Healing the Hidden Wound: The Fight Against the Loneliness Epidemic
From tech startups to community liaisons, see how visionaries are tackling the public health crisis of loneliness with creativity and care
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared in May loneliness and isolation are a public health crisis. His rationale is straightforward: The physical health consequences of poor or insufficient connection include a 29% increased risk of heart disease, a 32% increased risk of stroke, and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults. Additionally, lacking social connection increases risk of premature death by more than 60%.
“Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation has been an underappreciated public health crisis that has harmed individual and societal health,” Murthy said. “Our relationships are a source of healing and well-being hiding in plain sight — one that can help us live healthier, more fulfilled, and more productive lives.”
Today’s TL;dr shares three articles on the issue. Let’s take a walk together through the topic, shall we?
Loneliness Is a Policy Problem. A Big One.
In the Nov. 6, 2023, issue of Governing, Carl Smith interviews Ann Helmke, faith liaison in the city of San Antonio Human Services Department. While Helmke is an ordained Lutheran minister, she’s not in the job of proselytizing.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with your faith, or even if you have one,” she says of her work. “It’s just about taking care of oneself and others and being a decent human being.”
GGF is a huge fan of anything that incentivizes human decency. Here are three takeaways.
Community Collaboration: Helmke’s job is to “intentionally form collaborations” among various sectors, including faith communities, businesses, nonprofits, and government entities “to work together to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in our city.” Smart. Starting a program from scratch is a massive undertaking. Assisting and coordinating those already addressing an issue is an effective approach for government.
Practical Solutions: Addressing loneliness requires tangible actions. “It might be that you and I have a phone call once a week for the next month,” Helmke said. “It might be setting up a collaborative among the faith community to access congregational property that could be utilized to build on, or to refit old buildings that aren’t being used for affordable, accessible and available housing.”
Prioritize Basic Needs: The approach recognizes Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (chart below) and starts at the bottom. “The more we can get into collaboration around things at the bottom of that hierarchy — housing and food, security and safety — community concerns higher up on the hierarchy start to take care of themselves,” Helmke said. “What comes of collaboration is the formation of community, and as people feel more socially connected, they start working on the more difficult things. It’s like they start to heal themselves because they’ve learned how to work together.” Bingo.
Is loneliness really a serious public policy problem?
Yes, but it’s hardly a new issue, writes Alan Ehrenhalt in “The Long and Persistent History of Loneliness in America,” published Jan. 22 in Governing. Ehrenhalt did a deep dive into loneliness. Here’s what he found:
Historical Prevalence: Loneliness has been a recurring concern throughout American history, with discussions on the topic dating back several decades. Sociologist David Riesman, co-author of the best-selling book The Lonely Crowd, argued in 1950 that as people become fixated on how they appear to others, they feel lonely when they don’t seem to measure up. A couple of decades earlier, historian Roderick Nash wrote, “the typical American in 1927 was nervous. The values by which he ordered his life seemed in jeopardy of being swept away by the forces of growth and complexity.”
Modern Factors: Various societal changes, such as the decline of group activities and memberships, the rise of social media, and the increase in single-person households, have exacerbated feelings of loneliness in contemporary society. “Group activities and memberships have been in steady decline, as the sociologist Robert Putnam pointed out in his 2000 book ‘Bowling Alone,1’” Ehrenhalt writes. “In the 21st century, as Putnam himself has written, they seem to have declined further. Putnam initially attributed much of the aloneness phenomenon to the addictiveness of television; now social media have multiplied its effects.”
Possible Solutions: While addressing loneliness is complex and may not have straightforward solutions, there are potential strategies to mitigate its impact. Suggestions include creating more inviting public spaces, enhancing community infrastructure like parks and libraries, and implementing small-scale initiatives to foster social interaction. The Surgeon General website (quite well designed, IMO) has a section on Social Connection packed with tools and ideas to address the problem.
Can You Solve Loneliness? These Startups Are Betting On It.
The March 2024 issue of WSJ. Magazine featured a look at entrepreneurs and investors channeling efforts into ventures that foster human connection. The story notes the findings of a couple of surveys. A global survey found nearly a quarter of respondents said they felt very or fairly lonely. A 2021 study in the United States, “found that 15 percent of men today don’t have close friendships, a fivefold increase since 1990.” With market potential like that, it’s no surprise there’s a burgeoning industry focused on combating loneliness through community and connection. Let’s take a peek:
Innovative Solutions to Combat Isolation: Entrepreneurs like Radha Agrawal are creating new platforms such as the Belong Center, which offers a modern take on community centers (“Like Alcoholics Anonymous for the Burning Man set,” is how author Chavie Lieber puts it) by incorporating elements of movement, meditation, and open dialogue to encourage deep human connections. “There’s this chemistry of sadness permeating all of our cities right now,” said Agrawal. “It’s up to us to shift that chemistry.”
The Role of Community in Mental Health: The initiatives highlighted, including Peoplehood, reveal a collective effort to create spaces and tools that facilitate relationship-building and improve mental health. Peoplehood says it’s a “first-of-its-kind practice designed to improve our relationships, starting with ourselves.” These efforts show a shift toward valuing social health as part of overall well-being.
Investors Are Backing These Endeavors: These ventures are gaining support from investors and donors, reflecting a growing recognition of the need to address social disconnection. Peoplehood received $7.2 million in funding from a venture-capital firm co-founded by Starbucks founder Howard Schultz. Former Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg raised $4.9 million from investors including Sequoia to make Meeno, an AI chatbot that helps people practice difficult conversations. Because of course there’s an AI chatbot to help with that.
In Other’s Words
Walter Isaacson is one of the great biographers of our time. On the Honestly podcast, he was talking about his latest subject, Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla. Host Bari Weiss noted Musk may very well be the most powerful man on the planet. “It’s not necessarily a knock on Musk for his will to power,” she said. “It’s, in a way, a knock on so many of the systems, including the American federal government, that have failed, and he has stepped into the breach.” To which Isaacson replied:
One hundred percent. We used to be a nation of great risk-takers. That’s how you get rockets into orbit or make an electric vehicle company. Wherever you came from, it’s likely your family took risks. But now we have become a country more filled with referees than risk-takers, more filled with regulators and lawyers and guardrail builders than innovators. I think that’s made us sclerotic as a country. We don’t have the factories that we used to have to build things. We don’t shoot off the rockets the way we used to.
Novelist and writer Marguerite Yourcenar on helping others:
Our great mistake is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has.
Source: Memoirs of Hadrian2 (h/t to James Clear)
Why do people without vision perish, asked Dr. Deborah Hall, psychoanalytic theorist and writer who authors Solutions on Substack.
We perish without vision
because it is our vision
that gives us hope.And hope is what keeps us alive.
Onward and Upward.
P.S. A quick reminder GGF is conducting a reader survey. We’d appreciate your insights!
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