Isolation and loneliness are an epidemic as damaging as smoking and obesity in the United States, costing the health industry billions of dollars annually, the surgeon general of the U.S. said in a stark advisory.
About half of U.S. adults say they’ve experienced loneliness, Dr. Vivek Murthy said in an 81-page report from his office.
"We now know that loneliness is a common feeling many people experience. It’s like hunger or thirst. It’s a feeling the body sends us when something we need for survival is missing," Murthy told The Associated Press in an interview. "Millions of people in America are struggling in the shadows, and that’s not right. That’s why I issued this advisory to pull back the curtain on a struggle that too many people are experiencing."
The declaration is intended to raise awareness around loneliness but won’t unlock federal funding or programming devoted to combatting the issue.
Research shows that Americans, who have become less engaged with worship houses, community organizations and even their family members in recent decades, have steadily reported increased loneliness. The number of single households has also doubled over the last 60 years.
But the crisis deeply worsened when COVID-19 spread, prompting schools and workplaces to shut their doors and sending millions of Americans to isolate at home away from relatives or friends.
The surgeon general’s report finds that people called their friend groups during the coronavirus pandemic and reduced time spent with those friends. Americans spent about 20 minutes a day in person with friends in 2020, down from 60 minutes daily nearly two decades earlier.
The loneliness epidemic is hitting young people, ages 15 to 24, especially hard. The age group reported a 70% drop in time spent with friends during the same period.
Loneliness increases the risk of premature death by nearly 30%, with the report revealing that those with poor social relationships also had a greater risk of stroke and heart disease. Isolation also elevates a person’s likelihood of experiencing depression, anxiety and dementia, according to the research. Unfortunately, Murthy provided no data illustrating how many people die directly from loneliness or isolation.
The surgeon general calls on workplaces, schools, technology companies, community organizations, parents, and others to make changes to boost the country’s connectedness. For example, he advises people to join community groups and put down their phones when catching up with friends, employers to think carefully about their remote work policies, and health systems to train doctors to recognize the health risks of loneliness.
Technology has rapidly exacerbated the loneliness problem. For example, one study cited in the report found that people who used social media for two hours or more daily were more than twice as likely to report feeling socially isolated than those on such apps for less than 30 minutes daily.
Murthy said social media is driving the increase in loneliness in particular. His report suggests that technology companies protect children, especially around their social media behavior.
"There’s no substitute for in-person interaction," Murthy said. "As we shifted to use technology more and more for communication, we lost out on much of that in-person interaction. So how do we design technology that strengthens our relationships instead of weakens them?"