An essay by Adam Mastroianni about loneliness, happiness, and how we live in both.
There is No Epidemic of Loneliness | Experimental History
In the US, time spent with friends on the weekends has fallen by half in the past 20 years.
The assertion is that people aren’t feeling more lonely, but are in fact more alone. And being alone is problematic on multiple fronts. If being alone was better reflected in our feeling of loneliness we would actually be better equipped to pull ourselves out of it. We would have a tighter gauge of our needs, like how feelings of hunger are tightly coupled to our bodies actual nutritional needs (though it could be better).
Because we aren’t aware of how alone we are, we aren’t motivated to do something about it while we are still suffering negative psychological impacts of being alone.
The final insight, just to give it all away:
That suggests the best prescription for an inadequate social-stat is a bit of brute force. Just as you must sometimes drink even when you’re not thirsty, you must sometimes hang out even when you’re not lonely.