There are more than 9 million people who self-reported feeling lonely in the U.K. alone in the last year.
The number of people reporting loneliness has skyrocketed since the Covid-19 pandemic but they were on the rise prior to this anyway.
Many researchers call our period of time now the loneliest of times recorded so far.
So, why is this?
Aren’t we meant to be in the age of connection due to the powers of technology?
We are… So why are we still so lonely?
Here are my thoughts.
Social media as pseudo-connection
Social media was meant to be the end of our loneliness as a society, not the start of it.
And yet social media is one of the biggest driving forces of loneliness across the world.
Why?
Because connecting with other people seems like connection but it isn’t. It’s a form of pseudo-connection.
We think that we are connecting with people we know and keeping in touch by looking at what they post and interacting with it, but this isn’t connection at all, this is staring at a screen.
We need to be in the same physical space as other people, occupying the same air as them, and being able to talk face-to-face in order to really connect.
Looking at a screen as a way of “connecting” only makes us lonelier than we were to begin with.
Individualism over community
We don’t interact in communities the way that we used to.
Physical, in-person communities used to be the bread and butter of how people interacted with each other, connected, and essentially survived as people.
We don’t need people anymore in the way that we used to and this has caused us to become more and more individualistic.
We don’t talk to our neighbours, we don’t have Town Hall meetings, we go to far fewer clubs and groups.
We don’t come together to problem-solve and put our minds together the way that we used to. In fact, most of us even work and live entirely alone now too.
We are lonelier than ever because we are physically more alone than ever.
Technology
The rise of technology has made everything much more convenient and this is a bad thing for our levels of human interaction and connection.
We don’t even need to ring people to ask for things anymore, we can do it with an online form or with an app.
While technology benefits us in so many ways that are undeniable, it is holding us back when it comes to interacting with other people around us.
Many of us will make a purchase on Amazon before we shop in our local boutique. Many of us will order takeaway online before we go collect it and talk to the people who work there. Many of us will buy an e-book online before we go to our local library.
Our digital convenience is our social downfall.
What do you think we should do about it?
What’s our next move as a society to combat this epidemic of loneliness?