Article focuses on senior citizens. But loneliness is far from only senior people problem. More and more young and middle age men and women are lonely in western world. Maybe this will be a step towards trying to do something about young people loneliness too, as lonely young people have even worse impact on society than lonely old people.
Young people can walk and drive longer distances, and so normally have less reason to remain lonely, I would guess.
Do lonely young people continue to be lonely mainly because they don't know how to initiate social interaction? Or because they don't realize that companionship is what they need?
I suspect many lonelies don't conform to the conventional "nuclear family" which makes it harder to find social outlets. Or they're older and/or divorced.
It seems to me like there used to be a lot more clubs and interest groups meeting regularly 20 years ago. In my area (near Philly) all the meetups seem to take place near our downtown metro area, creating travel constraints which make it hard for someone without a car to attend. And even then, most clubs meet only once a month, which doesn't make for much human contact.
I suspect the availability of interest groups on the web/net has diminished the demand to meet in person, which no doubt contributes to the loss of interpersonal bonding.
I'm 40ish and married right now, but throughout my life I've alternated between being solitary and living with people. My take on it is that both are psychologically stressful in different ways. I've wondered once or twice whether it would be better to have some kind of drug or therapy that helps a person be content with being alone rather than assuming that companionship is going to be a magic bullet for everyone.
Part of the problem is that our culture strongly encourages social contribution and development of identity via social mechanisms. We stigmatize non-contribution and individual identity using labels like crazy, weirdo, freak and degenerate.
Isolating non-conformists wouldn't need medication and therapy if people respected them in the first place.
Yeah, that stigma seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon. Reading something like Dickens there's far more tolerance of eccentricity on many axes. (That might be just Dickens himself, of course, but I doubt it.)
Fuchemol (hermitin HCl) is FDA-approved to reduce your inconvenient cravings for social contact. Known side effects include repetitive meals, speaking to inanimate objects or animals, excessive self-stimulation, and dying alone. Talk to your doctor about whether the anti-loneliness pill might work for you today!
Clearly, some people exist that do not care much for the annoying habits of other humans. And some humans can't go a single day without reassuring themselves that they exist through the mirror of another person.
There must be some form of biochemical factor that determines an appropriate level of social interaction for any specific person, or we would not see the variation. Thus, it is only a matter of time before the specific receptor is identified, and a drug found that targets it without unpleasant side-effects.
Such a drug might be useful for future manned space industry. It reduces the number of variables required. If your pioneer crews don't necessarily have to interact socially to remain psychologically stable, you don't have to be quite as careful to ensure their social compatibility. They can all do their work, then go to their racks, swallow their pill, put on headphones, and thoroughly ignore each other for years on end.
> Known side effects include repetitive meals, speaking to inanimate objects or animals, excessive self-stimulation, and dying alone.
On the other hand, your relationship could just as easily prevent you from writing a book, or getting a Master's degree, or traveling when and where you want, because you're spending every night at your clingy girlfriend's house eating popcorn and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
One thing I've been thinking about is how the terms of social relation have been changing rapidly, and we don't have tools or forms for managing them any more. In order to communicate, form bonds, etc., we need common terms, things we can agree on the meaning of, and those have eroded - our moral systems have decayed as people move away from religion, our communication styles change every few years, national boundaries weaken, our communities become atomized by changing market forces.
The upshot is confusion - more of us know less about how we should behave, where we should look for community, who we should talk to and how.
Religion may play part, but one of main reasons is economic independence. If a couple of decades ago people had to cooperate to just survive, at least where I live, now many are financially independent and can survive perfectly without outside assistance. This reduces the need for social interaction and even seeking partner.
Another big reason I'd say is vast availability of solitary entertainment through TV and Internet that further reduced need for interaction.
