Crisis of Disconnection

So I've been subscribed to an informational YouTube channel called Kurzgesagt, which means "In A Nutshell" in German. They post relatively short video on a variety of science and social science oriented topics. They've covered a lot of subjects, from black holes and the death of the universe to how the immune system works and how malaria is slowly being eliminated. I recently rewatched their video titled "Addiction", providing a new view on how addiction to drugs, porn, gambling, excessive internet use, etc. works. It starts with an observation that dimorphine, given in hospitals, doesn't create an addiction to the drug, even though its dirty cousin heroin has many addicts worldwide. There were experiments conducted involving heroin and both rats and humans where if around a healthy, social community, the use of the drug was pretty much nonexistent. To quote the video, "It's not the chemicals, it's your cage."

Isolation leads to bonding with anything pleasurable, anything that elicits a feeling of connection. We as social beings need connection, and we haven't been connecting very well, Americans reportedly having less close friends today than in the past. Addicts in general, most commonly drug addicts, are often severely punished and isolated, leaving them hopeless and their addiction as their only friend.

Addiction may be more related to what we surround ourselves with rather than the drug itself. The crisis of disconnection needs a solution.