Young adults are currently the loneliest demographic in the UK and other Western countries, yet little is known about how they see the causes of their loneliness. Thus, the objective of this study is to explore the subjective causes of loneliness among young adults (18–24 years old), particularly those of lower socio-economic status (SES) who are in employment, renting and living in the most deprived areas, since they are the loneliest in the UK. Utilising a free association technique and thematic analysis, and embedded in a phenomenological framework, the subjective causes of loneliness in a matched sample of 48 young adults in the four most deprived boroughs of London are found to cluster around five themes: The Feeling of Being Disconnected, Contemporary Culture, Pressure, Social Comparison and Transitions Between Life Stages. Disconnection arises from feeling one does not matter, is not understood or is unable to express oneself. Challenges pertaining to social media and materialism in contemporary culture contribute to loneliness as does pressure associated with work, fitting in and social comparison. Social media play a major role in exacerbating these experiences. Finally, transitions between life stages such as breakups, loss of significant others and transitory stages to do with education and employment are felt to cause loneliness. The findings suggest potential avenues for loneliness reduction. Loneliness has become a major contemporary public health concern. Most vulnerable to loneliness are young adults aged 16–24 in the UK and other developed countries .The experience of loneliness has detrimental effects on physical and mental health. Among young adults and adolescents, it is linked with immune deficiency, poor sleep, psychological stress, depression, and anxiety, among other conditions –13. GiveA number of theoretical models may explain the causes of loneliness in youth including the social needs model, the cognitive discrepancy model, the multidimensional theory of loneliness and the evolutionary model. According to the social needs model, the desire for social connection is a basic, universal human need –16. WhenThe multidimensional theory of loneliness distinguishes between ‘social’ and ‘emotional’ loneliness . While sThe way young adults approach social connections may determine the type of loneliness they experience. When the association between age, loneliness, and social engagement among adults of different age groups in the UK is examined young adults are found to value the quantity of relationships while older people value the quality . This suWhile young adults aim to increase their social networks to alleviate social loneliness, they may neglect their emotional needs and, therefore, be at risk of experiencing emotional loneliness. In fact, one study examining developmental trends regarding loneliness found that while emotional loneliness intensified across the adolescent and young adulthood years, social loneliness lessened . Hence, With the increasing use of social media in contemporary culture and focus upon growing one’s virtual friendship network or the number of “friends” or “followers” one may have on social technologies, young adults may be at risk of lacking depth and meaning in the quality of their online friendships and ultimately feeling emotionally lonely.While the aforementioned theories see loneliness as a negative experience, the evolutionary model , which aAnother cause of loneliness among young adults is linked with educational, employment and household transitions. The highest proportion of British young adults who reported feeling “often or always” lonely was found to be among 18- and 21-year-olds who had left home and transitioned into university, and then transitioned into employment . A seconSocial media are also a possible cause of loneliness in young adults, though the evidence concerning the association between its use and loneliness is equivocal. There is continued debate between the displacement and stimulation hypotheses on the association between social media use and loneliness e.g., see , 34: SomSocial comparison on social media, in particular, is one engagement type that has received growing attention in recent years , 44. StuIn addition, lower social-economic status may be a risk factor for loneliness in young adults. Measures of socioeconomic status, such as low family income and low social class based on parental occupation are each related to higher levels of loneliness among adolescents , 51. The1While previous research indicates potential causes and risk factors associated with loneliness in young adults, little is known about how they conceptualise the causes of their loneliness. In light of this gap and the major public health problem that levels of loneliness currently pose especially in young adults, this study sought to better understand young adults’ sense of the cause of their loneliness. In addition to age, lower socioeconomic status, in employment, renting and living in the 50 percent most deprived areas were associated with higher levels of loneliness , it is iThis research is concerned with the study of an individual’s lived experience. This makes it closely aligned to a phenomenological framework , 54. It The following research questions will be addressed:What are the subjective causes of loneliness for young adults in London’s most deprived boroughs?What role do social media play in the subjective cause of loneliness for young adults in London’s most deprived boroughs?Participants were recruited from the London boroughs of Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, and Barking & Dagenham. These boroughs are ranked as the most deprived in London by the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). The total relative measure of deprivation for this index is calculated based on the combination of the following seven domains: income, employment, education, skills and training, health and disability, crime, barriers to housing services and living environment . Since lM = 21.23, SD = 2.43), from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (C2DE)2, in employment (full- or part-time) and renting in the most deprived boroughs of London: Newham (N = 12), Hackney (N = 12), Tower Hamlets (N = 12) and Barking & Dagenham (N = 12) Participants stated that even if they were surrounded by other people such as friends and family, they could still experience loneliness if they felt unable to express themselves, their feelings, or their issues. Other factors that formed part of feeling disconnected included the sense that others did not understand one or what one was going through and being “different” . In particular, being from an LGBT+ background was mentioned more than the other factors pertaining to being different as a cause of loneliness. This was mentioned by both participants who identified themselves as LGBT+ and those who knew someone from this background. This was accompanied by a fear of judgement, rejection, and isolation.Feeling I don’t matter. The feeling of not mattering was another cause of loneliness. This was spoken about mainly in terms of not having anyone to turn to or talk to, not being heard, or listened to, not cared for and not supported. Not mattering occurred in numerous contexts such as when family or friends were not there for one, living alone and having no one to talk to, and needing support about education and career and not receiving it. For example, a female participant expresses not speaking with anyone makes her feel uncared for and lonely:b) “…I put myself in- I’d put myself in like this situation. Like I thought about myself in a way. Like… so like… not speaking to someone about like how your life is going and like sometimes it can make you- sometimes it can make you think like does anyone even care about me? Like, do people even think- think of my name anymore? Like… like not talking about your worries or your ambitions can make you feel lonely…” Feeling not understood. The feeling of not being understood was also a common contributor to loneliness. In particular, participants spoke of the feeling that others do not understand what one is going through, what one is trying to achieve or why one is doing certain things. They also felt that they were the only ones going through a situation, particularly a difficult one and others did not understand their experience. For example, a female participant expresses going through a challenging time and feeling others around her are not going to relate to it:c) “…what I’m going through is so extreme and it’s only me in this, and people around me are not even going to get it, so I’m just gonna like be consumed by what I’m going through, not reach out’ and that leads to me just feeling even more lonely, lonelier than I did before, yeah.”Feeling misunderstood was further accompanied by sadness and depression, rumination, and negative thinking such as “maybe, I am the problem.” Additionally, participants felt that others could not relate to them due to their sexuality, physical appearance, anxiety and differences in views and upbringing. Some also said that when they felt not understood they removed themselves either physically or emotionally.The theme of being disconnected is symbolised as being in a sea with no one:“Say you got lost at sea, with you and a- a life raft, and you’re on sea for three months, you’d be very lonely because you’ve got no one. You’ve got no one to talk to for them three months, it’s just you and nothingness. So maybe… I associate sea with loneliness because that’s what the sea is. The sea is probably the most loneliest place in the world.” Issues to do with contemporary culture were another cause of loneliness in over half of the sample. Such issues pertained to social media, distancing from one’s true sense of self, and lack of face-to-face communication and care. Other concerns included competition and obsession with material gains in contemporary times. These are further elaborated below.Social media as fake portrayals of reality. Social media were felt to portray reality in a ‘fake’ way and contributed to young adults’ sense of loneliness. Participants said what they see on social media posted by others are only what people want them to see. For example, seeing others on social media going on holidays, having money, buying luxury goods, and portraying a successful life were all just for “show” and did not give the “real story”. People might actually be lonely but portray the opposite on social media. There were mentions of phrases such as “it is fake”, “seeing the highlights and that is what fools you”, “you don’t get to see their true emotions”, and “so distant from reality”. In particular, a number of young adults also expressed that they, along with others, would never post their sad or lonely moments on social media. Everyone would share “happy pictures”, specifically those that show their “best selves”. Consequently, a significant portion of young adults felt that sometimes seeing photos and videos of others on social media even though they were fake portrayals of reality brought about feelings of loneliness, sadness, envy, jealousy, or self-doubt:a) “…when you go on Instagram and stuff like that, there can be a lot of like fake portrayals of reality and that can kind of distort the way you see yourself, your goal and things like that.”Changing one’s identity/not being true to oneself. Similarly, changing