaviors are essentially to satisfy the need for belonging or alleviate negative emotions. For example, activities like watching comedies or listening to music cannot directly solve loneliness, but by activating the brain's reward system, they provide temporary emotional comfort and release. In the long term, loneliness may also become an opportunity for personal growth and establishing deeper connections.
From Loneliness to Emotional Labor Is an inevitable product of economic development
In the new book 'Emotional Value' published in February 2024, British author Rose Hackman mentioned that changing, masking, or suppressing true emotions is a uniquely human ability. Society expects people to perform emotional labor at work and put on a professional face. You can understand that the politeness of flight attendants and the patience of customer service are a form of emotional labor, but the accumulation of this emotion will erupt in another form. Few people realize that a mother's patience and gentleness, a flight attendant's politeness, a customer service representative's careful communication, and a teacher's patient guidance are, in a sense, providing emotional labor. People only see physical work but ignore the value brought by this emotional labor. Moreover, the more developed and civilized society is, the higher the requirements for emotional labor in unfamiliar environments, and the greater the emotional pressure faced by practitioners. This emotional labor needs to be vented and released, and will ultimately be reflected in the demand for some 'commodity.'
In the post-industrial era, the economy is more developed, the division of labor is finer, and people play different roles in different positions.
Especially in the service industry, the requirements for roles are getting higher, generating a large amount of emotional labor, and the proportion of emotional consumption will be higher. Emotional laborers themselves also need emotional products. Therefore, in today's increasingly developed service industry, the demand for emotional products will also grow.
Coexistence of Homogeneous Consumption and High-Emotion Consumption
Japan's Heisei era (1989-2019) is also called the 'lost thirty years.' During these thirty years, Japan experienced a shift from the collapse of the bubble economy to low economic growth. During this period, Japan often used two keywords to summarize its consumption characteristics: 'the fourth consumption era' and 'the low-desire society.' The fourth consumption era refers to a time when Japanese people began to let go of their desire for material possessions and turned to basic consumption that is de-branded and de-personalized. But is this the truth? Let's look at the data.
Total Japanese household financial assets: From 1,000 trillion yen in 1989 to 1,700 trillion yen in 2015, an increase of 70%. This shows that Japanese people have not completely lost their consumption ability, but rather prefer to save.
Tea beverage market: From the 1990s to 2000, the average annual growth rate of Japan's tea beverage market was about 10%, showing that some consumer categories still had room for growth.
Number of convenience stores: From 30,000 in the 1990s to about 60,000 in 2016, becoming Japan's second-largest retail channel. This reflects consumers' increased demand for convenient and fast consumption methods.
Game companies Nintendo and Sony have remained prosperous, and Japan's passionate youth manga, two-dimensional culture, idol girl groups, and other products with high emotional concentration have also remained prosperous. Japanese professional women and housewives, while shopping at Uniqlo, Daiso, and Muji, have never given up the pursuit of LV and Hermès. Shibuya, Tokyo's trend holy land, has always been exporting trendy brands to East Asia.
So, Japanese consumers' love for Uniqlo and Muji may not be because they 'can't afford it' or 'lost the desire to consume,' but because they believe that on homogeneous products, one should spend as little effort and money as possible, saving financial and mental resources for consumption options with higher emotional concentration.
The implications of Japan's consumption pattern shift for us are:
Slowing economic growth does not mean the overall decline of consumption desire.
Consumers will allocate spending more rationally, with basic consumption tending toward homogenization and cost-effectiveness.
Products and services with high emotional value still have a market, and companies need to continue innovating in these areas.
Consumption upgrading and downgrading may coexist, and companies need to accurately position target customer groups.
In short, Japan's 'fourth consumption era' shows the coexistence of homogeneous consumption and high-emotion consumption, reflecting consumers' rational choices and the balance of emotional needs under changes in the economic environment.
Consumer Emotions Are the Button for Consumer Memory and Purchase
In a developed and mature complex society, the 'tittytainment' phenomenon is not intentionally created by the government, but a result of the resonance of demand between merchants and customers. So in modern advertising, merchants often try to tell you, what you buy is not a function, but a spiritual experience. For example, when you buy a high-end car, the merchant will tell you, 'Riding in my car is a symbol of status.' The essential reason is that production is becoming easier. Products in developed countries have long been surplus, and consumers' basic needs have long been met, so merchants must create new needs to release consumers' emotions. The task of advertising is no longer to tell you that something is useful to you, but to influence your emotions and make you want something you originally didn't need.
