Social isolation is a growing epidemic, world-wide
The U.S. Surgeon General has said that Social isolation is a growing epidemic, one that’s increasingly recognized as having dire physical, mental and emotional consequences.
Thanks to our addictions to social media, TV, AI and the increased use of robotics and other technology the human body is being fazed out followed closely by our brain. There is just less and less use for them anymore.
“We’re not meant to be lonely as a species,” said Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioral sciences at the London School of Economics. “If you were to think of the most significant interventions to improve life expectancy, after quitting smoking, it’s: Don’t be lonely.”
A recent study has found that more than half of U.S. adults, a staggering 58%, report feelings of loneliness. This alarming statistic sheds light on a growing issue in our society - the loneliness epidemic. Social isolation has been found to be a major contributor to a variety of health problems, and it costs the public enormous sums in unnecessary health costs. In fact, social isolation kills far more people in the West each year than terrorists and murderers.
According to the VICELAND UK Census, loneliness is the number one fear of young people today—ranking ahead of losing a home or a job. 42% of Millennial women are more afraid of loneliness than a cancer diagnosis, by far the highest share of any generation.
This fear has been ingrained into the very language of Millennials, like “FOMO” (Fear Of Missing Out), not satisfied with the quality of their relationships and its many companion terms. -- see FORBES Magazine Millennials And The Loneliness Epidemic
Social Media Use and Loneliness
It seems that social media usage increases when people feel lonely, but actually, it makes it worse. It's not just social media, but devices, smartphones, texting, virtual reality, remote work, artificial intelligence, and assistive technologies, to name just a few, contribute to this loneliness epidemic and have quickly and dramatically changed how we live, work, communicate, and socialize.
These technologies are pervasive in our lives. Nearly all teens and adults under 65 (96-99%), and 75% of adults 65 and over, say that they use the internet extensively. Americans spend an average of six hours per day on digital media. One-in-three U.S. adults 18 and over report that they are online “almost constantly,” and the percentage of teens ages 13 to 17 years who say they are online “almost constantly” has doubled since 2015, with more than half reporting it would be hard to give up social media.
Our devices have become an integral part of our daily lives, and they are undoubtedly here to stay and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg of what's coming in terms of technological advancements and the devices that will accompany them. However, as much as we rely on them, it is essential to manage our usage to prevent them from consuming our lives entirely.
It's crucial for us to acknowledge the impact of social isolation and take measures to address it, beginning with disconnecting from technology when possible. This is a concerning trend, as loneliness has been linked to various health problems, and it has been reported that it can be fatal. We encourage people to step away from their screens and seek meaningful human interactions. A straightforward solution is to go outside, connect with nature, join a club, go for a hike, or bike as a significant health remedy for loneliness. In simple terms: JUST GET OUT THERE!
USA TODAY 2-28-26
Business is brisk in the advice trade because fear of loneliness and loss of social networks as we age is a rising concern in a rapidly aging country and world.
It’s a big issue: Being lonely has all sorts of negative health consequences, especially later in life when people are more vulnerable to downturns in both physical and cognitive health. More people are becoming aware that loneliness is connected to everything from heart disease to diabetes to dementia, but they are still stunned to find that researchers have judged that being lonely is roughly equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And a new national study from AARP, released in December 2025, found that 40% of adults age 45+ are lonely, a material rise from the 35% that AARP found in both 2010 and 2018.
Loneliness is not evenly spread, even among older adults. Men, for instance, are more likely to be lonely than women but so are people who are not working, make less than $25,000 a year, live in rural areas or identify as LGBTQ+. Conversely, while no group escapes the threat of loneliness, you are better off being highly educated, wealthy and over 70.
To be fair, there really is no period of our lives that we can escape the modern plague of loneliness. But loneliness in the second half of life needs to be a focus of public health policy, not just because rates of loneliness are increasing but because we have so many more older people in the United States now. If you do math on the AARP study, it pencils out that there are more than 50 million adults in the 45+ category who measure out as lonely. That’s a public health crisis.
What is going on with older Americans and loneliness?
The AARP study provides clues to the source of our decline in social connection. It’s not that we are less friendly as people than we were a decade ago, but we participate far less in activities that provide the glue of social connection. Declines in social connection date back at least to the 1980s – Robert Putnam’s "Bowling Alone" is rooted in social trends of that era – but it is shocking what is happening with older Americans over just the last decade and a half.
According to AARP, for people 60+, attendance at religious services plunged from 50% to 37%, belonging to a community group dropped from 32% to 25% and volunteering rates collapsed, falling to 33% from 47%. These are huge, epochal changes for older Americans that have happened in just the past 15 years. COVID-19, we might speculate, may have had something to do with that, but trends predate the pandemic and there is no evidence that in the three years past that participation rates among older adults are rebounding.
Who are the loneliest Americans? See what a new survey revealed.
How we build a more connected society
What are we to do about this?
Increasingly, social connection is like the weather. We all talk about it, but no one does anything about it. Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared a loneliness crisis in 2023, but left office without taking many concretes steps toward addressing it. The new Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) report, to its credit, identified loneliness and lack of social connection as a source of poor health in America’s youth, but, to its discredit, only one of its 180+ recommendations related to social isolation, and even that recommendation (phone use in schools) falls outside the traditional purview of the federal government.
Local governments have occasionally acknowledged the problem, but rarely with sustained interest. New York State named Ruth Westheimer as its first Ambassador for Loneliness in 2023 but the job, such as it is, has remained unfilled since her death in 2024.
Piecemeal initiatives are inadequate to address a problem that is undermining the health and happiness of so many older Americans. It is particularly complex because everything from how we live (far apart from each other) to how we work (older workers routinely lose social networks when they are pushed out from work) to how we use technology (way too much) contributes to our epidemic of loneliness.
But we can take heart from the fact that our peer countries view elder loneliness not as a problem for each person to tackle for themselves but as a public health crisis. Both the U.K. and Japan have appointed Ministers of Loneliness and Germany, for example, has built a network of some 400 Senior Citizens Offices with the express purpose of helping older people find volunteer opportunities and social connection. Japan’s Silver Jinzai Human Resources Centers helps almost 1 million older adults, ages 65 to 100, engage in part-time work.
These societies, and other successful aging nations, are creating a social health infrastructure to support connection, purpose and engagement in the second half of life. They are creating a roadmap that we can follow – and hopefully put me out of business as a social connection advice columnist.
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