one’s identity or not being true to oneself was another cause of loneliness. Participants were under a lot of pressure to act or behave in a certain way or be somebody that they were not just so that they could be accepted or felt a sense of belonging, however, this conformity distanced them from their true identities and led to feeling lonely. Participants were also inclined to dissociate from their true selves due to the fear of being judged or rejected. Overall, social media played a role in creating an environment where young adults felt pressured to build an online persona that was not true to who they were on a day-to-day basis just so that they could fit in and be accepted. This experience contributed to feelings of loneliness. A young male participant expresses the notion that not being oneself results in loneliness:b) “…When I’m around people, I have to be what people want to see which as I said conveys the, conveys a person that’s not me, so in retrospect, if it’s not me, I’m not getting those type of chemicals in my brain or those type of interactions that my character should be getting, I said that in a third person but it’s like, it’s just lonely because, you’re not, it’s not you, you’re not you when you’re out doing stuff, you’re what people wanna see…”. Lack of face-to-face social interaction and care from people. A lack of face-to-face communication and empathy from people in contemporary times was also felt to contribute to loneliness. Participants lamented that everyone in today’s era or in London specifically is busy working and living the high pace life of the city. Some said everyone is only looking out for themselves, focusing on achieving more, chasing after money, and competing with one another. As a result, there is no sense of community, sharing or trust. People have little time or empathy for others. One of the ways that these are manifest is that people have little time to have genuine interactions with strangers, check up on or greet one another with a basic “hello”, “how are you?”, “good morning” or even smile at others in public. In particular, trains and public transport were places where young adults felt most lonely because despite being surrounded by many people, little interaction or eye contact takes place. Commuters are busy using their phones instead of talking to others who are physically around them. A male participant expressed his experience of this notion through the following quote:c) “… if you do live in London, you have a lot to deal with on a daily basis regardless of if you’re having a quiet day, this couldn’t be a lot of what’s happened. And so, we’re all caught up in our lives enough that we that becomes difficult to become even empathetic to people and so you do get a lot of time when you look around a train and [see an] empty face looking at you not even with any judgement or anything like that, that sort of thing adds to the whole the coldness of loneliness, I guess in that sense.” Finally, contemporary culture as a theme is symbolised as a rat race:“…that’s what the world is, it’s the rat race. Chasing money, chasing- chasing this world. The rat race. Put rats in a race to, you know, get the cheese. They dodge- forever try to chase the cheese, you know, and once the cheese finishes, they need to go get more. They’re- they’re just stuck in a race. It’s never ended, is it?” Pressure was another major cause of loneliness. Young adults either directly expressed their sense of pressure or indirectly indicated they were suffering from it. In particular, the pressure to fit in or be accepted and pressure regarding one’s working life contributed to loneliness. Social media magnified young adults’ experience of pressure.The pressure to fit in or be accepted. The pressure associated with fitting in or being accepted was the most common of pressures experienced. The main contributor was the fear of being judged, excluded, rejected, isolated or left out by friends, social groups or society at large. Hence, young adults would change the way they acted, talked, and dressed even if they did not want to, just so that they could feel they belonged or were accepted. Some further explicitly expressed a sense of unhappiness as a result of having to alter themselves in order to fit in:a) “It almost makes me feel like I was faking everything. Like I was living this fake life. You know, I wasn’t really myself because myself is very different to what I was portraying. I used- it’s like- it made me very sad, the fact that, you know, I have to portray this- someone else just so- so that I can fit in with the society like… you know, I used to- almost like I- yeah, I’m living but it- I’m not living my life. I’m living someone else’s life. And that if not often times would result in like extreme depression…” Young adults also voiced their concern for the pressure of expectations in regard to what they were supposed to be and how they were expected to act, dress, and look in order to be accepted. For example, one participant, in particular, said one “can’t laugh wrong, smile wrong”. Similarly, they felt pressured to appear good looking both offline and on social media in order present an accepted image. Some of the participants compared their physical appearance to friends or celebrities on social media and as a result either questioned their worth or felt insecure about how they looked. The pressure concerning physical appearance was accompanied by that for material gains in order to fit in. Participants stated that today’s young adults are mainly concerned with buying material goods, mainly cars, shoes, sunglasses, and travel. Again, participants felt that social media amplified this experience because it prescribes, by way of its imagery, how to dress and what to own. There was also the pressure to keep up a façade that one is happy on social media when in reality one is not. There were mentions of either the participants themselves or somebody else who is sad in reality, but their social media profiles show them as “happy”, “on a beach” or portray their “best selves”. Additionally, there was pressure to be popular on social media because it was considered a popularity contest since it is perceived to be about who has more ‘followers’ and ‘likes’. However, participants viewed this negatively since large follower numbers did not mean one was cared for or actually liked.Pressure related to working, career, and money. The pressure associated with working was another highly common experience that led many participants to feel lonely. In particular, they felt the pressure of working too much and this left them with little time for social activities, which they were not happy about:b) “I would rather be doing what I want to be doing, so I have more free time to see the people that I want and enjoy my life a bit, but when you’re just constantly in work, it’s like, it just feels like a routine control system and, you know, even not, hardly seeing family, as well, can lead you to being quite, like if you’re always working, leads you to feeling quite lonely…” There were also mentions of the pressure to have a good job in London and to perform well in one’s role as well as to strive for achievements and success. Furthermore, the pressure of working was sometimes associated with a negative view of doing the same routine work and accompanied by worrying about money: whether one has money to eat, pay rent and meet with friends out and sometimes the lack of money was mentioned as a barrier to socially connect with others. Finally, “London” was viewed as a pressurised space and “today’s society” as a pressurised era due to its constant working lifestyle.Finally, pressure as a theme is captured symbolically by a male participant who felt the heaviness of having to conform to society’s expectations:“… because he’s constrained himself just being, ‘oh, I’m just a fish’, he’s just gonna be a fish. But then you know, why can’t it be a flamboyant fish with legs and just walk out of that tank or just walk about that tank in a different way?” Almost half of the sample, and more so for females than males, saw social comparison as a cause of loneliness. Comparisons were made on a range of matters from achievements to physical appearance and friendships. There was also a sense of comparison in terms of feeling behind or not changing while everyone else is improving themselves. Such comparisons accompanied a range of negative feelings such as jealousy. Finally, social media magnified young adults’ sense of social comparison.General social comparison. Participants, particularly females, socially compared themselves with others in terms of a range of factors including physical appearance, jobs, salaries, family dynamics, being in a romantic relationship or married, knowledge, friendships, happiness, travel, and material possessions both offline and on social media. They also compared their own experience of being at home alone while seeing photos of friends out having fun on social media. Overall, these comparisons led participants to experience a range of negative emotions such as loneliness, jealousy, sadness, doubt about themselves, disappointment, low self-worth, and distortion in the way they saw themselves and their goals. For example, a female participant describes her experience of seeing others having a social life at work on social media whilst she felt she did not have one:a) “…I used to see on their social media they were having a laugh, they used to get pizzas for lunchtime, and just little stuff like that, I felt as if why couldn’t I fit in like that, why do I feel like an outsider, what’s different between me and them…?” Although these comparison tendencies were evident among the sample, they were more common across females from BAME backgrounds or females identified as having no religion.Feeling stuck or behind while everyone else is progressing. Feeling trapped while everyone else is improving is also a cause of loneliness. Everyone is seen to be “progressing”, “growing”, “changing”, “succeeding”, “reaching their goals” and “improving” themselves while participants felt “stuck”, “behind” or “not doing enough”. In particular, there were mentions of everyone going to college, getting a job, marrying, buying a car, travelling and participants felt they were not achieving any of those. As a result, they expressed feelings of sadness, resentment, low self-worth, and inadequacy:b) “It makes me feel upset because I feel like I haven’t changed like everyone around me is changing, moving away to better themselves and I feel like I’m still stuck in the same place that I haven’t changed, and then maybe it’s me that’s like the problem…” Finally, social comparison is symbolised as being in darkness while friends are under the sunlight:“So, I’m the one alone, there are two people on the right-hand side, they are basically my mate and his wife and the sun at the top is shining at them. So, I’m more towards the dark side, where I haven’t improved my life, I haven’t gone through what the phases that they have gone through. I haven’t succeeded the way they have succeeded. So, the sun shining at them because they have the flashy cars, they got the designer goods, they are married, they been travelling abroad, they been to a lot of places…” Nearly half of the participants also considered changes in life events such as relationship breakups or losses and transitionary periods such as moving from