What’s in it for me? Find out why this is the Lonely Century – and how we can reconnect.
Why are so many of us so lonely? Some might blame COVID-19, with its lockdowns, social distancing, and self-isolation. But the issue is bigger; loneliness has been a defining characteristic of the twenty-first century.
For decades, politicians have championed self-interest over the collective good. This, combined with mass migration to cities and our dependence on technology, has undermined our ability to connect with those around us. As a result, loneliness is damaging our health, wealth, and happiness.
These blinks explore the subjects that have shaped the Lonely Century, which range from social media addiction to the companionship of AI sex robots. Despite the doom and gloom, we’ll find that there’s still hope and discover the steps we can take to reconnect.
In these blinks, you’ll learn
what loneliness has to do with the rise of right-wing populism;
why some urban dwellers are watching others eat online; and
how small talk with your local barista can brighten your day.
The Lonely Century has been fueled by neoliberal capitalism.
Most of us know what it’s like to feel lonely. But would loneliness ever drive you to commit a crime?
It may sound improbable, but consider Japan’s Tochigi prison. Over the last 20 years, the number of older prisoners there has quadrupled. Why? Well, elderly women, most over the age of 65, have been committing minor offenses in order to escape solitude for the company and care of fellow inmates.
But it’s not only the elderly who have been feeling more lonely. Across Europe, the United States, and Australia, the rate of loneliness among 15-year-olds has also been on the rise. And even before the coronavirus pandemic, one in five millennials claimed to have no friends at all.
It’s clear that the Lonely Century isn’t a generational problem. And the loneliness we’re experiencing isn’t just about feeling unheard or unseen by friends or family. It’s also about feeling unsupported by our employers, community, and government.
The key message here is: The Lonely Century has been fueled by neoliberal capitalism.
In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan pushed forward a political project called neoliberal capitalism, or neoliberalism. It called for governments to minimize their interference in markets, as well as people’s personal affairs. The project also championed self-reliance, small government, and market competition. Communal values and the collective good were less of a priority.
Over the past four decades, neoliberalism has created an immense increase in wealth gaps. In 1989, American CEOs made 58 times more than an average worker. By 2018, this gap had grown nearly fivefold.
As a result, large parts of the population now feel left behind. The system has, by and large, corroded our ability to provide for our families or maintain our status in society. But poverty doesn’t only make us feel marginalized; it also puts us at a higher risk of loneliness.
Neoliberalism has literally affected how we relate to one another. Decades of hyper-competitiveness have shifted our collective values. For many, solidarity and kindness now play second fiddle to the pursuit of self-interest. This “every man for himself” attitude makes us less inclined to help the people in our community. As a result, more and more people are ending up feeling isolated.
Our new, super-individualistic neoliberal mindset is even reflected in pop songs. In 1977, David Bowie sang that “we could be heroes.” But in the twenty-first century, singers increasingly use first-person pronouns – just think of Kanye West’s “I am a God.”
Loneliness causes illness and disease.
Butter, sugar, cream. These are staple ingredients in the diet of the Haredim – members of a strict Judaic community who make up about 12 percent of Israel’s population. Unsurprisingly, the Haredim are seven times more prone to obesity than their secular Israeli counterparts. They also earn far less than their neighbors; over 54 percent of the Haredim live below the poverty line.
One might assume, then, that their life expectancy would also be lower. But, in fact, the opposite is true. The Haredim have a longer life expectancy than their socioeconomic ranking suggests. Why? Experts believe it’s due to having a much tighter community. The Haredim pray, celebrate, and work together; they also offer each other childcare help, financial support, and just general advice.
So community brings longevity. Conversely, it should come as no surprise that our current loneliness crisis is taking a physical toll.
The key message here is: Loneliness causes illness and disease.
Think about a time when you felt lonely. Chances are, the experience was quiet and muted rather than stressful. But your body still produced the same “fight or flight” hormones that it makes when we’re under attack. As a result, your cholesterol, blood pressure, and cortisol levels all rose faster than they would if you felt supported.