In the post-industrial era, user emotions are the button that makes users remember and buy. No one believes that wearing Nike shoes can make you leap over walls, drinking Evian water can make you young again, or cosplay can make you control the wind and rain, but we are still willing to buy, perhaps to express our longing for an ideal world.
How to influence consumer emotions?
In traditional concepts, life is divided into different stages—childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age—each with specific tasks and responsibilities. Adolescents are a special group with the freedom to consume and no responsibility to earn money or support a family. Everyone desires to live in their adolescence. Young people don't want to grow up, middle-aged people long to return to youth and happiness, but they don't want to take on too much responsibility, resulting in the current consumption phenomenon. So the purpose of modern advertising design to release emotions is to weaken the social responsibilities of adults and encourage people to cater to the childlike self within. Break out of the existing role, and for a short time become a new role, becoming that child role with the highest emotional concentration, the strongest action ability, but without needing to bear any social responsibility. Among Disney visitors, the most numerous may not be children, but adults who yearn for a childlike state. The purpose of adolescent cosplay is to escape the real situation of being weak in real society and to become the character they admire.
In this context, how should companies do marketing?
- From functional satisfaction to spiritual resonance, such as Nike;
- Timely response to emotions, tapping into immediate needs, such as Douyin and Meituan Waimai;
- Storytelling, role-playing, immersive experience, such as Disney;
- Avoiding responsibility, indulging freely, such as Coca-Cola;
- Gamification, leveling;
- Adolescent literature, rebellion, healing and growth;
- Nostalgia, emotional regression;
- Circles, identity recognition and labeling;
- Surrealism;
- Meaning and experience.
How to seize consumer emotions and provide value?
In his course, Cai Yu provided a methodology for providing emotional value to users. I have summarized this methodology as follows:
The generation mechanism of 'emotion': Emotion = feeling + psychological reaction + body language.
Focus on the basic set of emotions. Let customers know the basic emotions you provide. Consumers will pay more attention to security, freshness, and value in emotional consumption. For example: 'Safeguard, a mother's protection.' 'Dove, real women are beautiful.' 'Buddha, comfort from the unseen.'
There are four consumer emotions worth studying: growth and reconciliation, belonging and existence.
For empathy between brand and users, the brand needs to tell a good story. A story should have three core elements: value proposition, story creativity, and a story structure that shows the pull of values.
Let users become the protagonist in their own story.
Find users' emotional touchpoints, determine product response strategies, provide value, vision and mission, and complete the brand persona.
Teacher Cai Yu's course is very detailed, so I won't elaborate further here. I recommend everyone to study this course on 'Dedao.'
Final Thoughts
Regarding human primary emotions, there are different theories and viewpoints. Psychologists have proposed various classification methods based on different research angles. One of the most classic theories is the basic emotion theory proposed by psychologist Paul Ekman. He believed that human primary emotions are innate, universal, and not influenced by culture, mainly including six basic emotions:
1. Happiness 2. Sadness 3. Anger 4. Fear 5. Surprise 6. Disgust 7. Trust 8. Anticipation
In the book 'Emotion: The Variable That Influences Decision-Making' by Leonard Mlodinow, a famous American theoretical physicist and bestselling author, it is mentioned:
- Emotion is a product of evolution and has its unique value. Emotion helps us respond quickly to environmental changes and make adaptive decisions. For example, fear can keep us away from danger, and anger can make us fight for our interests.
- Different emotions have different effects on decision-making. The book explores in detail the impact of various emotions on our thinking and behavior, and how they shape our lives.
Jiang Nanchun has mentioned in many public occasions the 'three loves, three fears, and three lacks' of the middle class: Love eating, love beauty, love health; fear aging, fear death, fear loneliness; lack love, lack mood, lack stimulation. Behind this, the bottom layer is driven by basic human emotions. For practitioners in the FMCG industry, we must design emotions into products, making them a tool for consumers; place emotions into consumption scenarios, making them a prop for the scene; put emotions into the company's values, making them a source of happiness for consumers. Just like the mission of Tsingtao Brewery: 'Brew beer that consumers love with our passion, and create happiness for life.'
【New Order · Symbiosis】
The 10th China FMCG Innovation Conference
Time: March 17-19, 2025 Location: Chengdu, China