school to university or from university to working to be a cause of loneliness.Relationship breakups and losses. Participants said romantic relationship breakups are a lonely experience because having got used to their partner and certain routines all of a sudden both disappear. In particular, the aftermath of break ups was mentioned as a lonely period. Hence, it can lead to feeling sad, angry, and depressed. For example, a male participant describes the experience of loneliness after a breakup to be unique due to a complete change in lifestyle:a) “…everybody from all points of life can experience loneliness, but what particularly stands out to me is the type of loneliness one experiences after a breakup, where you go from one extreme to the next, you go from knowing everything about this person to com-, completely not knowing what this person is doing or whatever and then it’s like the whole talking every day, every night, and then not talking at all, it’s just complete cut off, so but that obviously that’s it, that’s an experience of loneliness, in my opinion…” Participants also mentioned a number of ways one can overcome breakup loneliness such as going into another relationship, having a support system of friends, going out on weekends to distract oneself and doing something new. In addition to romantic relationship breakups, there were references to friendship and family losses, which made participants feel lonely. These losses included someone close dying and moving away.Transitionary periods. Transitionary periods such as moving from secondary school to university and from university to the workforce were another cause of loneliness. Young adults said they felt lonely during their transitions because the environment and responsibilities different drastically from what they were used to. For example, one goes from being used to attending lectures, making friends, and having the freedom to control one’s day as a student to working from 9am-5pm with little flexibility. There was also mention of the shift in terms of working with people who are much older, hold different ranks and have been in the company significantly longer than oneself. Similarly, with regards to the transition from secondary school to university, participants said the new lifestyle and fresh set of responsibilities such as cooking, cleaning, budgeting, making friends and working part-time were overwhelming. In both contexts, participants said they felt lonely during the transition because they had no one to talk to or found it difficult to communicate with others while they saw that everyone was settled in, knew what they were doing and had friendship groups. They also mentioned that no one had told them about these transitions, the challenges associated with them and how they should prepare themselves:b) “it’s entering a new place, for example, going to university or work I felt the most lonely. It’s all about that transition phase, no one really talks about that big jump, when you go from university to work, when you go from college to university, it’s like a completely different jump. It’s a completely different level of work. Nobody talks to you about that transition, how you are going to fit in etc, and I felt really lonely because obviously I had to make completely new friends …” The consequences of romantic relationship breakups are symbolised as being more harmful than being single and lonely without a partner:“[Break ups] can make that lonely more worse. Yeah, it’s like the opening from an old wound, it is gonna just unleash more bad stuff or negative stuff in that person’s life.” The present study aimed to explore the subjective causes of loneliness and the role played by social media in causing or mitigating loneliness among young adults from London’s most deprived boroughs. The findings revealed that participants often feel they do not matter, are not understood or are unable to express themselves to others because they fear people will judge them negatively. They are also under considerable pressure to be accepted and social media play a large role in pushing them in the direction of focusing on increasing their social networks and how they appear to others in order to fit in. However, this is not felt to bring them wellbeing. Therefore, this study casts light on the equivocal findings on the impact of social media on loneliness in the literature and provides a triangulation of the quantitative studies. Since they can view other young adults’ profiles and are exposed to their “highlights”, even though they see social media as ‘fake’ representations of reality, young adults tend to compare themselves with these ‘fake’ representations and are prone to feel a sense of deficit. Consequently, they feel pressured to keep up, and as a result, present a version of themselves on social media that is not reflective of who they truly feel themselves to be or how they feel in order to be included and accepted by others.This suggests that there is a strong emphasis on appearance, neglecting what lies beyond the surface—an authentic sense of self. Hence, while increasing one’s social networks may alleviate social loneliness in young adults, it leaves little space for tackling the emotional component of loneliness, which according to Weiss’ theory of multidimensional loneliness is the more intensely painful form because one feels a lack of close and meaningful relationships . TransitResponses were compared across gender, race, and religion. Overall, there was strong homogeneity across the sample, however, young women were more likely to engage in social comparison than young men were. This is in line with existing literature . In parCouched in a phenomenological epistemological framework with an inductive approach, the study used a novel free association technique, which enabled access to the deep-laid thoughts, feeling, emotions and non-conscious links made by young adults regarding their loneliness. As a result, the study was able to provide a rich exploration of the subjectivity of young adults’ loneliness experience and their perspectives on the causes of their loneliness. Phenomenological analysis revealed that young adults share very similar experiences of loneliness and of what causes them to feel lonely. Regarding cause, the sense of emotional isolation, pressure, social comparison and experience of social media provide noted sources of loneliness for many, as do the transitions in education, relationships and employment typical of young adulthood. These corroborate and extend what previous research found , 30.The current finding pertaining to transitory stages was also in line with evolutionary theory  since thThe study’s sample consisted of young adults from deprived areas, hence, the themes that emerged may be specific to them only. Having identified the causes of loneliness in deprived areas, a study investigating a matched sample from wealthier boroughs would further identify the particular causes of loneliness among those from non-deprived backgrounds. Whether they differ is an empirical question. Furthermore, one might want to make this into a mixed-method study where the quantitative aspect would include a sample with sufficient power to reliably identify whether there are differences in the causes of loneliness between those who live in more deprived versus wealthier boroughs.Interventions to tackle loneliness should focus on helping young adults feel heard, listened to, and understood. They should provide opportunities for self-expression without the fear of being judged. At the same time, young adults should be made aware of the negative consequences of social media use for loneliness and mental health, regarding the pressure it can put on them regarding acceptance, physical appearance, and popularity. These messages can be taught in educational institutions or take the form of videos disseminated on social media. These videos might also include suggestions for how to engage with social media platforms in ways that reduce loneliness: active communication by chatting with friends and limiting passive consumption. This is consistent with the stimulation hypothesis, wherein social media are regarded as having the potential to stimulate the quality of existing relationships by extending them to online domains and to generate opportunities to create new friendships, thereby reducing loneliness , 65.Furthermore, social media companies and interventions should encourage more authentic self-expression online since authenticity on social media is associated with greater wellbeing . They shIn addition, given that many people use smartphones and social media as a way to distract themselves when using public transport, mindfulness, a theory-based intervention, may increase their attention to the present moment and foster face-to-face social interactions. Mindfulness has been shown to be a strong predictor of wellbeing , increasFinally, with regards to transitory phases such as starting university or work, educational institutions and professional organisations should find ways to inform upcoming candidates about the potential challenges that they are likely to face when they begin their studies or employment so they can better prepare themselves. Increasing social capital, such as by forming close social relationships, is associated with lower levels of loneliness during the transition into university .Young adults are a particularly lonely demographic in Western countries, yet little is known about the root causes of their loneliness. This study was the first systematic, in-depth analysis of the subjective causes of loneliness in this group. Young adults from London’s most deprived communities often experience a sense of disconnection because they feel they do not matter, are not understood and are unable to express themselves. These feelings may stem from the significant pressure they experience in relation to expectations of contemporary social and working life. Social media increase these pressures because young adults view other people’s profiles and socially compare themselves with them, which often results in negative feelings. Young adulthood is bound to many transitions, which can be challenging. Since loneliness is linked with mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety, understanding the root causes of loneliness in young adults will help intervention designers and policy makers tackle the issue before it progresses into more severe mental health challenges.A complementary study of the same dataset examined the experience of loneliness in young adults .This is a social grade classification in the UK based on occupation representing those lower on social and economic status. It is used by the UK’s Office for National Statistics among other organisations .We eventually excluded the following three criteria from the Office for National Statistics study due to difficulty in recruitment: ‘having little trust or a sense of belonging to one’s neighbourhood’, ‘relationship status’  and ‘living arrangement’ . We also did not recruit participants below the age of 18 due to ethical issues.In this paper, the focus is on free associations and their elaborations. This is the phenomenological aspect of the study.There were two parts to the study and the focus in this paper is on the first part.The calculation was made on the basis of whether participants talked about a particular theme or not. When 30 percent more of a group being compared to another  mentioned a theme, this was regarded as a noteworthy difference. 