The heart of loneliness is broken communion. Fr. Stephen Freeman looks at the roots of this rupture and its experience as shame.

After a pandemic year of social isolation, we knew loneliness would be a problem. But public health officials have been warning for years that in countries all over the world, rates of loneliness are skyrocketing. How did loneliness become a condition of modern life?

Original Air Date: April 10, 2021

Guests: 

Jason Rohrer — Samantha Rose Hill — Claudia Rankine

Interviews In This Hour: 

My Friend Samantha (The A.I.) — How Loneliness Can Lead to Totalitarianism — Being Black and Alone in America

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Washington — Younger workers report feeling lonely and stressed more often than their older colleagues, results of a recent survey show.

Washington – Around 1 out of 5 workers worldwide experience loneliness on a daily basis, a new report shows.

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Volume 29, Issue 8, September 2024, Page 1047-1067. Read the full article ›

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Seniors who are experiencing social isolation or loneliness may face a higher risk of mortality, heart disease, and depression, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Despite the profound health consequences — and the associated costs — the health care system remains an underused partner in preventing, identifying, and intervening for social isolation and loneliness among adults over age 50.

New Movement Launches to Bring Hope and Practical Guidance for Better Relationships, More Personal Happiness, and Increased Social Harmony

The Social Activities App is connecting people through shared activities, interests, and local events.

Bridging Digital & Personal Worlds, Offering a Diverse Platform to Combat Loneliness. Join the Movement for Genuine Connections & Empowered Local Communities

Crafted in Moscow by a small group of film enthusiasts on a shoestring budget, Dreamover premiered at the Shanghai International Film Festival during pandemic 2021, won Dances With Films in Los Angeles and finally released for a wide public.

Researchers found that in-person contact is more effective than phoning, emailing, and texting for reducing loneliness in older adults.

"When Kristen Radtke was in her twenties, she learned that, as her father was growing up, he would crawl onto his roof in rural Wisconsin and send signals out on his ham radio. Those CQ calls were his attempt to reach somebody— anybody— who would respond. In Seek You, Radtke uses this image as her jumping off point into a piercing exploration of loneliness and the ways in which we attempt to feel closer to one another. She looks at the very real current crisis of loneliness through the lenses of gender, violence, technology, and art. Ranging from the invention of the laugh-track to Instagram to Harry Harlow's experiments in which infant monkeys were given inanimate surrogate mothers, Radtke uncovers all she can about how we engage with friends, family, and strangers alike, and what happens— to us and to them— when we disengage. With her distinctive, emotionally charged drawings and unflinchingly sharp prose, Kristen Radtke masterfully reframes some of our most vulnerable and sublime moments." -- Provided by publisher.

We're a social species now living in isolation. But loneliness was a problem well before this era of social distancing. This hour, TED speakers explore how we can live and make peace with loneliness. Guests on the show include author and illustrator Jonny Sun, psychologist Susan Pinker, architect Grace Kim, and writer Suleika Jaouad.

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Original broadcast date: April 24, 2020. We're a social species now living in isolation. But loneliness was a problem well before this era of social distancing. This hour, TED speakers explore how we can live and make peace with loneliness. Guests on the show include author and illustrator Jonny Sun, psychologist Susan Pinker, architect Grace Kim, and writer Suleika Jaouad.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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How Tech Created a ‘Recipe for Loneliness’  The New York Times

‘For young people to thrive, they need strong ties to their community and easy access to mental health services,’ says NCI’s Dr April Hargreaves.

Read more: How this neuropsychologist is tackling the loneliness epidemic

When COVID-19 barreled into the U.S. this year the predominant public health advice for avoiding infection focused on physical isolation: No parties, concerts, or sports events. No congregating inside in bars or restaurants. No on-site family reunions. No play dates for kids. Just keep away from other people. Meanwhile, although social scientists supported that medical advice, they feared the required physical distancing would spark another epidemic — one of loneliness, which was already at a high level in the U.S. "You might expect this would make things much worse," says Julianne Holt-Lunstad , a neuroscientist and social psychologist at Brigham Young University. But several new studies suggest that huge increase in loneliness hasn't come to pass — at least, not yet. And the researchers studying the pandemic's emotional fallout say we humans may have ourselves to thank. "That sense of solidarity that people are feeling when they ... are collectively going through a challenge together

Dear Readers: On Sept. 23, I published two letters from older adults struggling to find a connection (“Still Grieving” and “Wants a Connection”). I asked those of you who have successfully found friendship and romantic partnership at a later stage in life to write in.

Loneliness and cognitive performance were related in the short term for older adults, according to a new study from researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development.

