How Loneliness Is Damaging Our Health

April 20, 2022

(New York Times) – Even before the pandemic, the United States surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, said the country was experiencing an “epidemic of loneliness,” driven by the accelerated pace of life and the spread of technology into all of our social interactions. With this acceleration, he said, efficiency and convenience have “edged out” the time-consuming messiness of real relationships. The result is a public health crisis on the scale of the opioid epidemic or obesity, Dr. Murthy said. In a 2018 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, one in five Americans said they always or often felt lonely or socially isolated. The pandemic only exacerbated these feelings. In a recent citywide survey by New York’s health department, 57 percent of people said they felt lonely some or most of the time, and two-thirds said they felt socially isolated in the prior month. (Read More)