2 Nov 2021 <div> PONE-D-21-26267 </div>  <div> The causes of loneliness: The perspective of young adults in London’s most deprived areas </div>  <div> PLOS ONEDear Dr. Fardghassemi,Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 17 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at  </div> A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. <div> Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.Kind regards,Johnson Chun-Sing Cheung, D.S.W.Academic EditorPLOS ONEJournal Requirements:When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf2. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: We would like to thank the UCL Grand Challenges Environment and Wellbeing initiative for funding this research.Please note that funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: SFGM156425 Grand ChallengesUCL Grand Challenges Environment and Wellbeing initiative https://www.ucl.ac.uk/grand-challenges/This work was supported by a grant from the UCL Grand Challenges Environment and Wellbeing initiative (156425). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. 3. We note that you have indicated that data from this study are available upon request. PLOS only allows data to be available upon request if there are legal or ethical restrictions on sharing data publicly. For more information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see In your revised cover letter, please address the following prompts:a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail  and who has imposed them . Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent.http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories.b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide.4. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide.plosone@plos.org with a request to remove this option.5. Please note that in order to use the direct billing option the corresponding author must be affiliated with the chosen institute. Please either amend your manuscript to change the affiliation or corresponding author, or email us at 6. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. <font color="black"> Comments to the Author </font> Reviewer #1: I am very thankful to you for allowing me to review the paper. The paper titled "The causes of loneliness: The perspective of young adults in London’s most deprived areas" is very well written paper, but it is qualitative. There is not much use of Statistics in the paper. It would be better to define a technique for sampling. The authors did not mention about the technique to identify the deprived areas of London. There is need to enhance the sample size of the study as well. Qualitatively, authors proved the results with regard to hypothesis.Reviewer #2: The present manuscript aims to explore the subjective causes of loneliness among young adults who live in the most deprived area in London. This is a well-written manuscript and I enjoyed much reading it. Some comments that might further improve are listed below:1. Line 194-195: The first research question is a general one (the subjective causes). The authors added the second question . When this is written as one of the aim, I would expect that the role of social media will be explored via a specific question during the interview. When it was not the case, authors mighty consider to exclude this research question.2. Table 1: For consistency, also add percentage for each boroughs in the 'Total' column3. Line 253 - 265 - Data Analysis: Please elaborate the steps of data analysis being done: how many coders work independently? When was the second coder did the double coded to ensure reliability? Any improvement or changes being done after this comparison? etc4. Line 622-626: It is stated that responses were compared across gender, race and religion. Authors mentioned the females, BAME and no religion more likely to socially compare themselves. However, I could not find description in the Results section  regarding comparison between race and religions, only between gender. Please elaborate.Line 646-647 - Limitation: I would argue that this is not a limitation, since the research question and aim of the present study was to explore loneliness in the young adults from deprived area, no comparison was intended.**********https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool,  17 Dec 2021We believe we have addressed all of the points raised by the editor and reviewers. Please see the attached documents. Many thanks.AttachmentResponse to Reviewers.docxSubmitted filename: Click here for additional data file. 15 Feb 2022The causes of loneliness: The perspective of young adults in London’s most deprived areasPONE-D-21-26267R1Dear Dr. Fardghassemi,We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at onepress@plos.org.If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact Kind regards,Miquel Vall-llosera CampsSenior EditorPLOS ONEReviewers' comments:Reviewer's Responses to Questions <font color="black"> Comments to the Author </font> 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressedReviewer #2: All comments have been addressed********** <font color="black"> 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? </font> The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #2: Yes********** <font color="black"> 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?  </font> Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #2: Yes********** <font color="black"> 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. </font> The Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #2: Yes********** <font color="black"> 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? </font> PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #2: Yes********** <font color="black"> 6. Review Comments to the Author </font> Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. Reviewer #1: Accepted. God Bless you.Hope you will be able to write more such papers........................................................................................................................................................................................Reviewer #2: (No Response)********** <font color="black"> 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. </font> Reviewer #1: NoReviewer #2: No 15 Mar 2022PONE-D-21-26267R1 The causes of loneliness: The perspective of young adults in London’s most deprived areas Dear Dr. Fardghassemi:I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. onepress@plos.org.If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact plosone@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staffon behalf ofDr. Miquel Vall-llosera Camps Staff EditorPLOS ONE


Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, is a neurodegenerative diseasecaused by traumatic brain injury and most frequently associated withcontact sports such as American Football. Perhaps surprisingly, thewoodpecker – an animal apparently immune to the effects of headimpacts – has increasingly figured into debates surrounding CTE. Onthe one hand, the woodpecker is described as being contra-human andused to underscore the radical inappropriateness of humans playingfootball. On the other, there have been attempts to mitigate againstthe risk of CTE through the creation of biomimetic technologiesinspired by woodpeckers. In this article I examine the highlypoliticized encounters between humans and woodpeckers and discuss howthe politics of re-/dis-/en-tanglement during these interspeciesrelations is rendered meaningful. I show here, first, that those whoseek to keep the human and the woodpecker apart envisage socialoverhaul while biomimetic technologies are put to work for the statusquo. Second, I stress that different forms of entanglement havediverse sociopolitical consequences. I conclude by suggesting that thecase of the woodpecker troubles a strand of contemporary scholarshipin Science and Technology Studies that argues that biotechnologies areinherently transformatory and that foregrounding entanglement andinterspecies relations is ethically generative. Instead, a discursiveseparation of nature and culture may be innovative. League of Denial, a book which chroniclesWebster’s life and death, Webster experienced years of physical and mental healthproblems prior to his passing. Webster was divorced, homeless, and sufferedextreme mood swings  and the organism being modeled (the human)and attempt to link them together, and these paired pieces ofinformation are stacked to build the epistemic scaffold togreater heights. : 8A case that Nelson details at length involves the use of mice to model humananxiety disorders. The use of mice in this context is non-obvious (do micesuffer from anxiety? Is that anxiety anything like a human’s?) and thusrequires significant scaffolding. Nelson states that in order to:Nelson pays particular attention to an experimental set-up known as the‘elevated plus maze’. The utility of the maze is premised on twomore-or-less independent arguments that form the base of the scaffold: Anecological argument (that mice will tend to avoid the open arms of the mazebecause they are afraid/anxious about heights) and a pharmacologicalargument (that some delivered drug will increase/decrease anxiety-likebehaviours). Some elements of this scaffold are relatively secure (e.g. thatthe mice will avoid the open arms of the maze when given caffeine), while‘higher’ levels – that this avoidance is somehow akin to human anxiety, isinfluenced by genetics, is altered predictably by various classes of drugs,and so forth – are more precarious. Nelson describes scientists who arecautious in conducting ‘scaffold work’ at greater heights and yet musttraverse these heights in order to demonstrate the utility of their researchto the pressing issue of alleviating anxiety disorders in humans.both epistemological and ethicalpositions. As Nelson’s allusion to building and construction implies,‘scaffolding’ is intended to enable further types of action: They are a‘platform for doing work’. In Nelson’s case, the work being undertaken is,primarily, further laboratory work aimed at producing yet more knowledge. Inthe case of the woodpecker, however, things are more varied. While there iscertainly some laboratory research into woodpeckers and brain injury, thetype of action facilitated through scaffolding is frequently oriented towardmore straightforwardly cultural work: The abandonment of football or,alternatively, the retail of a biomimetic technology that makes the sportsafer and enables its continuation. Thus, the work being scaffolded by thewoodpecker is both overtly epistemic and overtly ethical in its nature inthat it makes claims to knowledge (e.g. the nature of human and woodpeckerbrains) and proposes a normative course of action .In this article, I argue for the utility of understanding woodpeckers as ahighly contested part of an epistemological scaffold for CTE. Unlike Nelson,however, I argue that ethics is also central to this picture: Woodpeckersare used to scaffold transformations: in biotic substance and in economicspeculation and sentiment’ ’, for example, ‘has played a much moresignificant role in the field’s legitimation than any environmental ordesign movement’ : para. 5apriori foreclose the possibility of ethical transformation –both Barad and Fisch, for example, comment on such