Americans are lonely and it’s killing them. How the US can combat this new epidemic.

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 314 points – Americans are lonely and it’s killing them. How the US can combat this new epidemic.
usatoday.com

America has a new epidemic. It can’t be treated using traditional therapies even though it has debilitating and even deadly consequences.

The problem seeping in at the corners of our communities is loneliness and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy is hoping to generate awareness and offer remedies before it claims more lives.

“Most of us probably think of loneliness as just a bad feeling,” he told USA TODAY. “It turns out that loneliness has far greater implications for our health when we struggle with a sense of social disconnection, being lonely or isolated.”

Loneliness is detrimental to mental and physical health, experts say, leading to an increased risk of heart disease, dementia, stroke and premature death. As researchers track record levels of self-reported loneliness, public health leaders are banding together to develop a public health framework to address the epidemic.

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American corporations: "how can we monetize this".

Friend as a service (FaaS)

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They already know how to monetize this. They market their product as a solution.

Ha, said Zuck at Facebook a long time ago.

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I would say in chronological order, social media, violently divisive politics, and the forced isolation of COVID rendered me incapable of socializing anymore.

All of it has made me feel like I cannot function in the presence of others. I still have to go to the office to work, so that's pretty much the extent of interaction I get. Otherwise, outside of work, I tend to not speak at all to anybody.

I won't call it a happy life, but it's safe. I guess I've got whatever a word for social agoraphobia would be now.

I should note that I'm fifty one years old. The first four decades of my life were very social. Then it all gradually faded away.

Social skills are a skill like anything else, and building up the mental stamina to engage other people like a muscle. I know many people who just lost all of that practice and stamina during COVID, and it wasn't a good change for them. I kept up lots of digital contact, like moving weekly pub night with friends to zoom and playing Jack box games, and that helped a lot with keeping those skills.

If you want to start being more social, I would recommend finding little regular ways to rebuild those skills and stamina. Online bookclubs with a monthly web conference can be a good way to start. But if you're happy, best of luck either way! Merry Christmas!

I kept up lots of digital contact, like moving weekly pub night with friends to zoom and playing Jack box games, and that helped a lot with keeping those skills.

That's a lot harder to do if you don't have such friends to start with.

It's like being bullied or grounded for some behavior crime over and over again. After a while a person stops caring about the things that got taken away and goes into suspension about liking anything because that too gets used as a weapon.

My MiL was just asking me about the places i hung out as a teen (40yo here) because in HER day they had teen social clubs and all. I looked at her as if she had a third eye lol. I think it was the local mall, or CCG/TTRPG shop for me in my town. In the area I’m at now they’ve practically banned teens from the mall after a certain time. I have no idea where my kiddos will be able to go when they’re older. Hopefully my red state doesn’t obliterate libraries at least, though I’m in a blue spot.

Many of those social clubs had membership fees, and I suspect people today who can afford those fees likely are still going out. I think part of the challenge is a certain large percentage of the population, say 40%, has been edged out of the economic ability over the last 40 years to consistently spend money of those social opportunities.

But yes, the lack of free or affordable third places is a huge generational challenge and disadvantage in so many ways.

Everyone should be assigned a new middle name based on a random object and number. Then everyone with the same middle name should be considered cousins. I'll be Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11, for example. All the Daffodil-11s will be an extended family -- I'll have family everywhere I go. Drop a pin on a map and you'll find family members to meet or catch up with! Lonesome no more!

I don't even want to keep up with my real cousins.

Ah, the loneliness of the apple fallen too far from the tree is perhaps the greatest loneliness of all. A family unmoored from the millstone of genetics might just be the solution you need! Don't let your blood ties get you down, my friend. Recording and producing legend Quincy Jones? COUSIN (and you can call him "Q"!). Secretary of a society for the preservation of local birds, Maggie Mumphries (who I just made up)? PRIMOS. Renowned author and pediatrician Mark Vonnegut? Cut off your sleeves and crack open a Corona like Dom Turetto cuz you're FAMILY.

#LonesomeNoMore2024

I feel this on such a deep level you don't even know. Yamainwitch is always here for you my darlings! Cousins? Hell yeah! Siblings? Why not! For all my fellow unwanteds, I want you, I see you and I love you!!