Loneliness was long thought to cause health conditions ranging from diabetes to cardiovascular disease, but new research paints a more nuanced picture

Feeling alone? Watch out, loneliness increases your risk of dementia, warns a new study. A new study from Florida State University College of Medicine

Socially isolated seniors are at a higher risk of insufficient intake of key micronutrients, particularly vitamin C and vitamin B6, as per a study by

Even before COVID-19, loneliness was becoming the defining condition of the 21st century. At WIRED Smarter, Noreena Hertz, Economist and Author of The Lonely Century, joined us to share challenges of working from home and how we can redesign the workplace so that it has community at its heart. "In the UK 1 in 5 adults said they were lonely most or all of the time, and that's before the pandemic." ABOUT WIRED SMARTER Curated by WIRED’s award-winning editorial team, WIRED Smarter gathers the disruptive minds across business, technology, retail, finance and politics to investigate how innovation, technological advances and world events are changing the way we interact with customers. CONNECT WITH WIRED Events: http://wired.uk/events Subscribe for Events Information: http://wired.uk/signup Web: http://bit.ly/VideoWired Twitter: http://bit.ly/TwitterWired Facebook: http://bit.ly/FacebookWired Instagram: http://bit.ly/InstagramWired Magazine: http://bit.ly/MagazineWired Newsletter: http://bit.ly/NewslettersWired

Three stories compellingly underline the theme of freedom from oppression in Island City.

With a net worth of Rs 43 crore and 14.5 million subscribers on YouTube, Nisha has built an online empire around her love for home-style Indian cuisine.   

The rights of the most vulnerable, including those with dementia, should not be violated

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Last week, driving to the shops, I passed a care home and saw a figure standing at an upstairs window: an old woman looking out at a world she could not enter. She looked like a prisoner. And in a way, that’s probably what she was.

Let’s talk about old people. Let’s talk about people in care homes, about people living with dementia and dying with dementia, out of sight and out of mind, and what the lockdown means for them. Let’s talk about what we are not talking about enough, not thinking about enough, not caring about enough.

Tim Walsh, 51, is feared to have lain dead at his Cheshire home for up to seven days before he was found by worried work colleagues when he failed to turn up for a shift on August 19 last year.

Seniors who are experiencing social isolation or loneliness may face a higher risk of mortality, heart disease, and depression, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Despite the profound health consequences — and the associated costs — the health care system remains an underused partner in preventing, identifying, and intervening for social isolation and loneliness among adults over age 50.

More than one-third of adults in the U.S. over 45 likely suffer from chronic loneliness, but creative housing solutions like these can change those numbers.

The Buddy Bench is designed to foster friendships and prevent the blues at playtime.

Researchers found the brains of people who spent months in the Antarctic got smaller. What they learned applies to all of us.

Vivek Murthy, former U.S. Surgeon General, says that, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, we were facing another health crisis: loneliness. Studies show that, around the world, more people have been feeling a greater sense of social isolation, which has many negative affects, including increased blood pressure, reduced immune response, and decreased engagement and productivity at work. But organizations can be a place where people find a greater sense of belonging. Murthy wants us to take loneliness more seriously and focus on fostering the types of authentic connections -- face-to-face and virtual -- that we need to combat it. He's the author of the book "Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World."

Ean Miles Kessler is a Chicago playwright. He's originally from Hamden, Connecticut, but has also lived and worked in New York City and Miami. In 2018, he "made the leap" and moved to the Edgewater neighborhood in Chicago. "It's a great neighborhood in a great city," he said. Usually for State Of The Artist, I follow artists to the places that inspire them. I interview and photograph them in the locations that are meaningful to them. Because of the quarantine, instead of interviewing Ean in Edgewater or the theaters where he works in Chicago, I had to interview him over the phone. Not only that, in order to get the best possible audio, I had to ask him to sit for 40 minutes under a hot blanket to absorb echoes and other ambient room sounds on a day the temperatures soared into the 70s. Several minutes into the interview, Ean said, "Can I just hop out from under this blanket for a second?" He laughed and said, "Because I'm going to have a small heatstroke." It was such a funny moment,

Though some economies have begun reopening, many people around the world are battening down for an indefinite period of extreme social distancing. Loneliness can be a destructive force. The toll of isolation on people’s health has been well documented, but isolation can also be a potent political tool, one often wielded by autocrats and despots. Masha Gessen joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss how the pandemic is reshaping politics, for better and for worse.

A north Queensland man has helped to create a club for car lovers with a disability or mental illness the kind of program he wished was around 14 years ago, when he attempted suicide.

As LGBT people grow old, they can become particularly vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness. Simone de Beauvoir had a keen appreciation of the challenges of ageing – “old age exposes the failure of our entire civilisation” – so can we find resources in her brand of existentialism that address some of the issues raised by LGBT elders?

To fight the Corona virus we’re making the choice to isolate ourselves at home. So it’s going to be a lonely time for some. But loneliness is a problem even when society is firing on all cylinders. Technology gives us more ways to connect so why are we so lonely? How can we build social connections?

Five natural ways to boost the immune system.

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Maggie Doherty

The post Mary Gaitskill’s Art of Loneliness appeared first on The Nation.

The first time I saw my baby Billie was in a photo she'd been born 11 weeks early. The next few months brought agony, loneliness and love and sparked lasting friendships with other mums in the intensive care unit.

Experts have long been concerned about loneliness in America

A medical practice in Manchester, England is giving patients indoor plants to help boost wellness.

Governing bodies of cities and states across the country are ordering people to stay home to stop the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. But a new study