entanglements.Furthermore, researchers such as Johnson, who are more critical of theethical potential of biomimetic science, do not presuppose that nothingchanges with the introduction of biomimetic technology; there may in fact befairly significant ‘mutations’  and up to 12,000times a day, with deceleration forces of up to 1200 gramswith each impact. That’s the equivalent to striking a wallat 16 miles an hour – face first – each time. : 198Around the same time as Mike Webster’s death in 2002, Ivan Schwab, anophthalmologist based at The University of California at Davis,published an article entitled ‘cure for a headache’ that graced thepages of the almology . As editalmology : 616. InIn both the article and the textbook, Schwab details a number ofevolutionary adaptations which mitigate against the potentiallyproblematic repercussions associated with hitting a wall, face first,12,000 times a day – problems which might include retinal detachment,concussion, headaches and the eyes ‘quite literally popping out of thewoodpecker’s head’ : 843.passes through the right nostril, between the eyes, dividesinto two, arches over the superior portion of the skulland around the occiput [back of the head] passing oneither side of the neck, coming forward through the lowermandible, and uniting into a single tongue in theoropharyngeal cavity … [in order to] create a curioussling-like structure that probably functions as anisometric shock absorber …. :843The woodpecker’s adaptions, suggests Schwab, are numerous and remarkable(pp. 198–199). Amongst others, these adaptations include asubarachnoid space that contains little cerebrospinal fluid and thatallows the brain to be ‘tightly packed’ within the skull and, perhapsmost spectacularly, a tongue thatThese adaptions, and the tongue in particular, are sometimes described asgiving the woodpecker a natural ‘safety belt’ for its brain e.g.: 7.Nature discussing Schwab’s win describesawardees as ‘embarrassed’ discovery of CTE. The film occupies a central place inongoing discourse about CTE: It has prompted articles in TheLancet Neurology  whole, poised indelicate equilibrium’ : 16, 19.ilibrium : 19 whilLeague of Denial – the keystone culturaltext, alongside Concussion, about the discovery ofCTE . Second, and the near centurylong articulation of ‘punch drunk syndrome’ attests to this fact: 10, boxslosh.  noun. The movement ofthe brain in the cerebral spinal fluid of the cranium’. This term‘slosh’, far from being a dictionary definition, was first applied tobrain movement by Smith himself, taking it from NASA’s studies ofrocket propellants :1111.Because of the direct proximity of the omohyoid atop of theIJVs [Internal Jugular Veins], it is intriguing tospeculate that, on contraction of the omohyoid, perhapswith each peck, the IJVs may be partially occluded andintracranial compliance exhausted (p. 745)If the ability to ‘tighten’ the hyoid muscle is thus a point ofsimilarity between woodpeckers and humans, then the fact that thewoodpecker’s tongue and hyoid bone constitute a ‘muscular sling’ – aneffective safety belt – is an obvious point of difference. It is thegoal of the authors to overcome that difference. In other words, the woodpecker’s omohyoid muscle ‘may’ partially obstructthe jugular vein, reducing blood flow from the head, increasing thevolume of blood within the intracranial space, and thus reducing‘slosh’ and subsequent brain trauma. However, whereas Omalu – in boththe laboratory and in Hollywood – uses this physiological differenceto construct an ethico-epistemic scaffold which definitively dividedhumans and woodpeckers, these authors see a possibility for mimicryand entanglement. The stated goal of the research group is toartificially induce physiological changes found in the woodpecker inother species, and they are intent on ‘biology-inspired discovery’: 744 in One of the articles published in 2012 : 745shoThe authors fitted a small number of lab rats with collars while a450-gram brass weight was dropped onto prone animals, half of whom hadbeen fitted with the jugular compression collar. When the rats werekilled a week later and examined for axonal brain injury, the animalswearing collars were found to have significantly fewer amyloidprecursor proteins – implicated in dominant theories of Alzheimer-likedementias : 65 – inBauer Hockey under the name‘Neuroshield’ and then by Q30 Innovations under thename ‘Q-Collar’. This collar would go on to win industry prizes – TheIndustrial Designers Society of America awardedthe Q-Collar a ‘gold’ award in their ‘Sport, leisure and recreation’category, stating: A ‘revolutionary approach to protecting the brain,Q-Collar addresses the problem from the inside out by mimicking thenatural defense used by woodpeckers’ and in time a collar based upon that trialled in the rats would besold, first by peckers’ . The colpeckers’ . TheQ-C The efficacy of the collar would be tested on pigs who, likethe rats, similarly suffered experimentally-induced brain trauma whilefitted with collars and, again like the rats, demonstrated reducedevidence of neuropathological lesions  can becatastrophic. Breecher dogs are inherently exposed to therisk of concussive events and their primary purpose is tohelp soldiers avoid such an event. Preventing or reducingthe likelihood of TBI and associated loss of smell can becritical to the Breecher dog’s mission. : 25Quite differently, patent applications from across the time period  so that itbecomes one with the woodpecker. This erosion of differencefacilitates a process of ‘transposition’ and the ‘back and forthrelationships between different lines of work, different spaces anddifferent species’ bodies’ evident in much animal modelling : 34. By An important consequence follows from this novel articulation of thewoodpecker. The ethico-epistemic project of Omalu et al. – premisedupon the disentanglement and the radical alterity of humans andwoodpeckers – scaffolded a straightforward solution to CTE and thedeath of players like Mike Webster: Stop playing football. Abandonthis cultural practice. The ‘solution’ that Q-Collar offers isevidently quite different: A safer but fundamentally unaltered sport.This is the entire goal of the project. It is the nature-culturehybrid, the entangled biomimetic posthuman, who stands with continuityand the status quo.this precarious. Thisdifference seems to reaffirm a distinction between Nelson’s mice,models primarily intended to scaffold further laboratory work, and thewoodpeckers, intended here to ungird the sale of a sporting good. Asan epistemological foundation, the woodpecker may provide littlesecurity but, culturally, it continues to compel action. The makers ofthe Q-Collar have, after all, already taken the technology tomarket.This rearticulation of the woodpecker as an epistemological support forthe Q-Collar requires a lot of scaffolding. At a minimum, fourmore-or-less independent scaffolds are essential: (i) The ‘sloshtheory’ of concussion that suggests that it is movement within theskull that results in brain damage; (ii) The ‘de-sloshed’ woodpeckerthat suggests that woodpeckers don’t get headaches because theirspecific nature (e.g. their seat-belt tongue) ensures that their braindoes not slosh; (iii) The symmetry of local natures which suggeststhat the a woodpecker pecking on a tree and a football player beinghit on the field are equivalent in a meaningful way; (iv) The ‘mimicryargument’ which suggests that the collar successfully facilitated thetransposition of the woodpecker physiology into the human. This is,undeniably, a very shaky scaffold. While BritishJournal of Sports Medicine, the short article is awithering attack on ‘the woodpecker model of traumatic brain injury’ and outputs  showsthat, through the woodpecker, a menagerie of humans, rats, pigs, sheep andbomb-sniffing dogs have been diversely enrolled in projects that have,first, radically challenged the safety of football and, second, led to thedevelopment of the ‘Q-Collar’, a biomimetic technology intended to wardagainst neurodegenerative disease. I conclude by briefly thinking acrossthese projects and reflecting on the ethical importance of these diverseethico-epistemic scaffolds.The Columbus Dispatch(The Columbus Dispatch,I know that when Julien [Bailes] talks about this project, his goalis to save football. He loves football. He played football, hiskids played football, he wants to save football. Greg [Myers] isa huge football fan, highly involved with the [Cincinnati]Bengals, and wants to save football. So, everybody on this teamlikes the impact of what this might mean for sports, for keepingyouth active, and for protecting the brain. It’s actually veryhard for me to watch football, to watch hockey, and not see adevice on the neck …. (In a video produced by local newspaper Dispatch andentisave football.The keywords here, I think, are not only the reoccurring ‘save’ but also the‘keep’ and the ‘protect’. A human successfully rendered woodpecker viabiomimetic technology is quite explicitly put to work for the status quo: toWhat Comes AfterEntanglement?. A good deal of scholarship has answeredGiraud’s question by equating the development of exotic technologies thatpurport to entangle nature and culture with the production of new socialworlds (see: Recently, lds see: . This sclds see: :369, polds see: : 133, nalds see: .viz, an American society in whichfootball is banned or altered significantly.Here the conclusion reached is quite different: What comes after entanglementis continuity. Rendering a human-woodpecker through biomimetic interventionand nature-cultural entanglement undercuts the moral authority of nature todemand change. By altering the ‘specific nature’  of the hI am not alone in reaching this conclusion in the context of biomimicry: To reach this conclusion that biomimicry can work to re-produce existing socialworlds rather than create new ones does not necessitate ‘buy[ing] into asimplistic nature/culture dualism’ : 43, norForegrounding the specificity of particular entanglements when consideringtheir ethico-epistemic potential leads to a second conclusion: The ethics ofdiverse entanglements are both rarely equal and highly differential in theirconsequences. This conclusion is obscured by a singular focus on a‘human-woodpecker hybrid’. The dominant hybrid across outputs from Q30 isthat of a human rendered woodpecker and able to carry on playing football –but this hybrid is far from the only option offered. As


Sleep is a complex process, sensitive to aging, with theoretical and evidentiary basis for influence on multiple health outcomes. Recent scholarship has argued for a ‘multi-dimensional’ approach to sleep health, that is, a recognition that healthy sleep consists of more than its quantity (duration) and is more than the absence of sleep disorders. This new conception of sleep health acknowledges sleep’s complexity yet presents challenges for methodological treatment. How do we operationalize/analyze multiple dimensions of sleep, some of which are correlated due to physiological reasons, common measurement tools, or sensitivity to common stressors? Is it sensible to talk about ‘sleep health’ as a single, composite entity with multiple components, akin to a dietary pattern rather than a collection of individual nutrients? Exemplar data from a racial-ethnic disparities project in aging adults suggest the utility of a composite approach, and the value of considering inter-correlations among sleep metrics.


