This is NPR's Life Kit and I'm Andrew Limbaugh.

The pandemic has got us thinking about being alone.

We still can't quite be with each other, like we used to,

which means even more alone time.

And alone time is tricky.

Even researchers who look at this stuff don't have a concrete definition

of what it means to be alone.

It was pretty jarring to me for something that is so much a part of everybody's

everyday existence.

There isn't even like a really agreed upon definition about what solitude means.

That's Dr. Robert Copeland, he's a professor of psychology at Carlton College

who studies solitude.

Sometimes solitude is a moment of peace and quiet.

Other times it manifests as loneliness.

It's like it's the Goldy-Locks high-pops.

There's like, there's some people who have too much, some people connected,

little, you got to find here just, just to write on my own.

So that we used to focus primarily on getting too much time alone and how that's

a problem.

But that you also have to look at the other side.

They could be too little and that that may have negative implications for people as

well.

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