Despite living in an era of extreme connectivity, millions of people worldwide are experiencing profound social isolation. This modern crisis affects people across all demographics, contributing to rising rates of depression, anxiety, addiction, and other serious health issues.
The loneliness epidemic has emerged as a distinctly modern problem, fueled by cultural shifts toward extreme individualism, remote work arrangements, and our increasing reliance on digital communication over face-to-face interaction. Understanding this epidemic is crucial for recognizing how loneliness has become one of the defining public health challenges of our time. Keep reading to learn about the loneliness epidemic from professionals like US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and journalist Johann Hari.
Table of contents
The Loneliness Epidemic
According to US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in his book Together, loneliness is a hidden epidemic affecting millions of people. During his tenure as Surgeon General of the United States, he discovered that behind many of the country’s health crises—addiction, violence, depression, anxiety—loneliness was often an unacknowledged but important underlying factor.
Defining Loneliness
Murthy defines loneliness as the feeling of having insufficient or insufficiently meaningful relationships. (Shortform note: While Murthy’s definition captures the essence of loneliness, psychologists often add important distinctions regarding how long someone feels lonely. For example, they differentiate between transient loneliness (temporary feelings), situational loneliness (triggered by life changes), and chronic loneliness (persistent feelings lasting years). Researchers are often more concerned with chronic loneliness, as it’s most likely to result in negative health outcomes.)
Murthy explains that humans require three types of social connections to thrive:
1) Intimate connections are relationships defined by mutual vulnerability, deep understanding, and consistent emotional support. Intimate connections are often romantic partners, close friends, or family members—people who fulfill the universal need to be known and loved.
2) Relational connections constitute the broader network of friends and colleagues with whom you interact regularly, perhaps around shared interests, hobbies, or values. These relationships often provide a sense of belonging and group identity.
3) Collective connections include your relationships to communities, causes, or traditions larger than yourself. These connections offer purpose and meaning through contribution to something that transcends the individual.
According to Murthy, people feel lonely if they are lacking in any one of these types of relationships. So, for example, someone surrounded by casual acquaintances might still feel lonely if they lack intimate connections, just as someone with a close-knit family might feel lonely if they don’t have any meaningful relationships with people in the broader community.
(Shortform note: Murthy’s three types of connections don’t exist in isolation but often reinforce each other in complex ways. Intimate connections can provide the emotional security needed to pursue relational connections, while relational connections might introduce you to communities that become collective connections. Similarly, deficiencies in one area might compound problems in others—someone lacking collective connections might put excessive pressure on intimate relationships, potentially straining them unnecessarily. Research suggests that balance across these connection types improves resilience: When one connection type becomes temporarily unavailable (like when a relationship ends), the others can compensate and provide support.)
| The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Very Modern Problem In Lost Connections, Johann Hari says that today, loneliness is hard to avoid, as nearly every form of social connection (like sports leagues or regular dinners with friends) is becoming less and less frequent. This trend is particularly obvious in individualist cultures: For example, a 1980s study showed that the average American had three close friends; by 2004, that number dropped to zero. That’s not because people are spending more time with family and less with friends—all forms of family togetherness have dropped in popularity as quickly as other social connections. Today, many people report feeling disconnected and lonely, even in densely populated cities where it is nearly impossible to ever be truly alone. There’s a common, paradoxical sense of homesickness, even when we’re already home. That’s because overcoming loneliness isn’t just about gaining physical proximity to others, but also about feeling a mutually meaningful connection with someone else. It’s not enough to be around people, or even to be around someone you care about—you need to feel that they care about you in return, and that you’re both connected to something you’re equally passionate about. |
The Loneliness Crisis
Murthy argues that although we have unprecedented opportunities to connect through technology, fundamental shifts in how we live, work, and relate to one another have created the perfect conditions for widespread social disconnection.
(Shortform note: Data supports Murthy’s concern. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, in 2023, Americans spent 20 fewer hours per month socializing in person than they did in 2003, with young adults (15-24) seeing a 70% drop in face-to-face interactions. This decline correlates with a rise in technology use. A 2017 study found young adults with higher social media usage were three times more likely to feel socially isolated, and Generation Z—the first generation to grow up with social media—reports higher loneliness rates than any other generation.)
First, Murthy argues that shifting cultural values in Western societies have created a perfect storm for loneliness. The growing emphasis on individualism, self-reliance, and personal achievement has steadily eroded our sense of interdependence. This shift manifests in common narratives that celebrate self-made success while subtly (or not so subtly) stigmatizing any form of dependency. Compounding this problem is the increasing conflation of work with self-worth—a mindset that not only glorifies extreme work hours at the expense of relationship-building time, but also promotes the damaging belief that personal sacrifice for career advancement is the primary measure of success and fulfillment.
(Shortform note: Some research challenges Murthy’s argument that individualism causes loneliness. Countries like Denmark and Sweden rank high on individualism scales yet report lower loneliness rates than many collectivist societies. This suggests that individualism combined with strong social safety nets, as well as cultural norms valuing both independence and connection, might offer a healthier balance.)
But Murthy notes that the conflation of work and self-worth is just one part of people’s changing relationship to work. He argues that modern work arrangements (longer hours, frequent relocation, remote work, and job instability) have made it harder to prioritize and maintain connections. American adults, for instance, move an average of 11.7 times during their lifetime, often for new job opportunities, with each relocation requiring people to build new friendships.