The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues to spread globally. While social distancing has attracted attention as a measure to prevent the spread of infection, some occupations find it difficult to implement. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between work characteristics and social distancing using data available on O*NET, an occupational information site. A total of eight factors were extracted by performing an exploratory factor analysis: work conditions, supervisory work, information processing, response to aggression, specialization, autonomy, interaction outside the organization, and interdependence. A multiple regression analysis showed that interdependence, response to aggression, and interaction outside the organization, which are categorized as ”social characteristics,” and information processing and specialization, which are categorized as “knowledge characteristics,” were associated with physical proximity. Furthermore, we added customer, which represents contact with the customer, and remote working, which represents a small amount of outdoor activity, to our multiple regression model, and confirmed that they increased the explanatory power of the model. This suggests that those who work under interdependence, face aggression, and engage in outside activities, and/or have frequent contact with customers, little interaction outside the organization, and little information processing will have the most difficulty in maintaining social distancing. The coronavirus disease COVID-19) continues to spread steadily. At the time of writing, on 7 April, 2021, there are 132,423,013 infected people worldwide 9 continu,6, but tTherefore, the purpose of this study is to find the work characteristics that influence social distancing  using data available on O*NET, an occupational information site.Research to clarify the relationship between work characteristics and social distancing has been gathering pace ,4,5,6. AThe Remote Working Index also creates variables based on the assumption that the 17 items related to outdoor work, etc., recorded on O*NET, influence the executability of remote work. If any of the conditions in the survey responses are true for an occupation, it is coded as an occupation that cannot be performed at home. The feasibility of working at home for all occupations is classified, and it has been found that 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home. In addition, it has also been found that jobs that can be done at home typically pay more, and lower income economies have a lower share of jobs that can be done at home .However, as both indices were constructed not by the psychometrics method but by the authors’ criteria, there may be a shortage of items included in a variable or an overload of items in a variable that should be divided into different ones. For example, regarding the concern on the shortage, previous studies on the conductibility of remote working were based on the assumption that many information-handling or technologically specialized jobs are less required to be done at a particular place than object-handling or multi-tasking jobs, e.g., ,7. HowevTherefore, in this study, to eliminate arbitrariness as much as possible, some factors common to various occupations were extracted by performing an exploratory factor analysis. We showed factors that determine physical proximity by performing a multiple regression analysis using the constructed independent variables. At the same time, we analyzed teamwork, customer, and presence from Koren and Pető , and remAccording to Morgeson and Humphrey , there aHypothesis 1 (H1).Interdependence and social support (or another relationship-related interaction which needs proximity to others such as responding to aggression) of social characteristics are positively related to physical proximity.Conversely, knowledge characteristics , and some social characteristics  are in many cases considered to be aspects of jobs that do not require physical contact with people, e.g., ,7. For eHypothesis 2 (H2).Information processing and specialization of knowledge characteristics are negatively related to physical proximity. Interaction outside the organization (H2c) of social characteristics is negatively related to physical proximity.We did not hypothesize for the remaining task , and contextual characteristics  because they appear neutral to physical proximity. For instance, it is indicated that manufacturers who work autonomously tend to achieve high performance only if their interdependency level is low . In contWe conducted an explanatory factor analysis to extract the factors of work characteristics. Then, we conducted a multiple regression analysis to identify the work characteristics that determine physical proximity. For that purpose, we discuss the source and nature of data in this section.https://www.onetonline.org/, accessed on 8 August 2020, leased in May 2020. The accessed data were Work Context: https://www.onetonline.org/find/descriptor/browse/Work_Context/, accessed on 8 August 2020 and Work Activities: https://www.onetonline.org/find/descriptor/browse/Work_Activities/, accessed on 8 August 2020), a program sponsored by the US Department of Labor to investigate the association between work characteristics and physical proximity. The first survey is called the Work Context Questionnaire and includes questions about the “physical and social factors that influence the nature of work” such as interpersonal relationships, physical work conditions, and structural job characteristics. The second survey is called the Generalized Work Activities Questionnaire and includes questions about the “general types of job behaviors occurring on multiple jobs” such as the input of information, interaction with others, mental processes, and work output. We used all 98 items recorded under these questionnaires. Importance and level are recorded under Work Activities, but in this study, importance was used according to previous research for optimum clarity. All items take a number from 0 to 100, indicating frequency and importance.We used the responses to two surveys classified by 968 occupations included in release 24.3 of the database administered by O*NET ,” “I work with others but not closely ,” “Slightly close ,” “Moderately close (at arm’s length),” and “Very close (nearly touching)” for the question “To what extent does this job require the worker to perform job tasks in close physical proximity to other people?” It was assigned a value from 0 to 100 when totaling. Details of other questions and options are available on O*NET; therefore, they are omitted in this paper. However, to give an example, “Work Context—Very Hot or Cold Temperatures,” is “How often does this job require working in very hot (>90 °F) or very cold (<32 °F) temperatures?” The options are “Never,” “Once a year or more but not every month,” “Once a month or more but not every week,” “Once a week or more but not every day,” and “Every day,” with 0, 25, 50, 75, and 100 points assigned to each, to calculate the average value for each occupation. We performed an exploratory factor analysis to extract items to construct variables for the regression analysis. The criterion for factor extraction was an eigenvalue of 1 or more, and the factor load was calculated after performing varimax rotation using the main factor method. After that, items with a factor load of less than 0.4 and of 0.4 or higher on a plurality of factors were excluded, and factor analysis was performed again using the same criteria. This process was repeated until there were no items whose factor loads were less than 0.4 and 0.4 or higher on plural factors. Here, we followed the idea of Stevens , who sugAs a result of repeating the factor analysis six times using the above method, as shown in Physical proximity was not included in any of these variables because it loaded on multiple factors in the first factor analysis. As indicated by the symbol (R) at the end of the sentence, four work conditions overlapped with remote working from Dingel and Neiman , and as p < 0.01), response to aggression , and work conditions  were positively correlated, while information processing , interaction outside the organization , and autonomy  were negatively correlated with physical proximity. However, specialization , where a negative correlation was expected, and supervisory work  were not correlated with physical proximity at the 5% level. Among them, values exceeding 0.1, which is the standard value for “small” by Cohen [p < 0.01), response to aggression , and autonomy . Of these, only interdependence and response to aggression exceeded the standard value of 0.3 for “medium” by Cohen [Looking at the magnitude of the correlation coefficient, all except supervisory work and specialization showed a statistically significant correlation with physical proximity at the 5% level. Interdependence  and presence  exceeded 0.1, with only customer exceeding 0.3. Dingel and Neiman’s remote working [p < 0.01) also exceeded 0.3. However, the coefficient of Koren and Pető’s teamwork [p < 0.01) was below 0.1. This is probably because, as described at the beginning, items that represent interdependence and those that represent supervisory work are mixed in the variable.Moreover, as shown in  working  (r = −0.teamwork  (r = 0.1p < 0.01) and response to aggression  were positively related to physical proximity, supporting H1, and information processing , specialization , and interaction outside the organization  were negatively related to physical proximity, supporting H2. Among them, specialization was not significantly correlated with physical proximity by simple correlation, but negatively related to physical proximity at a significant level by multiple regression after controlling the effects of other variables. On the other hand, work conditions and autonomy were positively and negatively correlated with physical proximity in simple correlation, respectively, but did not significantly relate to physical proximity in multiple regression after controlling the effects of other variables. Supervisory work was not significantly related to physical proximity in either simple correlation or multiple regression. These three variables are therefore omitted from The first column of p < 0.01) and presence  were positively related to physical proximity, the same as in simple correlation, but teamwork  was negatively related to physical proximity. It is theoretically difficult to think that teamwork is negatively related to physical proximity, so it can be interpreted as a problem of multicollinearity. This indicates that some caution is required when using the three items from Koren and Pető [p < 0.01, R2 = 0.19).The second column, Model 2, shows the results of the multiple regression analysis using three variables from Koren and Pető  by the sand Pető . Therefoand Pető , and theTherefore, in the third column, Model 3, the results of a regression analysis performed on a variable group in