Eventually, such fluctuations of blood pressure and cholesterol rates create lasting effects in your body. They trigger stress responses in your brain and lead to persistent inflammation. And when your body is inflamed, your immune system is overworked. That leaves you more susceptible to all sorts of illnesses.
No surprise, then, that lonely people are 32 percent more likely to have a stroke, 29 percent more likely to experience heart disease, and 64 percent more likely to develop clinical dementia.
Our loneliness crisis is also costing the global economy – to the tune of billions of dollars. In the United States, seniors’ loneliness alone costs Medicare, the national health insurance program, about $7 billion a year. And that’s before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Loneliness could be key to understanding right-wing movements.
When we think of Donald Trump’s supporters, “lonely” probably isn’t the first word that comes to mind. But in a 2016 poll, the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy found that Trump supporters were less likely to have close friends or acquaintances than those who voted for Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. Trump supporters were also less likely to ask their neighbors or community organizers for support when they needed help.
This loneliness isn’t a matter of party lines. If we compare Trump’s supporters with people who voted for his main Republican opponent, Ted Cruz, the difference is stark: Trump voters were twice as likely to report they “rarely or never” engaged with groups like parent-teacher organizations or sports teams.
The key message here is: Loneliness could be key to understanding right-wing movements.
The link between loneliness and the rise of right-wing populism was first made by Hannah Arendt, one of the most important political theorists of the twentieth century. Arendt fled anti-Semitic persecution in Hitler’s Germany and immigrated to the United States. In 1951, she published a seminal text called “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” It argues that totalitarianism attracts lonely individuals by offering them the potential to reclaim self-respect and a sense of purpose.
Today, a similar trend is unfolding because of economics. There are fewer traditional jobs in industry, and, as we’ve already seen, neoliberalism is driving inequality. As a result, many white, working-class men are left to suffer the loss of economic security and social status.
That feeds exactly the kind of marginalization that right-wing populists such as Trump and France’s Marine Le Pen play upon.
Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again'' appealed to lonely individuals who desired a return to days of yore. They clamored for traditional employment, a sense of self-worth, and community spirit. The matching hats and shirts they wore to rallies fed a community ritual. They no longer felt isolated and, instead, became part of a fellowship.
Trump knew how to benefit from this feeling of commonality, always using words like we and us in his speeches. Yet, like all other right-wing populist movements, Trump’s community was also based on exclusion. It alienated other people through xenophobic messages. For disgruntled Trump voters, immigration was an easier target than neoliberalism, automation, or government spending priorities.
The recent wave of urbanization is exacerbating global loneliness.
In 2019, the author met up with a woman named Brittany. As they walked around New York City’s NoHo neighborhood, the pair discussed the #MeToo movement and their favorite books. There was a deep sense of camaraderie.
Here’s the catch: the author had never met Brittany before! Instead, she’d agreed to pay a company called RentAFriend $40 an hour to have someone spend the afternoon with her. Brittany revealed that most of her clients were lonely professionals in their thirties to forties who didn’t have time to make friends – or invest the energy to keep them.
But RentAFriend is just one of the many new services that cater to lonely city dwellers.
The key message here is: The recent wave of urbanization is exacerbating global loneliness.
Artists and poets have expressed the loneliness of urban life since at least the nineteenth century. But with almost 70 percent of the global population expected to move to cities by 2050, the situation demands urgent attention.
Particular to our times is the fact that in many of the world’s urban centers – think Manhattan, Tokyo, or Paris – around half of residents live alone. Of course, they aren’t all lonely. But according to the European Commission’s 2018 report on loneliness, people who live on their own are far more likely to feel lonely, especially in times of difficulty.
For those who are prone to loneliness, mealtimes are an especially difficult time. To remedy this, a fast-growing trend has taken hold across the world. Called mukbang, it involves watching a host eat copious quantities of food online.
Mukbang stars have millions of followers and earn up to six figures through advertising. And it’s not a one-way interaction; during the broadcast, viewers can pay to send a “star balloon” that others see on their screens. The presenter acknowledges the donation by username and asks whoever sent it what they should eat next.