(Shortform note: Workplace arrangements have continued to shift since the publication of Together in 2021. By fall 2022, only 37% of workers were going to the office daily, with 56% on hybrid schedules and 7% fully remote. Office attendance remained 30% below pre-pandemic levels, with workers averaging just 3.5 days in-office weekly. Although Murthy suggests remote work is isolating, hybrid workers report better work-life balance than fully in-office workers. They may leverage the flexibility of their schedules to prioritize and improve non-work relationships, suggesting that working remotely doesn’t always isolate workers or create loneliness.)
Finally, Murthy explains that while, in many ways, technology has allowed us to be more in touch than we were a few decades ago, technological communication, like texting or FaceTime, often fails to replace the satisfaction of in-person interactions. He argues that digital interaction lacks the nonverbal cues and physical proximity that are essential for deep human connection.
Murthy says evidence also suggests that relying too much on digital communication may make us less empathetic. In one study, UCLA researchers found that sixth-graders who spent five days at an outdoor camp without digital devices showed significant improvements in recognizing nonverbal emotional cues compared to a control group that maintained normal device usage, suggesting that reduced screen time could improve people’s social perception skills.
| Online Connections Are Not Enough Johann Hari in Lost Connections says that it may seem ironic that the explosion of the loneliness epidemic across the world coincided with the birth of easily-accessible social media—now that we have constant access to everyone we know, shouldn’t we feel more connected, not less? Psychologists who specialize in internet addiction disagree because social media facilitates communication, not real connection. Online communication scratches the connection itch temporarily, and can be a valuable tool, but it doesn’t provide the long-term sense of well-being that comes from connecting with someone in the same physical space as you. When you connect with someone face-to-face, all of your senses are engaged, satisfying your brain’s primal urge to connect. But when the interaction is mediated through a screen, that multisensory experience shrivels down to a series of pixels—a very new form of communication that your brain’s very old evolutionary patterns can’t quite process. |
Communities at Higher Risk of Loneliness
Murthy emphasizes that loneliness can affect anyone, regardless of race, age, gender, or nationality. However, he acknowledges that certain populations are more vulnerable than others, including aging adults, adolescents, and people from marginalized communities. (Shortform note: Some people are also more susceptible to loneliness based on their genetic makeup. Studies have shown that loneliness is at least partially genetic, accounting for approximately 14-27% of the variation in loneliness levels.)
According to Murthy, aging adults are at higher risk of loneliness due to several inevitable life transitions. First, as people retire, they often lose regular contact with colleagues. Furthermore, physical limitations, like reduced mobility or hearing loss, may restrict or discourage them from participating in family gatherings or community events, and the loss of a partner or spouse intensifies feelings of isolation.
Older adults experience loneliness even in group settings like nursing homes, especially when there’s a lack of activities or opportunities to connect meaningfully with staff or other residents. Finally, in countries where ageist attitudes prevail, the contributions of older adults are often belittled and devalued, leading many seniors to internalize these negative perceptions, withdraw from social engagement, and experience deeper feelings of disconnection and loneliness.
(Shortform note: In How to Live Forever, Marc Freedman writes that as generations increasingly live separately, aging adults have gotten lonelier. Today’s elders often reside alone or in age-segregated settings, so they miss out on natural intergenerational connections. However, intentional communities like cohousing arrangements offer promising alternatives that balance independence with social engagement. Generations of Hope is one example of such an arrangement. This Californian program offers an intergenerational living model that brings together senior citizens and foster families, and has demonstrated significant success in reducing loneliness for participants while creating beneficial mutual support systems.)
Adolescents and young adults also experience high rates of loneliness, and many psychologists blame technology and social media. According to Murthy, social media—with its emphasis on likes and follows—transforms interactions into status markers and encourages users to present an overcurated version of their lives, which discourages vulnerability and honest connections. Murthy adds that packed extracurricular schedules and academic pressure further reduce their opportunities for genuine peer bonding. Finally, Murthy writes, like elders, young people often experience major transitions (like changing schools, leaving home for the first time, starting a job, or going to college), which also disrupt longstanding stable relationships.
(Shortform note: Recent statistics strongly support and add urgency to Murthy’s concerns about youth loneliness. Research demonstrates that teens who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of poor mental health outcomes including depression and anxiety, which are frequently linked to feelings of loneliness and social disconnection. The potentially devastating consequences of such isolation are evident in data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, revealing that suicide rates among people aged 10-24 increased approximately 60% between 2007 and 2018—a period coinciding with the rise of social media.)
Finally, Murthy explains, people from marginalized communities—racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, immigrants, and other minorities—face structural barriers increasing their risk of loneliness. For example, Black Americans encounter workplace microaggressions creating feelings of otherness, while LGBTQ+ youth report higher rates of social isolation in school. Limited media representation further contributes to feelings of invisibility. Murthy argues these barriers create a destructive cycle: Loneliness worsens health outcomes through reduced healthcare access and quality, while economic discrimination limits opportunities for social integration, further entrenching marginalization and isolation.
(Shortform note: Marginalized individuals can use online spaces to connect with others, creating safe havens for expressing their identity. However, these spaces don’t always alleviate isolation. Research suggests some platforms may disproportionately exclude marginalized people from participating in these spaces—thus intensifying their feelings of invisibility—through “shadowbanning.” Shadowbanning occurs when a platform algorithmically limits the visibility of a user’s content without their knowledge. As a result, users may continue posting content, unaware that they’re being prevented from connecting with others, and come to believe they’re being ignored or silenced. This leads to deeper alienation and, often, self-doubt and confusion.)
Learn More About the Loneliness Epidemic
To better understand the loneliness epidemic and its broader context, check out Shortform’s guides to the books we’ve referenced in this article:
