Contemporary Loneliness A Behavioral Epidemic

Written By: LAKKITHA WIJAYARATNE, Class Of 2025

This blog is about exploration of the human connection we have lost in modernity. The ignored emotion – loneliness.

INTRODUCTION

Firstly I would like to paraphrase the Indian Philanthropist and Entrepreneur Geetanjali Kirloskar: “In the upcoming 5 years following graduation, what matters the most are the relationships and networks which are built. They will act as buffers and pillars of support when the going truly gets difficult within the time that you have ahead of yourself.”

When starting to write this blogpost these words struck a chord within me, as I myself, am just finishing off my penultimate year here with my fellow batchmates and so are many of my other peers soon awaiting their graduation this year. The question of: what next? And the realization of the rather immense amount of awaited freedom and responsibility, spearheaded my curiosity in exploring the bonds between people as they start living their supposed “Adult” lives.

Upon just a shallow exploration of some post-COVID articles this concept of “contemporary loneliness” revealed itself. Let me start by asking you the reader: When was the last time you felt truly lonely? Be it lack of romance, a lack of family or simply felt isolated from your own friends.

THE ‘WHY’ & THE ‘WHAT’

At least from personal experience, quite a few of us would have encountered this feeling. This is further supported by the recent launching of the WHO Commission on Social Connection, co-chaired by the US surgeon general Vivek Murthy who brought into attention the epidemical nature of the problem earlier last year with the release of an Advisory.

Within which it was revealed that loneliness can lead to considerably greater risks of stroke and other cardiovascular disease progression; development of dementia and even increase the chance of premature mortality. These health risks posed to the individual are even attributed to be similar in regard to that of smoking, alcoholism and obesity. In the same line of thinking that a healthy individual means a healthy population, beyond the direct benefits of reduced morbidity and mortality (population health), we see the tendency that higher levels of social connectedness suggest better community outcomes, ranging from community safety to resilience, prosperity, and representative governments. Ergo: social connection = Better individual health + Better community health and progress.

Now that we’ve explored in broad strokes the need for social connection to combat loneliness, let us now define the term. Loneliness and thereby a lack of social connection is a feeling of subjective distress encountered due a discrepancy between an individual’s perceived social experience and their desired expectation of social experience, be it; in terms of quantity, structure or quality of the latter. And it must be noted that meaningful connections are the crux of the expectation we as a species will always delve into; we have an inherent desire to be creatures of a social nature, even though each individual would have their own ideals on the matter.

THE POPULATIONS TO PROTECT

As Dr Atul Gawande illuminated in his book “Being Mortal”, and as most of us with grandparents can see within our own lives: the older generations tend to get very lonely. Age related decline of physical and mental functions lead to the loss of societal working capacity and forces people to adapt to a novel way of socialization. If one is successful in achieving this adaptation with the help of friends and family most of the time, it is indeed a brighter prognosis than the opposite.

For decades the classic populations at risk of the loneliness epidemic have been the geriatric populations due to their isolations in healthcare facilities and care[1]homes, however our change in values to favour individualistic achievement and the immense digitalisation of our lives have become the harbinger of the loneliness epidemic to the younger generations of our population. In other words, according to recent surveys: adolescents and young adults now have some of the largest figures of loneliness within the population, in especially the developed world.

Perhaps you may also be able to bring into memory: youtube videos garnering millions of views of teenagers discussing their feelings of isolation and lack of “real friends”; lyrics that hit a little too close to heart like “Modern loneliness, we're never alone. But always depressed, yeah. Love my friends to death. But I never call and I never text.”; and simply the general unrest and anxiety of people, to make connections with one another beyond their self serving mind games.

In other words we have a bimodal distribution of the problem with a major focus needed to resolve the issue among the upcoming working population.

HISTORY IS OUR MISTRESS

So how did we exactly arrive at the status quo? For that let's try to focus on the root of the problem at hand. As I alluded to before, as our societies grew from small isolated communities to bustling cities and then the eventual evolution connecting one another at a global scale, the separations between us simply vaporized. (Perhaps an ecumenopolis is just around the corner.) This manifested as a change in our value system of success.

