Science Says Your Social Life May Be More Important Than You Think
As many of us enter day two of working from home this week, a fun new study out of the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology reveals that isolation may drive many social animals — including humans — into utter despair and an early death.
Co-conducted by scientists at Switzerland’s University of Lausanne and Japan’s University of Tokyo, the study examined the behavior patterns of carpenter ants when placed in colonies of varying sizes: 10 ants, two ants, alone but with a few larvae to hang out with, or all alone. The scientists tracked the ants’ actions and found that the solitary ants were much more active that their social counterparts, “continuously walking without any rest,’’ as one of the study’s co-authors described.
The extra exercise, combined with the ants’ socially-inclined digestive system, may have proved fatal. Carpenter ants collect and store food in something called a “crop’’ to bring back to the nest and share with the rest of the colony. With no nest to bring food back to, single ants retained the undigested excess (gross) and were unable to get enough energy to keep up with their increased activity.
Ultimately, the lonely little ants found themselves with an energy imbalance. On average they died within six days, a drastic difference from the social ants’ average lifespan of 66 days. Notably, when all ants, single or in groups, weren’t fed anything at all, there was no difference in their (short, hungry) lifespans.
So what does this mean for us humans? No, we don’t have to fear that our (non-existent) second stomach will starve us to death if we don’t have friends, family, and cohabitants with which to interact, but the scientists behind the study say it’s a good reminder of how social patterns directly affect our health.
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