How does isolation affect humans?

We've all heard the term, "solitary confinement." Well, isolation kills. It makes people anxious, psychotic, confused and angry. Why am I alone? What's wrong with me? These are typical questions. As we saw in episode one, Mike is totally isolated in a fictional world. He is left with his thoughts and there is nobody there to tell him otherwise. Mike begins to experience delusions, questionable reality and panic.

These symptoms are felt by prisoners, mental patients, astronauts and United States Army soldier Private Bradley Manning. Manning is the accused source for WikiLeaks. According to the Guardian online newspaper, he is kept in solitary confinement for 23-hours-a-day in Virginia.

Apparently, this kind of treatment is completely normal.

An article in the New Yorker, the United States has 25,000 inmates in isolation max security prisons and another 50,000-80,000 are kept in segregated, isolation cells.

Isolation doesn't help these people. It only makes them more crazy. Just as we saw in, The Twilight Zone.