While transactional relationships such as those provided by mukbang or RentAFriend have the potential to alleviate loneliness, they require very little emotional input. Some mukbang fans even report that, to them, real friendships feel burdensome.
But, as we’ll see in the next blink, developing the skill of friendship is essential for building up the social muscle that creates mutual understanding and underlines democratic practices.
A contactless world feeds loneliness.
Say you walk into a grocery store and grab a packet of cookies. Everything looks normal – except instead of waiting in line for a cashier, you simply put the cookies in your purse and exit the shop. A computer records your purchase and automatically charges you.
If this seems like an improbable future, you’ll be surprised to learn that this store already exists. It’s called Amazon Go, and it’s one of the first convenience stores run by the e-commerce giant. In the upcoming years, Amazon has plans to open thousands of these stores worldwide.
Amazon Go is an extreme example of the contactless commerce trend that has been increasing over the course of the twenty-first century. Today, you can order a restaurant meal via companies such as Deliveroo or Seamless, do yoga in your living room from a YouTube video, or buy your groceries online without ever leaving your couch. And now, because of the pandemic, many of us are avoiding contact with other people altogether.
The key message here is: A contactless world feeds loneliness.
In the past few decades, the United States and the United Kingdom have slashed funding for communal spaces such as libraries, playgrounds, and youth centers. In the United Kingdom alone, almost 800 libraries closed their doors between 2008 and 2018.
But cuts in funding for public spaces pose a problem for democracy. These spaces are crucial because they allow us to practice interacting with people who are different from us. Their loss also eliminates the opportunities for small encounters that color our daily lives.
A 2013 study by sociologists at the University of British Columbia found that such “microinteractions” have a measurable effect on our overall well-being. The researchers recruited customers outside of a Starbucks in a bustling urban area. One group was asked to engage the barista in friendly conversation, while the other was instructed to be efficient and avoid unnecessary small talk.
The results were definitive – people in the “friendly” group felt a higher sense of connection and happiness. It seems that whether friendliness is genuine or performed, the act of being friendly can be just as important as the process of receiving friendliness. Both make us feel more connected.
With this in mind, we need to ensure that COVID’s demand for social distancing doesn’t continue to shape our lives after the pandemic ends.
Children are especially vulnerable to the dangers of excessive screen time.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re attached to your smartphone, you’re not alone. On average, we check our phones 221 times a day. Around half of teenagers spend the majority of their time online, and more than a third of us check our phones within the first five minutes of waking up.
It’s no coincidence that so many of us are glued to our screens. According to former Facebook president Sean Parker, the team behind the site consciously tried to make it as addictive as possible.
Digital technologies like smartphones and social media have made it easier than ever to communicate with people around the world. But ease of communication doesn’t help solve the loneliness crisis. To understand why, let’s look at how social media has undermined our ability to connect with the people in front of us.
The key message here is: Children are especially vulnerable to the dangers of excessive screen time.
You can probably remember a time you felt frustrated that a friend or partner’s focus was on their phone instead of on you. It turns out that screen time is actually impairing our face-to-face social skills. This is especially the case for young children.
A project at the University of Bristol found that children who spent more than two hours a day looking at a screen were less able to express themselves emotionally. And in 2019, a Canadian study of children aged one to four found that increased screen time negatively impacted their ability to have empathy, be helpful, or keep their cool in difficult situations.
Similarly troubling is the fact that social media has left children particularly vulnerable to cyberbullying. Half of all kids now get a smartphone before their tenth birthday – so the threat isn’t likely to go away anytime soon.
If we want to make the online world a better place for our children, governments will need to regulate – they’ll need to enact laws that protect children from addictive social media. One potentially effective policy would be banning addictive social media for children under the age of consent.
This might sound like an infringement of personal freedoms. But the British public felt similarly outraged in 1989, when car seat belts were made mandatory for kids. Ultimately, it’s all about the evidence. If there were proof that restrictions on social media could protect children from exclusion and isolation, people would get on board.
Social robots offer a potential remedy against loneliness.
Have you ever heard of a Roomba – a small, round robotic vacuum cleaner that endearingly bumps into surfaces or gets stuck under sofas?