We started to see the forest instead of the trees and moved to change the features of the individual leaves. To explain that analogy: as caste systems of ancient times demonstrate, a farmer’s son will become a farmer and a maid’s daughter will become a maid. But with progress in industry and education more pathways opened up to facilitate the individuals’ growth in a wide array of fields.

We as a species have always been an ambitious bunch, therefore it's not a stretch to imagine that: when given a relatively accessible path favouring the uplifting of an individuals’ potential and improvement, it caught on like wildfire.

From the start of industrialization of the last century, we have become goal oriented and we strive to gain that individual success; to be in the top 1%, to be world renowned; to be the best etc.

Along with the development of industry and infrastructure of travel we also saw the rapid takeover of the communications sphere by means of digitalization. Technology has in eventuality replaced the human connection we used to share more liberally.

Honestly, think and see how long you, yourself spend staring at a screen compared to actually talking to or embracing someone, or simply enjoying solitude.

This has led us to an extent of unlearning how to connect with other people. Especially among the gen Z populace we see this lack of ability to its logical extremes, with more and more parents struggling to strike a balance between their children’s online and offline lives and relationships.

Compared to in person relationships, online ones require to be approached with a certain level of skepticism and distance, so there is no replacing the social connection attained physically. Thereby we now have an ever increasing population of individuals having difficulty in finding meaning and validity in physical social connections.

The ignorant and simple solution to which in recent times is ofcourse turning towards addictive behaviors running after that dopamine rush.

FRAMEWORKS MAKE THE DREAM WORK

Alright, with this lets build ourselves a framework of the causative roots of loneliness. First of all, is the dependence on independence. With the availability of so many resources one can get quite far in life with their own efforts only, not being bogged down by time consuming personal relationships. And with the world’s cultural norm of having a library of Alexandria in our pockets we have access to all the information and so many services we may desire. It's not then at all unbelievable that in that case we try to get a lot done on our own, even perhaps convincing ourselves that we shouldn't disturb others. Then comes the fact that the world itself is an inherently stressful place.

From school recitals, college applications, to integrating into the job market, everything has become a competitive nightmare to overcome. Recent studies also suggest that mental illness acts as a comorbidity in a significant number of cases of mortality, even among the top rankers of cancer, CVD and metabolic syndrome.

Partly it's due to better diagnosis of mental disorders, however the point stands that loneliness can act as a precipitating factor to such diseases and vice versa. And finally the increasing lack of practice in regards to handling physical relationships have deteriorated our social skills to a point that simple listening, being present in the moment, holding space, and responding empathetically have become novel concepts that needs to be taught and relearned.

THE TUNNEL’S LIGHT

The reliance on independence has given birth to efforts of curbing loneliness by oneself. I mean if you are lonely just go to a party or gathering and develop your small talk. If you have anxiety, just drown it down with some alcohol and get out there! This all stems from a desire to relieve yourself of the dissatisfaction of being alone. But the paradoxical nature of this issue is that: loneliness is a problem that you cannot solve on your own. It requires the active participation of another that makes you feel understood, taken care of, heard of, and connected to.

Think about it, you can spend an hour at a party with 10 people but feel the most connection to the 10 minutes you told your partner about your day.

This also comes with the added benefit of a healthy release of oxytocin when we help another, thereby making us also feel good. Practices of meditation, gratitude journaling and in general living life with introspection have shown to be vital in developing mindfulness, which in turn helps with paying attention the person and moment in front of you.

While we can discuss care centers, better access to mental health services, social initiatives like running groups, art classes etc, the vital role still remains in the hands of you and I. We must reach out and connect with those that need it.

Everyone is wearing a mask and it's up to us to truly be tolerant, accepting and compassionate enough to reach out and learn about one another and slowly allow the person within the mask to flourish, inturn we also flourish. As a final note, go give a call to that friend or relation, and ask them about their day :)