Loneliness is said to be an epidemic, but it isn’t often shown how this epidemic affects people like a true plague. Heart disease, stroke, hypertension. People who face loneliness often face significantly increased rates of these diseases. Loneliness worldwide is skyrocketing, and so too do the occurrences of cardiovascular, mental and other illnesses. People have grappled with loneliness and the problems it causes for hundreds of years. Recently, as the problem of societal loneliness has taken the public stage, there have been government campaigns spreading awareness and spearheading solutions. However, epidemic loneliness is still a dangerously prevalent problem that has yet to be solved. Still, the issues it creates are not so unconquerable. The diseases that it contributes to, the anxieties it feeds, while these are debilitating afflictions, there are proven and effective treatments for these offshoot problems loneliness spawns. By focusing on individualized treatments for these splinter pathologies loneliness creates, the core problem can be weakened and dismantled.
The increasing levels of loneliness across the globe can grant opportunities for other diseases to take root and cause harm. According to Louise Hawkley, a columnist in the Nature journal, “In one meta-analysis of 70 studies, individuals who were lonely had 26% greater odds of early mortality than non-lonely individuals.” What this shows is that loneliness is extremely dangerous business. This issue that is ingrained in our societies is causing too much damage to the population, especially to more vulnerable demographics, like the adolescent and elderly population, as supported by Hawkley’s analysis, where she states “…the frequency of loneliness…is highest in young adulthood, declines in middle adulthood and early old age, and then increases into oldest old age.” The most vulnerable members of our population are the most susceptible to the core issue of loneliness and the diseases it causes, which run rampant in their bodies.
Loneliness is an especially dangerous condition in younger people. Children and young adults need social engagement as part of their development, and loneliness can have an exacerbated negative effect on their mental growth. According to “Loneliness as a health issue”, an article in the Lancet, a reputed medical journal, “adolescents and young adults, for whom socialization is such a key part of development, could be particularly vulnerable, with potentially long-term consequences for mental and physical wellbeing.” What this means is that if we want to keep our young population safe from this danger, we need decisive and precise intervention, and there is little time to waste. The long-term effects of loneliness on the development of children aren’t known, and we cannot in good conscience continue on our current path, endangering future generations.
Loneliness is a complex issue that is yet to be solved. Instead of tackling the core of the issue head on, focusing on the issues loneliness creates can be a more achievable goal that can help more people in the long run. Dora Hopf, a Nature columnist, in her article ”Loneliness and diurnal cortisol levels” states, “in adolescents, significant correlations between self-reported loneliness and cortisol awakening responses during COVID-19 lockdown were found.” What this means is that the levels of cortisol, the hormone that regulates stress, are increased in people that feel lonely. This means that there is a correlation between stress and loneliness. Now, if this stress can be mitigated, this harmful aspect of loneliness can be eliminated, thereby making loneliness safer. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Almost any form of exercise or movement can increase your fitness level while decreasing your stress.” Stress borne from loneliness can be mitigated by exercise, it would make sense that this can be applied similarly to other problems loneliness causes. While this idea of disarming loneliness by fixing some of the smaller issues it causes has not been explored much yet, it can control some of the dangers inherent to loneliness.
Critics could say that the correlation between loneliness and these pathologies does not necessarily imply causation: people who are afflicted by these conditions could become lonely due to the disease making them draw away from social situations rather than the other way around. There might not even be a connection between the two, the two variables could be completely unrelated. However, the other side is that with a topic as well studied as loneliness, it is unlikely that the multitude of people looking for a link between loneliness and disease are making the same error. If it was just a few isolated studies that show a correlation between loneliness and disease, that argument could be valid. However, the majority of studies that ask this question conclude that loneliness causes disease. Even though mixing up correlation and causation is an easy fallacy to fall into, when there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, like in the case of the relationship that loneliness has with disease, the link between them becomes clear.
There is also the opposing stance that in writing loneliness off as too hard to fix and attempting to fix it by mitigating its dangers that aren’t the core issue, we do not fix the actual loneliness epidemic. Admittedly, it is true that the root issue is not solved, loneliness will still exist even if its harmful effects are mitigated. Even if better support systems are put into place for people facing second-order issues caused by loneliness, human solutions are fallible. Neglecting the root problem could lead to problems slipping through the cracks, and so there could still be harm done to people. However, any improvement made in the battle against loneliness is a step in the right direction. While putting resources into helping people facing secondary symptoms of loneliness does not solve the root issue, it still helps people. There’s also the angle that fixing the secondary problems loneliness causes is a much easier solution to implement than directly trying to fix the loneliness epidemic. Institutions may get more value for the resource investment they put in, and therefore help more people by putting resources into sorting out the secondary problems caused by loneliness rather than loneliness itself. It could be a safer choice to prioritize expending resources on issues we know how to fix rather than trying to come up with new solutions to the pervasive issue of loneliness, for now at least. Going back to the case of exercise as a treatment for loneliness, incentivizing people to exercise would be a good step in combating loneliness. Incentivizing exercise is not easy, governments have been trying to get people to regularly exercise for a while, with varying levels of success. Developing foundations in routine exercise or participating in exercise programs might be a more achievable goal. One possible strategy based on this idea is to encourage participation in exercise programs such as the first phase of military basic training, by giving out tax breaks. Basic training at the lowest level largely consists of physical training and first aid. It would be easy for the government to track completion and dispense tax breaks accordingly, and the physical workload would help build a starting point for people to launch off of to begin routinely exercising. This is one way that loneliness can be treated by managing a splinter pathology caused by the root problem. Creating incentives and programs that address these splinter pathologies can provide tangible and effective results as we work to tackle the loneliness that is ingrained in society.
To put it briefly, loneliness is an issue that is prevalent in today’s society and is causing harm in indirect ways, like mental and physical illness. While loneliness is a complex problem, it isn’t a problem that we can’t work to mitigate. Reducing the harm loneliness can potentially cause by using supportive interventions on the smaller issues it creates is a strategy that is easier to implement, and it can be impactful at individual and institutional levels. Thinking about complex issues like loneliness in a manner that lets us take smaller steps toward solving them could help us find solutions to them in more achievable ways.
Works Cited
Hawkley, L.C. Loneliness and health. Nat Rev Dis Primers 8, 22 (2022)
The Lancet. “Loneliness as a Health Issue.” The Lancet, vol. 402, no. 10396, 1 July 2023, pp. 79–79
Mayo Clinic . “Exercise and Stress: Get Moving to Manage Stress.” Mayo Clinic, 3 Aug. 2022
Hopf, Dora, et al. “Loneliness and Diurnal Cortisol Levels during COVID-19 Lockdown: The Roles of Living Situation, Relationship Status and Relationship Quality.” Scientific Reports, vol. 12, no. 1, 5 Sept. 2022