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Loneliness is a hallmark of modern living in an increasingly digitised, disconnected and isolating culture. Even though social networks exist in the virtual space, a sense of connection seems to diminish as we sit in a false sense of connection, while ultimately feeling emotionally, physically, and socially isolated. Within this paradox, one rudimentary act exists as a quiet antidote for disconnection: reading. Books do more than entertain or inform—they provide fellowship. When readers dive into a book, they enter the voices that listen to them back, the stories that resonate with intimate feelings, and the characters that become almost real.
A growing body of psychological research continues to illustrate what readers have long suspected: literature can serve as a social substitute, a symbolic proxy for connection with other human beings. When we read, we are not just reading letters on a page; we enter a social world where we create a relational landscape of imagined persons and connect through narrative engagement. These parasocial relationships do create and evince a type of genuine intimacy and empathy, even if their nature is one-sided, as the lines between isolation and companionship blur.
Understanding Loneliness and the Social Surrogate Hypothesis
Loneliness is an unfulfilled desire for belonging, a basic motivational force for humans like the need for food or safety (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Individuals endure emotional distress, feelings of being unwanted, and greater vulnerability to depression and anxiety when this social need is obstructed (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). Loneliness has been recognised by the World Health Organisation as a significant global public health issue affecting mental and physical health throughout the life span.
The Social Surrogacy Hypothesis (SSH) provides an answer to how people function when social disconnection occurs. Derrick, Gabriel, and Hugenberg (2009) suggest that individuals might satisfy their belongingness needs through symbolic or non-human social targets— social surrogates— that produce a sense of relatedness without being required to offer social reciprocity. Media figures, narratives, and other symbolic experiences can momentarily satisfy the desire for affiliation, functioning as psychological stand-ins for real relationships.
Social surrogates usually take three forms. First, individuals can develop unidirectional connections with personalities through media or storytelling, thought to parallel the degree of intimacy cultivated in face-to-face relationships. This practice is termed parasocial attachment (Cohen, 2004). Second, narrative immersion or transportation has the capacity to engender readers or viewers with narrative plots that simulate features of face-to-face social interaction (Gabriel & Young, 2011).
Lastly, having reminders of other people can enhance social connectedness; having a favourite song or stuffed animal may elicit the presence of others. When individuals experience these replacements, they can have a temporary respite from loneliness and an increased sense of social connectedness. The SSH argues that mediated experiences, including reading, are an adaptive response when socially isolated rather than escapism (Gabriel, 2017).
Read More: Why Rereading Familiar Books Reduces Stress and Restores the Mind
Parasocial Bonds Between Readers and Fictional Characters
One of literature’s most important psychological effects is the emotional connection that readers experience with fictive figures. Parasocial relationships (PSRs) (first discussed in the field of media psychology) refer to the one-sided emotional connection and bond that people develop with media figures or fictive figures (Horton & Wohl, 1956). Reading promotes PSRs that go beyond enjoying a book, as it enacts real-world relationships and fulfils social needs through simulated closeness.
PSRs with fictional characters can exhibit aspects of real relationships: feelings of closeness, familiarity, and empathy (Cohen, 2004). Readers may see characters as confidantes and companions, especially if they socially identify with them. Identification means seeing through the character’s eyes, but the key focal point of PSRs is that emotional connection the reader has with the character, even once the book ends. Both having PSRs with fictional characters and identifying with them provide a type of belonging or social connection (Gabriel & Young, 2011).
A primary mechanism underlying these connections is narrative transportation. It is that feeling when you are “lost in” a book. When one becomes fully transported in a story, they are engaged in emotional simulations of social and empathic understanding within a narrative world (Bal & Veltkamp, 2013). The emotional simulation creates a social experience and may increase cognitive empathy and theory of mind while reducing feelings of social isolation for a time (Kidd & Castano, 2013).
Read More: The Psychology of Our Bonds with Animated Characters
Fiction, Empathy and Emotional Connection
When we read a work of fiction, we are involved in both emotional and cognitive processes that shape how we formulate notions of other people and our own selves. Combined, these processes enhance our capability for empathy, induce a social experience for us, and offer us emotional catharsis together as reading, which is a complicated remedy for loneliness while reading.
1. Emotional Transportation and Empathy
The underlying process linking reading fiction to empathy is emotional transportation, which is a tendency to feel “lost in a book”(Green & Brock, 2000). Emotional transportation occurs when a reader responds emotionally to experiences and events. As if they were experienced by the reader themselves, feeling joy, grief, or fear alongside characters. This type of engagement creates empathic concern and perspective taking (Bal & Veltkamp, 2013). Emotional Transportation is followed later in time by low engagement reading situations, which lead to detachment or self-focus. When readers find themselves in a state of emotional transportation to a narrative or story, fiction serves as a sort of rehearsal activity, allowing readers to engage with some of the complex, mixed emotions and moral dilemmas of life, and to do so in a safe context.
2. Fiction as a Social Simulator
Fiction also functions as a simulation of social life. Readers engage in Theory of Mind making inferences about another person’s cognitive states—by identifying with the characters urban authors create, and understanding the narrative process involves reading and inferring (Oatley & Mar, 2008). In this sense, fiction facilitates a richer experience and enhances the cognitive state of Theory of Mind as readers engage and make meaning of the ambiguous narrative circumstances and psychological underpinnings (Kidd & Castano, 2013). The more we challenge our capacity to make inferences in reading fiction, the more we enhance our social understanding and emotional flexibility in the real world.
Read More: Tips to deal with Loneliness
3. Emotional Assessment and Communication
Beyond its cognitive experiences, fiction is also fulfilling emotionally and socially; stories support social inference by providing social surrogates that create a symbolic social scene that provides a sense of belonging and temporarily alleviates loneliness (Derrick et al., 2009). Readers will often view these social scenes as internal – they will feel as if they are part of the narrative and find some reassurance in the familiar (Gabriel & Young, 2011).
These experiences are encapsulated within the term bibliotherapy; literature that creates an emotional understanding, draws upon catharsis, and contemplation, which are healing experiences (Shechtman, 2009). Most recently, when we have become more isolated, literature creates a companion and reflection of self that recalls comfort and reassurance through correspondence to narrative experiences, triggers to recall the positive, and an opportunity for calm connectedness in uncertainty.
Read More: Catharsis on Paper: Poetry for Processing Emotions
Reading as a Remedy
Reading is not simply an intellectual or scholarly pursuit; it can also serve as a social and therapeutic intervention. Two approaches, bibliotherapy and shared reading, demonstrate. And suggest that reading literature has the potential to decrease emotional distress and instil a sense of belonging.
1. Healing Through Story
Bibliotherapy is defined as the methodical and systematic application of the written word in an effort to enhance emotional regulation and self-understanding psychologically. When bibliotherapy occurs, there are three phases that occur sequentially: identification, catharsis, and insight (Shechtman, 2014).
Through reading, a reader can identify personally with characters that invoke their own life experiences, resulting in both a connection and in development of empathy. The process of readers connecting to the stories permits catharsis to take place. Because they can relieve tension as they distantly process the emotional experiences of the character. Ultimately, insight occurs when readers reflect upon and absorb the text’s coping skills, which shifts the readers’ frame of reference of the narrative to self-regulation and behavioural changes.
Studies have shown that there are psychological benefits associated with bibliotherapy in clinical practice, such as reduced symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress (Gregory et al., 2008); increased self-efficacy and emotional resilience (Billings and Dowrick, 2014); and positive benefits for clients experiencing distress during crisis (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) when access to services was limited (Srivastava and Shukla, 2021). Bibliotherapy is a cost-effective, low-stigma, and flexible tool that supports therapy (Marrs, 1995).
Read More: Self-Regulation Through Reading: Can Books Calm the Anxious Mind?
2. Shared Reading and Collective Connection
Shared reading extends these benefits into a communal setting. Book clubs and reading groups can change solitary reading into a social experience, contributing to belongingness, intellectual stimulation, and emotional support (Longden et al., 2015). Discussing literature in a group context facilitates empathy through shared personal reflections, which often lead to cathartic experiences and shared vulnerability and trust (Dowrick et al., 2012).
For older adults, intergenerational reading programs have been associated with improved cognition and well-being (Billington et al., 2016). Healthcare practitioners involved in reflective reading groups have reported reduced burnout and a strengthened sense of professional identity (Robinson et al., 2020).
