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Understanding Solitude of Ordinary Life
through a Socio-Environmental Framework

In the recent decade, the number of single-person households continue to rise in the US, UK, and European countries, and this trend is also emerging in Asia. Accessibility to virtual technologies bias us into thinking that modern life is filled with opportunities for social interactions, while in fact time spent in solitude takes up a significant proportion of our everyday lives, particularly for those who live alone.

We are currently recruiting participants for a project funded by the Seedcorn Grant. If you live in a one-person household, aged 18+, and live within a 30-mile radius of Durham city centre, click here to find out more!

A COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING SOLITARY EXPERIENCES OF LIVING-ALONE ADULTS (Funded by Durham University's Seedcorn Grant)

Combining cross-disciplinary perspectives in psychology, anthropology, and sociology, and architecture, I have received the Seedcorn Grant (£7,425) from Durham University to investigate how individual characteristics, their social and physical environment can explain living-alone adults’ daily experiences with solitude.

The project has two aims. The first aim is to conduct a systematic review that aims to analyse different perspectives that provide insights into the question of how social and physical environment create, interact with, or modify solitary experiences of people who live in single-person households. The second aim is to conduct qualitative interviews with living-alone adults (in single-person households) across age groups within a 30-mile radius of Durham City Centre.
 

TEAM MEMBER

Post-graduate RA:

Ellen Taylor-Bower, MPhil

Undergraduate RAs:

Elleanor Allen

Christina Cuming

Liz Heyndrickx

Yuhan Hu

Zige Huang

Katie Yau

Artemis Kwok

Aida Rosnan

Eunice Wu

Mingyao Xiong
 

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