1 in 8 Americans feels lonely a lot of the time
That number rises to nearly 1 in 4 for younger people
The latest version of the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey — a broad gauge of the economic and social issues affecting American households — found some not-so-surprising news: Americans are lonely.
The survey conducted between August 20 and September 16 reported that 1 in 8 people (12.6%) was feeling lonely either “always” or “usually,” including nearly a quarter (23.3%) of the younger population (those aged 18 to 29). Since the Household Pulse Survey at the start of the year, slightly more people are now feeling lonely a lot of the time. 40% of people reported feeling lonely at least sometimes.
The consistent findings of the Pulse Surveys follow on from the watershed moment last year when US surgeon general Vivek Murthy declared loneliness an epidemic, equating a lack of social connection to being as lethal as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or consuming 6 alcoholic drinks a day.
So it’s no wonder there’s been a rise in running clubs, knitting groups, pickleball, and more, as people search — quite literally — for ways to meet new people. Google searches for terms like “how to meet people” and “where to make friends” are at or near an all time high.
There’s an app for that?
Tech companies are picking up the trend: at an interview with Time earlier last year, Bumble founder and executive chair Whitney Wolfe Herd commented “loneliness is killing us” as if to reflect the dating app company’s recent decision to acquire friendship app Geneva, which came with the catchphrase, “The online place to find your offline people.”
But so far these online friendship platforms — more like dating-app doppelgängers — don’t seem to have the solution. Experts note that the tech that these companies offer tend to just replicate existing cures for loneliness. After all, it doesn’t seem to be a problem of technology: we’ve had the ability to phone almost anyone on the planet for decades.
