Dame Maggie Smith of Downton Abbey fame once said: “There’s a difference between solitude and loneliness.” For Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the therapist with a thick German accent who taught Americans to talk frankly about sex, solitude can bring peace, but loneliness stems from social isolation.
Smartphone addiction and social media usage can fuel that isolation.
“When we spend more time scrolling rather than leaving our homes, that’s when trouble could start,” said Allison Gilbert, who co-authored Dr. Ruth’s last book, “The Joy of Connections: 100 Ways to Beat Loneliness and Live a Happier and More Meaningful Life.” The book was published just weeks after Westheimer’s death in July at the age of 96.
In “The Joy of Connections,” Dr. Ruth makes the case that technology can facilitate in-person encounters. Yet young people, the heaviest users of such tech, might be scrolling more than they are connecting — and that’s having an impact on their mental health. An academic at Emory University who has studied the phenomenon in both Japan and the U.S. calls it an epidemic of loneliness.
Loneliness doesn’t just feel bad. It’s associated with actual harm to human health: increased risk of stroke, memory loss and cardiovascular disease. A report by the Georgia Regional Commission says there’s a connection between loneliness in seniors, high stroke rates and lack of public transportation, which can limit social interactions. One study asserts that the health impact of loneliness is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Whereas loneliness in Gen Z and Millennials seems to be fueled by compulsive social media use, loneliness in older Americans is due to loss of family and friends, deteriorating health, and lack of access to transportation, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Ruth felt that the experience of losing her entire family in the Holocaust gave her a resilience that could help people old and young tackle loneliness.
Her secret? She cultivated a lifelong family of chosen friends even after she had started a family of her own, Gilbert said. In the book, Westheimer provides 100 examples from her own life and work to teach readers how to start.
Loneliness affects all ages and classes
The issue has gained the attention of the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, who worked with Dr. Ruth on the book and detailed his own struggle with loneliness in an op-ed piece for the New York Times.
In 2021, the UK became the first country to appoint a Minister of Loneliness, and Japan recently followed suit. Last year, New York State appointed Dr. Ruth the state’s first Ambassador to Loneliness.
Academics say social media is the main driver of loneliness among younger people. Earlier this year, New York City declared social media a “toxin” similar to air pollution, and 64% of Americans told Pew Researchers that social media is bad for American democracy.
It’s also emerging as a class issue in American society. An op-ed recently pointed out that as Big Tech seeks to foil regulations that could curb usage among young people — and harm the industry’s bottom line — Silicon Valley executives often block their own kids from using smartphones and social media.
There’s also a financial and societal cost. A study by AARP and Stanford University’s Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging found that a lack of social contacts among older adults is associated with an estimated $6.7 billion in additional Medicare spending annually.
The suicide rate among people ages 10 to 24 increased 62% from 2007 through 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But for people ages 10 to 14, the suicide rate tripled from 2007 through 2018 while the homicide rate doubled from 2016 through 2021. The CDC said fostering school connectedness can build resilience and protect at-risk young adults.
Loneliness is a global struggle
Chikako Ozawa-de Silva, Professor of Japanese Studies and Anthropology at Emory, worries that the U.S. faces a dilemma not unlike what she has observed in Japan. There, an entire generation has been afflicted by social withdrawal — tens of thousands called hikikomori have stayed at home and not ventured out for decades. Psychologists are alarmed by the global rise of what they’ve dubbed Hikikomori Syndrome, or extreme social withdrawal.
“It’s not about cultural differences for me because what has happened in Japan is now happening in the U.S.,” Ozawa-de Silva said.
The U.S. is seeing more school absenteeism and young adults who don’t leave their homes and are dependent on their parents — the hikikomori phenomenon initially observed in Japan, she noted.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, nearly 14.7 million students (or 29.7% of the entire student population) reported chronic school absenteeism in the 2021-22 school year. A year later, after the pandemic had ended and schools reopened, chronic school absenteeism remained stuck at 25% of American students.
In Georgia, the chronically absent rate during the 2022-23 school year was between about 20% to nearly 30% in most of metro Atlanta’s largest school districts, according to state data. Atlanta Public Schools had the highest rate at 34.8%. It was 13.2% during the 2019-20 school year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in August.
Moreover, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health in the U.S. reported that rates of adolescent depression nearly doubled in a decade — from 8.1% in 2009 to 15.8% in 2019. “We need to see that these phenomena are all connected to the epidemic of loneliness,” Ozawa-de Silva said. “They all belong to the same constellation of problems related to not feeling safety and security in our relationships to each other and to society.”
She said America’s children and young adults are bearing the brunt of intense political polarization among adults in the U.S. “The U.S. needs to undergo a shift in social values toward more compassion and empathy and respect for others,” she said.
What can you do about loneliness?
If tapping on smartphones is making younger Americans lonely and older Americans are feeling stuck at home, a positive step forward could be to acknowledge the problem, said Dr. Toni P. Miles, an epidemiologist at University of Georgia and a scholar at the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers.
“Adults have to take responsibility for their social structures,” Miles said. “The American dream is to have your own freestanding house. But if no one comes to you, or if you don’t bring people in, you are alone.”
Dr. Ruth, for her part, stressed the importance of ditching taboos around loneliness, talking about the issue and seeking a therapist’s help, if necessary.
“Unlike a fatal disease,” she wrote, “Loneliness is curable.”
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