Americans Are a Lonely Lot, and Young People Bear the Heaviest Burden

Best thing I did for my social life was stop working in tech and using tech as much as possible. I visit the same cafe every morning and now know all the regulars. I stopped buying groceries online and go to the store now. I call friends instead of texting and plan outings. I ride a bike and stop to chat with people wherever I go. I don’t watch TV, or play video games. I go the bookstore (only one left in my city) instead of Amazon, and I chat with people in the bookstore.<p>I now deeply regret working as a software engineer in my 20s, as I’ve realized it contributed massively to my loneliness. Which is sad because I used to be so excited about technology and now I see it as the biggest trend in reducing quality of life.<p>It seems the more interactions that are mediated by technology the less human contact we have.

&gt;328. If for company you find a wise and prudent friend who leads a good life, you should, overcoming all impediments, keep his company joyously and mindfully.<p>329. If for company you cannot find a wise and prudent friend who leads a good life, then, like a king who leaves behind a conquered kingdom, or like a lone elephant in the elephant forest, you should go your way alone.<p>330. Better it is to live alone; there is no fellowship with a fool. Live alone and do no evil; be carefree like and elephant in the elephant forest.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.buddhanet.net&#x2F;e-learning&#x2F;buddhism&#x2F;dp23.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.buddhanet.net&#x2F;e-learning&#x2F;buddhism&#x2F;dp23.htm</a>

I think we&#x27;re lonely because we have too many choices. When I can go to any meetup, any concert, any social function, any <i>whatever</i>, it makes me less likely to make friends, not more.<p>Looking at my own experience, I didn&#x27;t even particularly like my friends when I first met them. Several of them seemed outright repulsive. It took several months of being in the same &quot;sticky&quot; social situation to bond--long periods of time in the same school, sport, club, neighborhood, etc. If I had the opportunity to transplant myself into another social situation after the first day&#x2F;week, I&#x27;d never have made any of those friendships.<p>How can we keep the same group of people stuck together for a sufficient amount of time? I think that&#x27;s the secret for creating friendships and curing loneliness.

&gt; nearly 50 percent of respondents reporting that they feel alone or left out<p>Self-centeredness runs high these days. Us young people want the world to cater to us. However, two self-centered people don&#x27;t get along that great.<p>If I want to make friends, then I have to choose to actively put time and energy into someone else; sometimes without getting much back.<p>The most lonely I&#x27;ve ever been (or ever seen someone else), is when I am totally self-focused - spending all my time on my plans and situation and looking for ways people can fit into those plans.<p>This isn&#x27;t the only problem, but it&#x27;s certainly a player.

It doesn&#x27;t look like there&#x27;s a distinction between friendship loneliness and romantic loneliness in the article (not sure if there&#x27;s one in the actual studies).<p>I&#x27;d hypothesis that the difficulty for most isn&#x27;t making friends (meetups or shared interest groups like dancing, knitting, boardgames, kickboxing, group instrument lessons, etc), but in partnerships.<p>I think people are really afraid today. Dating sites&#x2F;apps seem to make it worse, reducing individuals to a photo as a primary interest mechanism.<p>I&#x27;m really curious of the huge disparity between men&#x2F;women messaging one another on such platforms. Women tend to get inundated with messages where as men are typically responsible for initiating. Some platforms try to flip this around like Bumble, but it doesn&#x27;t seem to really change the dynamic at all (some men get tons of responses while the rest get zero).<p>There just isn&#x27;t enough depth in this article to draw out any real conclusions about loneliness, the various types of alone-ness and what to do about it.

It&#x27;s hard to learn how to spend time with others. Once the external reasons are gone, (mostly school) you&#x27;re left with the uncomfortable reality that a social life doesn&#x27;t just make itself. Tools like social media give us more choice, but choice can only lead the horse to water. You have to take a step outside your comfort zone if you want to actually have friends.<p>I got lucky in some respects, I generally disliked my military coworkers, and I didn&#x27;t want to only have them in my socializing pool, so I started spending lots of time off base. The habit stuck, and to this day I spend weekend mornings socializing at a coffee shop.<p>But I can see how lots of people get stuck in a rut of unfulfilling computer friendships and worse, Internet romances. Much as we bemoan the role of social media, I suspect the real issue is that lots of Americans just have higher standards for who they&#x27;ll spend time with, and just as 15-20 years ago, most people still don&#x27;t work on their social skills.<p>Used to be, even if you didn&#x27;t agree with someone politically, you could still have an amicable conversation. Nowadays it seems like a lost art, nobody wants to even try. Everyone wants dead assurance that they&#x27;re not &quot;wasting their time.&quot;<p>All this is to say, I&#x27;m not all that sympathetic to the &quot;epidemic&quot; of loneliness, especially in young people, it feels like just another form of entitlement. Connecting with others is hard. Do it anyway.

