ISOLATION

Social isolation is a state of complete or near-complete lack of

contact between an individual and society.

 Social isolation can be an issue for individuals of any age, though symptoms may differ by
age group.
 Social isolation has similar characteristics in both temporary instances and for those with
a historical lifelong isolation cycle
 All types of social isolation can include staying home for lengthy periods of time, having
no communication with family, acquaintances or friends, and/or willfully avoiding any
contact with other humans when those opportunities do arise.
o Social isolation and chronic loneliness place individuals at much greater risk for a
variety of diseases, as well as for premature mortality.
o Loneliness is defined by a person’s perceived level of social isolation and is not
synonymous with chosen solitude.
Effects of loneliness and isolation

Leads to adverse health consequences including

• depression
• poor sleep quality
• impaired executive function
• accelerated cognitive decline
• poor cardiovascular function
• impaired immunity at every stage of life
• doubles the risk of early death
 magnitude of risk presented by social isolation is very similar in
magnitude to that of obesity, smoking, lack of access to care and physical
inactivity
 The American Cancer Society study is the largest to date on all races and
genders
 A 2016 study led by Newcastle University epidemiologist Nicole Valtorta,
PhD, for example, linked loneliness to a 30 percent increase in risk of
stroke or the development of coronary heart disease.
 Valtorta notes that a lonely individual’s higher risk of ill health likely
stems from several combined factors: behavioral, biological and
psychological.
 "Lacking encouragement from family or friends, those who are lonely may
slide into unhealthy habits," Valtorta says. "In addition, loneliness has
been found to raise levels of stress, impede sleep and, in turn, harm the
body.
 PRIVACY
• Privacy not about secrecy, and not about control: it’s about sociability.
• It is a social good which we give to one another, not a social order in which we control
one another.

• In navigating the complex issues of privacy and attempting to reach a desirable balance between the goals
of information sharing and commerce, on the one hand, and protection of personal information, on the
other, the judiciary has sometimes sought guidance from estimates of the valuations that people assign to
their privacy
• On the opposite side of the spectrum, Bloustein (1964) saw privacy as an aspect of “inviolate personality,”
what he defined “the individual’s independence, dignity and integrity; it defines man’s essence as a unique
and self-determining being

• The economics of privacy may be a relatively recent research field (its first scholarly writing dating back
to the late 1970s and early 1980s; see section 4), but economic trade-offs arising from privacy issues are
by no means a novel phenomenon
• With the reduction in the cost of data collection, manipulation, and use, the trade-offs of opposing
economic interests have become more evident.
• On the Internet, the information a user reveals may be used to make the web surfing experience more
pleasant and efficient, but it may also be used to maximize profit through pricediscrimination (tracking a
consumer’s online behavior allows the inference of her preferences and the prediction of her propensity
to purchase a certain product; see Acquisti and Varian, 2005)

Example:
• Notorious for its negative rebound on the company’s reputation was Amazon’s attempt, in
2001, to use customers’ personal information to differentiate its offers, applying
differential prices to different customers for the same product. This attempt, soon
uncovered by users, was harmful for Amazon’s image, and pushed the company to return the
resulting gains back to customers
• This example illustrates a general point: The economics of privacy can highlight the costs
and benefits associated with the changing boundaries between public and private spheres,
and in particular, with the protection and revelation of personal information. Such costs and
benefits can be tangible or intangible: from the immediate gratification one derives from
posting a holiday photo on a social networking site, to the monetary damage one can incur if
their personal information is breached and their identity is compromised by criminals.
• The costs and benefits are experienced not just by the so-called data subject
(the individual the data refers to), but also by the actual or potential data holder.
For instance, a supermarket chain needs to decide how much to invest into
developing customer relationship marketing strategies such as loyalty cards. In
doing so, the chain must consider the benefits—from improved marketing to price
discrimination—they may obtain from such programs, but also the costs they may
suffer if the data gained through the cards is breached, or if customers
perceive the program as intrusive and react negatively to it.
• Furthermore, decisions regarding the usage of personal data simultaneously
comprise benefits and costs. Consider, for instance, the consumer who refuses to
use the grocery loyalty card the supermarket has created. She will reduce the
likelihood of being tracked across purchases.
• This carries direct (if intangible) benefits (for instance, the psychological
satisfaction of not being tracked) as well as indirect ones (for instance, the
decreased probability— and therefore reduced expected costs—that her data
will be exploited for annoying marketing strategies).
 Meaning of kinship:

The relations based on blood or marriage may be close or distant. The bond of blood or
marriage which binds people together in group is called kinship.

Kinship is of two types:

(i) Affinal Kinship, and
(ii) Consanguineous Kinship.

(i) Affinal Kinship:

The bond of marriage is called affinal kinship. When a person marries, he establishes
relationship not only with the girl whom he marries but also with a number of other people in
the girl’s family. Moreover, it is not only the person marrying who gets bound to the family
members of the girl but his family members also get bound to the family members of the girl.
Thus, a host of relations are created as soon as a marriage takes place.
(ii) Consanguineous Kinship:

The bond of blood is called consanguineous kinship. The consanguineous kin are related through
blood whereas the affinal kin are related through marriage. The bond between parents and their
children and that between siblings is consanguineous kinship. Siblings are the children of the same
parents.

Meaning of family

family, sociology of The family is an intimate domestic group made up of people related to
one another by bonds of blood, sexual mating, or legal ties. It has been a very resilient
social unit that has survived and adapted through time.