"Emotional Insulation" is what Earl called the phenomenon that was already pervasive in the 70's.

Earl, the psychology teaching assistant in Saluki Marooned, was forty years ahead of his time, as he anticipated the extreme lonesomeness of early 21st Century life...

Some isolated people  create their own private world of delusions, paranoia and fear.  One such person is Peter Federson who has spent a lifetime of living alone, until he couldn't take it anymore...