For many Roomba owners, these robots have surpassed their functional purpose. In one study, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology gave Roombas to 30 households. Six months later, two-thirds of the vacuum cleaners had a name. And when Roomba manufacturer iRobot promised to replace broken appliances, there was an outcry. Customers didn’t want just any robot. They wanted their robot.
If people can bond with their vacuum cleaners, could robots be one way to address loneliness?
The key message here is: Social robots offer a potential remedy against loneliness.
In Japan, care workers are in short supply, and loneliness rates among the elderly are soaring. So in 2018, the authorities in Saijo, a town in western Japan, decided to run an experiment. They paired ten elderly residents with a free helper robot called PaPeRo. The gadget employed facial recognition technology to offer personalized greetings, timely reminders, and heartfelt gestures. Participants quickly grew attached to their new companions.
Many Japanese seniors are excited about the prospects of social robots becoming their companions, caregivers, or even friends. In a 2018 survey, 80 percent expressed they would be willing to try living with a robot. But social robots aren’t the only for the elderly.
In San Marcos, California, Abyss Creations has been busy manufacturing RealDoll – one of the world’s most lifelike sex robots. The dolls are outfitted with hyperrealistic genitals and hinged jaws that can open and close. Users can customize body and breast sizes, hair colors, and even vaginal styles.
Clearly, RealDolls are built for sex. But Abyss Creations has found that many clients also use the dolls for companionship. So the company has shifted its focus to Harmony, an AI-integrated head that can be fastened to a RealDoll’s body.
Harmony can talk and recognize voices. She can be programmed with twelve personality traits, including “shy,” “sexual,” and “naive.” Harmony also has a “mood” system; she acts sad if left unattended for a few days and gets snappy if she’s called stupid.
RealDoll demonstrates robots’ potential to alleviate loneliness – but there’s a risk. As robot technology improves, will we be less inclined to invest time and energy into real friendships?
Coming together will require structural and personal changes.
The societies we live in are split along the lines of race, gender, and wealth – and the COVID-19 pandemic has only made these divisions clearer. Is there anything that governments can do? Well, there certainly is a precedent.
Following the Great Depression in the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted the New Deal, a wide-ranging program of government spending and regulation. It aimed to bring reforms and relief to citizens who’d been hit the hardest.
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, we have a similar opportunity to come together and create something new.
The key message here is: Coming together will require structural and personal changes.
The greatest challenge for the Lonely Century is reconnecting capitalism with kindness. An important step would be to commit resources to areas where they’re needed most: social security, welfare, and health care.
But beyond these basic commitments to our collective well-being, governments will have to think of ways to give all people a real voice in democracy. Ultimately, we should be living in communities that are active, inclusive, and tolerant.
Taiwan provides one example of what this might look like. Two-hundred thousand of its residents regularly voice their views on how life on the island should be. Should Taiwan ban plastic straws? Is it acceptable to sell alcohol online? Can Uber enter the market?
These polls aren’t binding; they only generate recommendations. Even so, the Taiwanese government has implemented, on average, four-fifths of them. Whenever the authorities chose to counter the majority’s views, they had to explain why.
The benefits of this system are obvious. It surfaces diverse perspectives on how the island should be governed and forces Taiwanese citizens to actively practice democracy. When voters face a dilemma, they have to learn to reconcile their differences.
The Taiwanese approach offers an example of a collective mindset – something we should all strive to build up in place of the stifling neoliberal individualism. When we begin to think of ourselves as part of our communities, we can fight to create a more caring and tolerant society. We might do this by supporting a political candidate with an inclusive agenda, or by boycotting companies that enforce poor working conditions.
Each of us has the power to reconnect and start to undo the damage of the Lonely Century. Even something as small as bringing cookies into your workplace, or putting down the phone when you’re with your friends and family, can contribute to reversing the effects of the Lonely Century.
Final summary
The key message in these blinks:
Loneliness is not just something people suffer from on their own. It is also a collective state that causes illness and disease, undermines our ability to be tolerant of one another, and threatens democracy. We can build a more connected world – and the pandemic presents an opportunity for radical change.
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