If everybody is family like that, wouldn't it just lose it's entire meaning and family would stop being something to consider?

That's fine and dandy until cousin Joe Daffodil-11 stabs you at the Wendy's parking lot.

There are cultures around the world that work like this. I'm quite confident that I can knock on the door containing the symbol of my people anywhere in the world I can find it and with a few simple words be invited in for a meal and a visit.

You just gotta know the vampire code secret words.

Has the fed considered increasing federal wage to keep up with cost of living from the past 50 years? Maybe increasing taxes on ultra wealthy or even a wealth tax to pay for third places that use to exist?

I know what you're thinking: but how will they afford their seventh yacht for their fourth vacation home?

What exactly does this have to do with the article?

Without free or adorable third spaces, the population has no place to meet not interact with new people to make friends as adults. Unless you already know someone and general only meet at each other's places, meeting others and having friends is fiscally out of reach.

It's the Capitalism

Sad that I had to scroll to find the real answer. The problem is it’s too abstract for most to understand. Easier to blame technology.

I can recommend the read of The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy by Franco Berardi.

I prefer to be lonely.

Alone != Lonely.
I prefer being alone but being lonely and not having the choice is really bad.

Being crowded and not having a choice is worse.

I personnaly disagree, getting out is easier than making connections for me.
But of course being stuck with people you don't like, or a family you hate sucks too

The time of my life when I had the best mental and physical health was when I was often alone for 1-2 weeks at a time.

Alienation through the capitalization of the cognition. This coupled to the myth that the individual is responsible paved a way to isolation and loneliness.

I wish I could have some time alone. I never have any time to myself.

The problem is that so many social interactions are forced and empty. We have to perform so many perfunctory social interactions that many people just don't have the energy (even with extroverts to an extent) for more meaningful interactions.

Oh my god, this is exactly how I feel about Christmas (though I'm an introvert). Socially-mandated decorating, and socially-mandated dressing up, and socially-mandated gift purchasing, and socially-mandated time with extended family. When did holidays turn into just a different kind of work?

Well said. Back-to-back holidays are a chore, financially and mentally draining, and all the billions of decorations wind up in landfills.

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That's why I'm glad I have friends I talk to every day, even if just online, and online communities I participate in, like through Lemmy or through Discord. It does help to stay connected to others.

You do get quality experiences from that? I feel most online communication platforms nowadays are basically "post and don't look back" or "comment once and bye". Before we had more dominantly forums where topics were discussed over a long period and even between the same people, and you'd easily recognize and connect with people. Lemmy (and reddit) also falls in the first category: you hardly make any connections and topics get abandoned after they disappeared from the front page.

that's what discord is nice for. I've got a group that talks in voice almost every day. we just hang out after work, play a game or two, talk about life. the classic stuff.

I've had some in-depth conversations through Lemmy and Discord, and even group voice chat gaming with friends through Discord. I can get meaningful communication experiences through these platforms IMO, yeah.

I think the problem is literal mobility and social mobility. The friction between me and having a social experience ia huge. I have to drive, pay money to be in a private business space, and it all has to be easy enough to make happen that I can do it alone. We mostly have businesses and activities that suit multiple people going together.

So I imagine if there were more parks, more kinds of public activities, there was transit where Im surrounded by people going to the same place who I can ask for advice - that would be a huge improvement.

Who writes this crap? They should be kicked off the planet.

When did we become so fucking soft? Palestinians and Ukrainians are having their homes bombed and we’re claiming an “epidemic” of loneliness???

Loneliness is detrimental to mental and physical health, experts say, leading to an increased risk of heart disease, dementia, stroke and premature death.

That’s a stretch…

Isolation causes incredible psychological harm. That others are suffering does not eliminate problems at home. Other countries starving does not negate some countries having obesity problems. It's not a contest. It's a question of addressing problems.

That’s a stretch…

It's not exactly news that mental health can have extremely detrimental effects on physical health?

Aptly said, by someone whose never understood why people can't "just be happy."

Yeah, I get it. Hard people make good times, good times make soft people, soft people make hard times...I'm there a little.

But...I I also very much agree that poor mental health leads to lots of physical issues. I live In a first world country, survived a war, and have gone from dont be soft to understanding people's issues aren't made up.

You might ask someone who struggles if you want to really understand.