Overcrowding is not just something that happens in distant countries or third world refugee camps. It is a growing problem that is already touching our lives.
A friend of mine recently had dinner with her parents at an upscale restaurant in New York City after returning from a trip to India. "Overcrowding is such a huge problem," she lamented. Her mother replied, "I know! It's becoming impossible to get decent dinner reservations!"
Dinner reservations in Manhattan notwithstanding, overcrowding is impacting our lives in ways we might not realize. The United Nation estimates that half the world population now lives in cities, a number that will grow to two-thirds by 2045. Many states are already struggling with overcrowded conditions in their schools, prisons and hospitals (especially ERs) and the situation is only going to get worse.
Severe overcrowding creates increased competition for limited resources, presents challenges in providing adequate sanitation and health care services, and contributes to elevated crime rates and other social problems. However, even mild overcrowding can have significant psychological implications and one does not have to travel to a refugee camp to experience them.
The Psychological Effects of Overcrowding
As our city population densities continue to increase, more and more of us will become exposed to some of the psychological impacts of overcrowding:
1. Lack of privacy. Most of us are used to having some degree of alone-time and personal space and privacy. Removing such privileges often results in depression and the exacerbation of other psychological symptoms and illness.
2. Strained relationships. Overcrowding has been found to strain both social and familial relationships. This usually affects caretakers and their dependents most significantly.
3. Increased irritability and aggression. Overcrowding and noise are well known to promote restlessness, irritability and heightened aggression, something that is already having detrimental effects in many of our large cities.
4. Subculture of complaints and discontent. An increase in dissatisfactions and growing social discontent, especially among young adults, often leads to outbreaks of civil unrest.
The psychological effects of overcrowding are already having a negative impact in many of our prisons and schools and although this has obviously not been studied yet (given such events are so recent), they are probably playing some role in the discontent fueling the Occupy Wall Street protests around the world.
The last decades have seen a huge rise in how much we tend to verbalize complaints and I expect overcrowded conditions will only exacerbate this rise in our complaining output. As I discuss in The Squeaky Wheel, such a prodigious complaining output does come with a psychological price. Counterintuitive as it may sound, rather than relief, expressing too many complaints often leaves us feeling helpless and victimized.
Perhaps now more than ever it is crucial we learn how to complain effectively and to get results. Whether we wish to complain about the conditions in our schools, prisons, or hospitals, or about the lack of temporary bathroom facilities at Occupy Wall Street sites, by doing so effectively we can create change and have one less thing to complain about.
Copyright 2011 Guy Winch
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