3. The Restorative Mechanism
Whether reading alone or together, reading simulates social interaction and provides safe access to engage with an emotional experience. Through narrative immersion, readers can rehearse empathy, rethink personal conflicts, and momentarily feel a sense of companionship even when alone. Hence, literature serves an important function as a symbolic social environment that connects one’s inner emotional and outer social life.
The Limits of Literary Companionship
While literary companionship—through parasocial bonds or bibliotherapy offers significant psychological and social benefits, research identifies several boundaries to its effectiveness. These limits arise from the reader’s engagement level, individual traits, therapeutic conditions, and emotional vulnerabilities (Shechtman, 2009).
1. When Emotional Transportation Fails
The benefits of fiction depend on emotional transportation—the reader’s deep absorption into a narrative (Green & Brock, 2000). When that narrative immersion does not occur, the empathetic or therapeutic value of fiction collapses. Research has shown that low transportation predicts a decline in empathy over time. It can lead to self-focused withdrawal as the reader disengages to protect self-coherence (Bal & Veltkamp, 2013). Strictly cognitive engagement, like analysing a plot or solving a mystery, might sharpen the reader’s analytical reasoning but will not provide the same emotional and social benefits (Mar & Oatley, 2008).
2. Bibliotherapy’s Constraints
Bibliotherapy, though promising, demands cognitive capability, self-discipline, and structured reflection. It is unsuitable for those requiring continuous therapist direction or lacking self-regulation (Shechtman, 2009). Its effectiveness across conditions can be rather variable. It is helpful for depressive symptoms but not as effective for anxiety or habitual behaviours (e.g. addiction) (Gregory et al., 2008). Structured, guided discussion can improve outcomes, and unguided reading may decrease outcomes and reduce bibliotherapy to self-help (Billings & Dowrick, 2014).
Additionally, individual differences—including those with High Openness or baseline empathy. It may create ceiling effects, limiting development, or even cause self-critical awareness (Panero et al., 2016).
3. From Supplementing to Displacing Relationships
When connections from fiction or media take the place of rather than supplement real relationships, social surrogacy becomes maladaptive (Derrick et al., 2009). Extended reliance on fictional companionship can lead to diminished motivations to form real social connections and, as a consequence, emotional isolation (Gabriel & Gardner, 1999). Individuals with anxious attachment styles may be especially vulnerable to intense parasocial attachments. And exhibit considerable emotional disturbance when those attachments are disrupted (Eyal & Cohen, 2006).
Read More: How Does a Child Develop Attachment Style?
4. The Agony of a Parasocial Breakup
Since parasocial bonds of attachment are a psychologically real phenomenon. It cannot be surprising that the collapse of a bond relationship will elicit real grief. The loss of an engaging character, in fact, may trigger emotional responses similar to social grief (Eyal & Cohen, 2006)—feelings of disappointment, sadness, loss or heartbreak. The intensity of the response relates to the level of attachment experienced by the participant. These reactions reflect relationship-loss stages, but highlight the emotional realism we feel toward fictional characters.
5. The Trauma Paradox
For trauma survivors, books and connections to social surrogates can either ease loneliness or intensify it. Trauma survivors with PTSD may feel even more distressed after using social surrogates, as it can heighten their “sense of separation”. For the trauma-exposed individual without PTSD symptoms, story engagement may serve as a suitable means of restoring emotional connection to others and alleviating feelings of social isolation (Derrick et al., 2009). This difference illuminates that social surrogate comfort may vary across readers, while also underscoring the ability to provide comfort. And connection depends on a reader’s readiness and emotion in the moment.
Conclusion
Reading does not erase loneliness; it transforms it. Reading creates a quiet space where imagination fills absence and solitude becomes reflection. Through social surrogacy and parasocial bonds, literature offers emotional continuity in moments of disconnect, enabling readers to feel seen, accompanied, and momentarily understood.
Yet this companionship is not without boundaries. Research shows that the comfort books offer depend on how easily a person becomes emotionally transported. And how well they balance fiction with reality. When reading replaces, rather than enriches, genuine social connection, it risks becoming a fragile substitute. The value of literary companionship, then, lies not in its ability to replace others. But in how it reawakens the capacity to connect—first with ourselves, then with the world beyond the page.
In the end, fiction reminds us that human connection is not limited to presence. It can be imagined, rehearsed, and rediscovered through story. To read is to be alone, but not lonely— to inhabit solitude as a space of meaning rather than absence.
References +
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