&gt; The survey also found that working too little or too much is also associated with the experience of loneliness, suggesting that our workplaces are an important source of our social relationships and also that work-life balance is important for avoiding loneliness.<p>This paragraph hints at what might be a significant factor in increased loneliness: A lack of community. Community can be a workplace or it could be a neighborhood, but in both it&#x27;s a place where you feel like you and your colleagues&#x2F;neighbors &quot;have each-others&#x27; back&quot;. It&#x27;s not even important that you are all best friends, just that you trust each-other enough.<p>These two, work and home, are of particular importance vs the other venues that we inhabit, because for most people, our time is spent either working, or in the neighborhood in which we live. If neither provides a trusting-enough sense of community, you don&#x27;t have much time left in your life to find that elsewhere.<p>But for many people a trusted community is inaccessible for a variety of social, cultural, and economic reasons. Many (most?) workplaces don&#x27;t offer a sense of community (which is fine, they shouldn&#x27;t have to if that&#x27;s not what their workers are seeking), and many people - especially younger adults - live in neighborhoods where they don&#x27;t know many people around them.

It sounds like a lot of people feel like they&#x27;re missing out. This could be because so many on social media are trying to imitate the image of that lifefaker website that came up here recently. It&#x27;s no surprise that the 18-22 age group feels the worst. They&#x27;re the ones cultivating this fake life image the most!<p>If you&#x27;re connected to 500 people and each person has 2-3 days a year that are &quot;lifefaker&quot; worthy... then it&#x27;s pretty obvious how you&#x27;d feel left out. Each day you&#x27;ll see 5 amazing posts that make you feel like you&#x27;re living a terrible life. This is pretty standard stuff. It&#x27;s standard by young people to not share sad things or things that won&#x27;t fetch a lot of likes or envy. It&#x27;s common to post things that aren&#x27;t even happening now or recently but to share moments from the past that were great even if your life is pretty crap at the moment. It&#x27;s about creating the image that your life is fantastic even if it really isn&#x27;t.

I am Norwegian and I believe we also have problems with loneliness in Scandinavia, but perhaps not this severe. While living in the US I did in fact feel very lonely. It was easy to make lots of friends, but most friendships felt fairly shallow. I felt people in America was so into putting on a facade all the time rather than showing their true self and their vulnerabilities.<p>It could of course just be a cultural difference, the place I was in or whatever. But regardless it was one of the reasons I left the US. I&#x27;ve been able to find deeper friendships in other countries. Although no place has it been so quick to make friends as in the US, getting invited to people&#x27;s home etc. So Americans are easy to be around and fun to hang around.<p>But when you are alone in a country without family, you feel a need to have some really close friends.

It can be really hard for adults to make new friends, especially if they move to a new city&#x2F;State for work etc which is contributing towards loneliness. Lots of apps like GirlCrew are popping up to help combat loneliness among adults in the US, particularly women aged 25-40. For many the loneliness comes from the fact that all their friends have got married&#x2F;settled down and they are the last singleton in the group.

I had an interesting conversation earlier today.<p>Let&#x27;s say that we are in a small team, maybe five or six people. One person comes to work sad, upset.<p>Nothing has to be said. We stop what we&#x27;re doing and help, right? We&#x27;re not schmucks. We take time to listen, we reassure the person they&#x27;re important, we celebrate their being part of our group.<p>Now let&#x27;s expand the scale several orders of magnitude and change the medium. We are now part of some online system: Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, whatever. There are tens of millions of people all in one big virtual room.<p>Somebody mentions they are upset online. When we see something wrong or something we care about online, we type things in -- somewhere. We feel moved to act. Without something being said, the feelings don&#x27;t exist to us.<p>Does that really do what it&#x27;s supposed to be doing? I know our motivations are good, and in many cases there are fine words provided, but are we really helping and caring about people simply because we&#x27;re tweeting, retweeting, hashtagging, typing our personal stories in, and so forth?<p>Is a text message saying &quot;You are important to us&quot; the same as going over to somebody, giving them a hug, having them look around the room at people who care about them, and telling them same thing?<p>Assuming it is, there&#x27;s huge bunch of people involved. On any one day, a million people could be living out some horrible experience because of something in their lives. How could we know unless they type things in, and what kinds of things are those folks going to feel if they type things in and nobody responds?<p>I don&#x27;t know which is worse. Maybe this type of communication is effectively showing our feelings and makes a difference -- and some people are just going to be ignored. Or maybe it&#x27;s just so much self-stimulation, telling ourselves we&#x27;re somehow doing something of importance when in fact all we&#x27;re doing is making various people internet famous from day to day.<p>We tech folks keep assuming that human communication somehow all boils down to bits moving over a wire. That may be a terribly lossy way of looking at it.