which customer and remote working, whose correlation coefficient exceeds 0.3—the “medium” level —are addeThe occupations listed in This study aimed to find variables that correlate with physical proximity via an exploratory method. The factors extracted by performing an exploratory factor analysis were work conditions, supervisory work, information processing, response to aggression, specialization, autonomy, interaction outside the organization, and interdependence. The results of the multiple regression analysis support the hypotheses that social characteristics  and knowledge characteristics  are associated with physical proximity. Further, we added customer , which rIn the model presented herein, interdependence, response to aggression, and customer showed a positive correlation, while information processing, interaction outside the organization, and remote working showed a negative correlation with physical proximity. Among them, interdependence was associated with physical proximity because face-to-face communication is required in many situations even today despite the advancement of information and communication technology. This result is reasonable considering what is happening every day in the business field. For instance, who takes the initiative depends on the tasks that change daily; and therefore, when someone performs many tasks, adjustments are frequently made to reduce the number of tasks. Likewise, response to aggression was correlated with physical proximity because collaboration with a person who has poor emotional control is likely to induce an unexpected situation, so it is considered necessary to have such people nearby and to support them mentally cooperating with others around them. Previous studies have shown that maintaining physical proximity with students, for example, is necessary for teachers to turn their negative consciousness into a positive one . A similAmong the variables we used, supervisory work had the weakest correlation. However, this is not unreasonable once we imagine that supervisory work can be demonstrated over long distances depending on the content. For instance, a study showed that virtual is more effective than face-to-face for some kinds of supervisory work . In the This study showed that multiple work characteristics correlate with physical proximity. In other words, it becomes more difficult to execute social distancing when a plurality of work characteristics overlaps. A single variable may not have the decisive power to impede/facilitate social distancing. For example, interdependence and response to aggression have a high correlation with physical proximity by itself, but that does not mean that they always require physical proximity. Indeed, it has been shown that by making good use of teleworking, it is possible to strengthen positive relationships and limit negative relationships more than within traditional workplaces . That isOur study has three theoretical implications. First, using the results of the factor analysis, we were able to show a model for predicting social distancing . Our model is composed of independent variables, including social characteristics such as interdependence, response to aggression, and interaction outside the organization, and knowledge characteristics such as information processing and specialization. Second, the study has shown that this model is statistically significant without major changes, even when the variables shown in the previous studies, customer and remote working, were added to the independent variables. This indicates the robustness of our model. Third, our model required some modifications to variables that were previously thought to be related to social distancing. For instance, the current research shows that interdependence hinders social distancing, but supervisory work does not, although previous research did not distinguish between them.First, this paper exploratively extracted the factors that are variables used in the regression analysis, using the average values by occupation from the attitude survey data recorded on the US occupational information site O*NET. Therefore, if the primary data before being aggregated by occupation can be obtained, and the results of this study can be verified, its significance will be immense. Second, physical proximity, used as the dependent variable in the analysis, is a variable based on the questionnaire survey results and may differ from the actual proximity. Therefore, it is also important to verify the analytical model of this study after measuring the actual proximity using GPS location information, etc. Third, we used the term “social distancing” for the model predicting social proximity. Jobs with physical proximity at present may not always be the ones that are difficult with regard to social distancing. In the future, the relationship between physical proximity and social distance should also be examined in a more detailed analysis.An analysis using the original data of O*NET and research to clarify the relationship between work characteristics and more objective data will be of great significance in the verification and development of the current research.COVID-19 is still raging; hence, social distancing has attracted attention as a measure to prevent the spread of infection. However, some occupations find implementation problematic. Therefore, in previous studies, the scale of factors determining social distancing has been developed. Referring to these achievements, this study extracted eight factors by performing an exploratory factor analysis: work conditions, supervisory work, information processing, response to aggression, specialization, autonomy, interaction outside the organization, and interdependence. Of these, interdependence, response to aggression, and interaction outside the organization, which were categorized as social characteristics, and information processing and specialization, which were categorized as knowledge characteristics, correlated with physical proximity, thus, supporting the hypotheses. Further, we added customer, which represents contact with the customer, and remote working, which represents a small amount of outdoor activity, to our multiple regression model and confirmed that they increased the explanatory power of the model, suggesting that this mixed model can be used with higher accuracy when predicting the feasibility of social distancing in the workplace. This study indicates the necessity to focus on various work characteristics to maintain social distancing.


Certainly, this was not a merely conceptual development. In the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Müller-Wille and Rheinberger stress, practices developed “by which the physical relations between organisms, instituted by individual generative acts, were ascertained, either actively by experiment or passively by keeping records” (ibid.). Maupertuis and Buffon, who contributed much to the formation of the concept of reproduction, built their theoretical reflections and speculations on experiments in animal breeding, while Lorenzo Spallanzani inquired into the secrets of animal generation through experiments in artificial insemination.The term “reproduction” emerged in the disputes over epigenesis and preformation in the mid-eighteenth century.In addition, the scientific disputes and inquiries into reproduction were closely entangled with the political, economic and socio-cultural transformations of the period. In particular, the European colonial expansion that led to an unprecedented mobilization of living beings and a respective accumulation of knowledge was a structural condition of the possibility to conceptualize supra-generational reproductive processes. “Enclosing and mobilizing life on a global scale,” which made it possible to study the results of reproductive processes under the condition that living beings were separated from their endemic environments, “moved reproduction into the centre of the life sciences” . He argues that the endless productivity must be inhibited so that specific living entities, or “finite products” (ibid.) can appear. This, according to Schelling, presupposes the existence of two distinct sexes and every new product that results from the unification of the sexes again belongs to one of these. “Throughout the whole of Nature,” Schelling claims, “absolute sexlessness is nowhere demonstrable and an a priori regulative principle requires that sexual difference be taken as point of departure everywhere in organic nature” (ibid.: 36). Through the two sexes, Schelling concludes with respect to the fixity of species, the product “cannot reproduce anything but itself” (ibid.: 46) at a given stage of Nature. This means “it will reproduce itself not only as individual but simultaneously as genus to infinity (growth and procreationMetamorphosis of Plants (1799) was an equally important text that was read and adapted in various ways in the context of Naturphilosophie, developed his understanding of reproduction and sex differences while working in close contact with Schelling. As the contribution of Stefani Engelstein shows, his account of these issues, however, clearly differs from Schelling’s. Certainly, German Naturphilosophie contributed significantly to conceiving reproduction, in particular through shaping notions of sexual differentiation and impacted on the formation of the life sciences at the turn from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century.Against this backdrop, the goal of this topical collection is to shed more light on the history of “reproduction” at the turn from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century by addressing the question of how “reproduction” was conceived and articulated in Naturphilosophie had been regarded – with few exceptionsNaturphilosophie. In a letter to Cuvier from December 1807, Kielmeyer “‘gladly agreed’ with Cuvier, that these investigations of natural knowledge, undertaken primarily by younger persons, have, in Germany, produced more damage than benefits” ,Naturphilosophie as unscientific.14From the mid-nineteenth century to the second half of the twentieth century, s” Reill : 202.12 …” Hegel : 1. His Naturphilosophie” . Probably the opposite also holds, i.e. that through the engagement with the scientific debates of the day, philosophy received specific attention. Certainly, Naturphilosophie, which built on the scientific and philosophical debates on the specificity of the organic world and in particular on Kant’s reflections on teleology, must therefore be understood as an epistemic field that indeed played a “‘strategic role’ for the birth of modern biology”  is based on the critiques of the neo-Kantian bias in the history of science and philosophy that have been formulated since the mid-1970s.Naturphilosophie and the life sciences was certainly Dietrich von Engelhard’s division of Naturphilosophie into “transcendental,” “metaphysical” and “scientificated” Naturphilosophie (1979: 105), to which Timothy Lenoir referred