Social networks made this happen. They give a feeling of inclusion and conversation while they are just a surrogate and imitation of a real human connection. Previously one had to make itself go out to meet real people and train itself to be social in real life -- being alone at home was too lonely.<p>Today sitting in front of a screen with a beer in a kitchen and participating in some absolutely irrelevant to our life flame with people one doesn&#x27;t know and doesn&#x27;t care about gives a perverted sense of socialization and inclusion. But at the end of a day, a person stays alone without real friends.<p>Instead, it&#x27;d be better to invite friends to go to a bar or a bicycle ride -- but it&#x27;s so tempting and effortless to just go online and just sit on a sofa.<p>Wonder how the next generation is even going to breed.

The open question is what technology replaces?<p>For example what does social media replace? Does it replace real in person interaction between friends? Does it replace calling someone with text? Does it replace opportunities to meet up and connect in person?<p>What does Netflix and streaming video apps replace, did it replace going with your friends to the video store renting a movie together?<p>What does online shopping replace? Does it replace real human interaction asking someone in a physical store for advice what to purchase?<p>These questions are going to get more real as we get more robotics and automation around us.<p>If you work remote most of the time, then all interactions will be through online chat rooms. Coworking is a solution to that.

Being a secular founder in tech seems exceptionally lonely. Especially when it comes to dating.<p>You don&#x27;t have school or church as traditional recurring ways to network with people with your values. You cannot make friends at work (they&#x27;re your employees, not your buddies, you might have to let them go any day, and often you do), you cannot date at work, and that&#x27;s the one thing you spend 10-12 hours a day at. Most of social gatherings within your sphere of influence (tech and entrepreneurship) are very male-dominated as well. And you live in the Bay, where you relocated for work, losing your existing network. Your family and old friends are possibly thousands of miles away. And the Bay is again all about tech and a skewed gender ratio.<p>Even when you do make friends and expand your social circle, it&#x27;s always more men.<p>You&#x27;re stuck with the rather soul-sucking process of online dating and spending hours swiping on strangers who are about as jaded about the process as you are.<p>I suppose you have to find a co-ed hobby and hope that one day you run into someone who&#x27;s a match through that. But realistically, how many new people will you meet through that?

Possible causes:<p>Death of retail: No social record stores, no social book stores, arcades<p>Internet everywhere: People on laptops at coffeehouse, on mobile phones at bus stop &#x2F; checkout<p>Bad Transit&#x2F;Urbanism&#x2F;Public policy: Streets for cars, no plazas like the Italians, can&#x27;t drink a bottle of wine in a public park

&gt; It finds that loneliness is widespread in America, with nearly 50 percent of respondents reporting that they feel alone or left out always or sometimes.<p>I know this is going to sound a bit hostile to younger generations, but perhaps if they put their phones down and stopped looking at screens they would see the person sitting across the room. Perhaps they might even talk to that person.

Im skeptical of any study run by an insurance company.

This is something I miss about Italy. It was just easier to meet people. I don&#x27;t know if it&#x27;s just that people are more sociable, that spaces make it easier (not everyone is walled off in their car&#x2F;suburban house all the time) or what.

I would say it&#x27;s a lot easier to distract yourself than it ever has been before.

Anyone wanna grab a beer?

&gt; &quot;, with nearly 50 percent of respondents reporting that they feel alone or left out always or sometimes.&quot;<p>&gt; &quot;The survey found that the average loneliness score in America is 44, which suggests that &quot;most Americans are considered lonely,&quot;<p>Certainly, mental health has been ignored for far too long. That said, there seems to be a lack of context here.<p>- Is this an increase or decrease?<p>- How does it compare to other countries &#x2F; cultures?<p>- Was this over time, or a snap shot, that would (I would think) be influenced by the current mental state of the person giving the answer?<p>I don&#x27;t mean to sound cold and lacking in empathy but without transparency my first reaction is: C&#x27;est la vie. Life, by definition has highs and lows.<p>I&#x27;m not doubting there are people who need treatment &#x2F; attention. On the other hand, the way this seems to be executed and presented feels like a pitch for more funding, etc.<p>p.s. Why was it &#x2F; is it called the Loneliness Index? Or was that a self-fulfilling prophesy? Is that part of the pitch for attention?

I think young boys are being treated terribly. I am so disturbed by this and am to the point where I feel compelled to intercede in the emotional life of a troubled young relative of mine.<p>In my opinion, the problem is that we&#x27;re no longer celebrating masculinity, but rather it seems we trash it at every opportunity nowadays.<p>Not sure how much that weighs on the loneliness problem, but I suspect having young men not acting like men isn&#x27;t helping with our collective well-being and sociability.

I go to Meetups to make friends and influence people. It has basically become more and more of my social life as time goes on.