when he distinguished between transcendental Naturphilosophie and speculative and metaphysical conceptions that “removed the boundaries of possible a priori knowledge” . After all, Beiser emphasizes, “there was no clear distinction between philosophy and science in this period and … there was no such thing as a pure empirical science limited to only observation and experiment” (ibid.). In a similar way, Richards has claimed that “historiographic attitudes,” such as that of Lenoir, that “wish to shield the ‘real’ biologists of the period” from the “taint” of natural philosophy have “excised the heart of nineteenth-century biology” (2002: 2f.). He therefore pleas for a “reattachment” of early nineteenth-century biology “to the thought and culture that animated it” (ibid.: 3). This insight is taken up in this topical collection by focusing on conceptualizations of reproduction.The significant role that elling 20 is based” Lenoir : 113. In” Lenoir  and Fred” Lenoir  and 2006Naturphilosophie and Romanticism with the sciences of the day have stressed the relevance of experiments and reflections about technology in order to challenge idealist accounts and in particular the notion of organicism as an organizing intellectual principle. According to Jocelyn Holland, organicism is “perhaps the last of Romanticism’s unchallenged concepts” (2019: 30) that deserves reassessment. By analyzing the role of the lever in Romantic thought and Naturphilosophie, Holland questions the sharp distinction that has been drawn in intellectual history between mechanism and organicism. In fact, she shows that “the lever is deeply ingrained in early Romantic thinking, where its theory serves as a heuristic tool to model relationships between concepts, to describe processes of generation of both the individual and the universe and, more generally, as a way of addressing potential contradictions of philosophical thinking through the logic of sublation embodied by the lever in equilibrium” (ibid.). In a similar vein, Joan Steigerwald argues that “instrumental explorations of organic bodies expanded the domain of organic vitality and its boundary with the inorganic, confusing any clear delineation of the living and the nonliving” (2019: 39).Recent publications on the interrelations of Melusine mythos, implicitly engaged with contemporary debates about reproduction, heredity and new breeding technologies. Their analyses also reveal the central role of speculation, mysticism and literary imagination. The same holds for Stefanie Engelstein’s exploration of Goethe’s and Schelling’s references to mythology, through which both authors articulate their understandings of sexual division as well as distinctions between science and art and for Marcio Suzuki’s analysis of Hegel’s philosophical re-articulation of Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis. Indeed, the contributions of this topical collection show that Naturphilosophie must be understood as a discursive field that has been shaped by heterogeneous but intersecting epistemic strategies geared towards scientific, philosophical, literary, religious and mythological knowledge claims.The contributions in this topical collection by Jocelyn Holland and Christine Lehleiter further explore the boundaries between the organic and the inorganic as well as the significance of experimental aspects of naturphilosophic thinking on reproduction. Holland explores how Johann Wilhelm Ritter’s reflections on rotational movements that borrowed from the alchemical tradition and evoked geological speculations “undermined polarity-based models of reproduction.” Lehleiter, in addition, shows how Goethe, in his adaptation of the Naturphilosophie that can be traced back to Hegel’s criticism is that these diverse perspectives and knowledges have been artificially drawn together through analogical thinking. Analogies, according to Hegel, do not contribute to the discovery of truth. In contrast, he argues that analogies do “not permit an inference to be made” . Far from being results of “neutral” science, these endeavors are heavily charged with and evoke various biopolitical imaginaries and imaginations about what kinship, family and identity mean.It is this amalgamation of different epistemic strategies through which Naturphilosophie is widely dicussed now.With regard to the imaginative aspects of science, interdisciplinary research on the intersections of science, literature and the arts has added important insights to the field of history and philosophy of the life sciences. Although, as Christine Lehleiter has stated, there have been “hesitations and delays in establishing and institutionalizing the field” (2016: 2), inquiries into the interrelations between literature and science have now flourished at least since the 1990s. These do not concern only the transposition of scientific problems and developments into literature or narrative structures that shape scientific texts. In addition, research on “literature and science” has shown how porous the boundaries between the so-called “two cultures” have always been, certainly in the period around 1800. The significance of Goethe’s scientific writings, for example, had certainly been acknowledged for a long time and the idea that his notion of metamorphosis was of utmost theoretical importance for Schelling and subsequent Some of the contributions in this topical collection are part of the field of “literature and science,” others are mainly indebted to the history of philosophy and history of science. Since the contributions all converge with regard to the authors they discuss and with regard to the topics of reproduction and sexual differentiation the collection provides an example of how these different disciplinary approaches can intersect.De-polarizing Reproduction: Two Cases from Naturphilosophie, circa 1800, Jocelyn Holland scrutinizes how the Romantic physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter connected the notion of reproduction to rotational movement. She analyzes how Ritter, who heavily builds on the alchemical tradition for conceiving generative capacities, complicates binary models of sex differences. Nonetheless Ritter, as Holland shows, also integrates contemporary scientific ideas about centrifugal and gravitational forces and introduces the androgyne figure of a “third sex.” Stefani Engelstein also argues that the binary understanding of sexual reproduction that structures Schelling’s philosophy of nature was not the only theoretical option available. In particular, Schelling’s dualistic account clearly differed from Goethe’s more nuanced understanding of sexual reproduction. Engelstein’s analysis focuses on Goethe’s and Schelling’s references to “mythology” through which they negotiate the relation between poetry and science or science and philosophy. Goethe’s attitude towards sexuality, however, is more complex than Schelling’s in so far as sexual reproduction, for Goethe, only emerges at a certain stage of organic development but is not – as for Schelling – a metaphysical condition of organic development. So, while Goethe also conceives of non-sexualized modes of generativity, Schelling introduces a binary model that is at the same time hierarchic, as Engelstein shows in her exploration of Schelling’s theoretical engagement with mythology and his devaluation of the female. Gregory Rupik’s analysis of Goethe’s exposition of plants’ transformations in The Metamorphosis of Plants supports this conclusion. He shows how Goethe departed of from Linnaeus’ and Christian Wolff’s understandings of teleology and introduced an a-teleological understanding of propagation by building on insights that he found in Herder’s philosophy of nature. In particular, Rupik argues that Goethe conceived of nature as “active productivity” and of sexual propagation as not being different in kind from the process of metamorphosis that shapes the plant through each moment of its life. So, despite Goethe’s close collaboration with Schelling and the deep impact that his notion of metamorphosis had on many Naturphilosphs, the way Goethe conceived of procreative and generative processes seems to be much less static. In addition, Christine Lehleiter’s analysis of Goethe’s adaptation of the myth of Melusine – a narrative which centers on the union between a male human and a supra-natural female – reveals that Goethe did not only engage with the contemporary scientific theories and disputes over growth, regeneration and reproduction and the status of sex differences within the realm of the organic. Moreover, Lehleiter analyzes how Goethe evaluated contemporary debates on heredity and breeding. In his alteration of the mythical narrative, Lehleiter argues, Goethe refers to contemporary scientific debates and new developments in animal husbandry. Although Goethe, in his scientific writings, did not consider sexual reproduction as a driver of change or species transformation so that organic variation was clearly defined to the unchangeable boundaries of the species, Lehleiter shows that in his New Melusine, Goethe arrives at different conclusions. The story not only suggests that “novelty beyond variation” is possible, but it can also be understood, as Lehleiter suggests, as an early reflection on biopolitical projects of human breeding. Marcio Suzuki, in his chapter on Reproduction versus Metamorphosis: Hegel and the Evolutionary Thinking of His Time finally reconstructs Hegel’s distinction between Nature and Concept that allows him to distance himself from all those naturalists and philosophers who indeed (like Goethe) took into consideration the idea that species and other organic boundaries might not be fixed but subject to transformation. With reference to Goethe’s concept of metamorphosis Hegel claims that only “the Concept” – and thus not Nature – is capable of developing something new. Suzuki shows how Hegel engages with theories of reproduction from Leibniz and Buffon to Schelling and develops his own theoretical account of sexual reproduction. However, through his re-articulation of metamorphosis or development as a philosophical-conceptual process he introduced a separation between philosophy and science that, in the decades that followed, became extremely powerful.In her contribution Naturphilosophie”, organized by Susanne Lettow and Gregory Rupik, that took place at Freie Universität Berlin on July 6–7, 2018. The workshop and this publication have been funded by the German Research Foundation DFG as part of the research project “Genealogy and Belonging. Reproduction, Descent and Kinship in Post-Kantian Naturphilosophie”. I thank the anonymous reviewers of this project as well as the reviewers who have contributed to this topical collection for their support. Special thanks go to Gregory Rupik for co-editing the topical collection and to Florence Vienne for comments on an early draft of this introduction.The initial idea for this topical collection goes back to the workshop “Conceiving Reproduction. The Impact of German