Engaging in social media is largely an anti-social activity.<p>How many times have you been in a restaurant, bar, or other public space, and noticed groups of people all staring at their phones on &#x27;social&#x27; media, rather than engaging in the actual social situation around them? Or how many times have you been at someones house, or even in your own home, and looked to find a child, friend, partner, family member, staring at their phone, rather than engaging with the real world? How many times has that person been you, staring blindly into the screen rather than engaging with actual humans around you?

And what if a significant portion of these people are actually just terrible people to hang out with in sociable contexts? I see a lot of discussion around blaming tech, or even funnily enough thinking that males aren&#x27;t somehow allowed to be masculine is the cause for this (well, maybe it&#x27;s related, though not for reasons the OP wants it to be).<p>I see it as the opposite. The U.S. with the newer generations is maturing, socially. We don&#x27;t just associate with people because of where they&#x27;re from, what they look like (for the most part), or who they want to have in their bed. What I think we&#x27;re getting better at judging is the actual characteristics of substance that make hanging out with people great. Anecdotally, I know of a few people that I would from an outside perspective consider &quot;lonely.&quot; They have a few notable characteristics that make them undesirable to hang out with, let alone be in a relationship with. Maybe it&#x27;s their politics, maybe it&#x27;s how they act when it&#x27;s just them and another in a room, maybe they&#x27;re just a pretty big bore (due to having a mediocre job, no hobbies, etc).<p>That&#x27;s something I don&#x27;t see being mentioned in great detail. It&#x27;s just kind of ignored that the people reporting loneliness might just be socially irredeemable (at the moment, anyone can change). Why do these reporters of loneliness deserve the social energy of other people when they can&#x27;t comparably contribute, or even in some cases actively devalue the social meetings for other groups of people?<p>There are definitely contributing factors like: how our cities are built, transportation infrastructure, how much we have to work, etc. But I&#x27;m willing to wager that a decent portion of people who report loneliness might just have themselves to blame.

I was born in the 90s, and I feel pity seeing my generation adults feeling unhappy because of loneliness, I can perceive happiness in both ways, alone or not, why many other people can&#x27;t?

Unless we do a comprehensive comparative study across countries, this will be like trying to determine if you’re upside down while spinning in space. You have no concurrent frame of reference other than historical.<p>Is the trend American only, part of the consequences of an economic system, a society, progress in general, etc.

&gt;<i>More than half of survey respondents — 54 percent — said they always or sometimes feel that no one knows them well. Fifty-six percent reported they sometimes or always felt like the people around them &quot;are not necessarily with them.&quot; And 2 in 5 felt like &quot;they lack companionship,&quot; that their &quot;relationships aren&#x27;t meaningful&quot; and that they &quot;are isolated from others.&quot;</i><p>Well, chasing money and success as ultimate goals, glorifying individualism, being hell bent on branding oneself and selling it, valuing consumerism, and closing into comfort zones etc., comes with a cost.

&quot;Millennials are killing socialness.&quot;

This is the price for Americas individualism I guess.

I have an idea: lonely young people can volunteer to spend their time with lonely old people (who there are far more of) instead of having a pity party.

Loneliness is: - When you try so hard to make friends and still they ignore you.<p>- When you know you have some really good qualities and characteristics, but are not appreciated for them.<p>- When you realize you&#x27;re not important to other people; whether you go to school&#x2F;work&#x2F;university tomorrow or not doesn&#x27;t affect others and they won&#x27;t notice.<p>- When you see all those couples around you and in the street, and think about &quot;what&#x27;s wrong with me?&quot; and &quot;why don&#x27;t I have something like that?&quot;<p>- When you realize you&#x27;ve put in too much effort and enthusiasm to help people and make contact with them, but haven&#x27;t received much in return; as if you were just a tool for them.<p>- When you just want to spend your time with a person and realize they don&#x27;t like spending their time with you.<p>- When you are too alone that you don&#x27;t even know where to begin in order to stop being lonely.<p>This is what f<i></i>king loneliness feels like.

Non text-only link: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;sections&#x2F;health-shots&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;01&#x2F;606588504&#x2F;americans-are-a-lonely-lot-and-young-people-bear-the-heaviest-burden" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;sections&#x2F;health-shots&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;01&#x2F;6065885...</a>

Well we&#x27;ve rooted our political thought in individualism for decades. Politicians and market actors have viewed people as atomistic and so society has been shaped to reflect that view. Perhaps we are now far enough away from the threat of communism that we can realize there is a balance to be had between the individual and the collective.

Would love to see the data split by race. My bet is that this is a white and asian people specific problem and not applicable to Hispanics and Blacks.

But hey, Facebook is getting everyone connected®

interesting maybe as the amount of people who feel lonely rises we will see more horrific attacks with motivation similar to the Toronto attacker and Elliot Rodgers.