n 2018, then UK Prime Minister Theresa May said, “Loneliness is one of the greatest public health challenges of our time,” and appointed the country’s first minister for loneliness. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called loneliness a “growing health epidemic,” stating that social isolation is “associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day.”
What do the following have in common? Rising rates of social anxiety and social withdrawal, alarming rates of suicide (up 51% among teenage girls in the U.S. in just a two-year period from 2019-2021, and up over 300% over a ten-year period), the increasing number of mass shootings, the epidemic of burnout in healthcare and other sectors, eating disorders. All too often, at the heart of each of these is a lack of social connection and the feeling of being loved, accepted, and understood. This is loneliness.
Loneliness is not just being alone; it’s feeling alone, feeling absence—specifically, the absence of love. As Mother Theresa put it: ““The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”
When I began writing my book The Anatomy of Loneliness, I thought I was writing a book on suicide. Suicide rates jumped in Japan in 1998 across the board (but by more than 50% among adolescents), and stayed elevated over the next decade. No one knew why or what to do about it. For years, I interviewed young Japanese and studied discussions on suicide websites and chatrooms, where people met to arrange suicide pacts. Repeatedly I came upon the theme of loneliness. One online post summed it up for me, a young woman who wrote: “I’m too lonely to die alone. Isn’t there anyone who will die with me?”
These young people expressed a yearning to be valued beyond the transactional productivity they contributed to society, their “instrumental value.” We don’t relate to those we care about in this way: we love them because of who they are. The instrumentalization of human value is a core cultural concept at the heart of our social structures that promotes loneliness and that needs to be re-examined. What message are we sending to young people if competition and productivity are not balanced with care and intrinsic self-worth?
So, where’s the solution? Johan Galtung, the father of Peace Studies, introduced the concept of “positive peace.” True peace is not just the absence of violence, but rather the presence of those things which prevent and protect against violence: institutions, norms, values. Norms and values like empathy, compassion, trust, understanding. Institutions that ensure fairness and justice. The next stage for us is to imagine how to build the norms, values, and institutions that will ensure the end of the lonely society. Increasingly, our world is a global family. If we can make people feel lonely, we can do the opposite too.
Education is the most powerful tool we have for bringing about this change. Recent research in psychology and neuroscience shows that young children and even infants have a natural orientation towards kindness and helping over cruelty.
Research in the field of Social Emotional Learning also shows that kindness, empathy, and compassion can be taught, leading to measurable improvements in academic achievement and prosocial behavior, and a decrease in antisocial behavior. At Emory University, an international education program called SEE Learning (Social, Emotional and Ethical Learning), developed in partnership with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, is one such example, providing free curricula and trainings across the world to cultivate these skills in children. My husband, who helped develop the SEE Learning program, had the rare opportunity to ask His Holiness the Dalai Lama about why young people were experiencing intense loneliness and turning to suicide. The Dalai Lama responded, “That is not that individual’s problem. It is society’s problem for not making them feel cared for.”
This is the shift in perspective we need. Society produces loneliness, an absence of feeling loved, seen, and understood. The rate of this production has reached epidemic levels, especially among children and young people. The vaccine for this epidemic is educating for empathy: the ability to understand and care for one another. With this vaccine, we can work towards the ultimate cure: a compassionate society.
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A Vaccine for the Loneliness Epidemic
Photo by Christophe Dutour via Unsplash.
January 20, 2023
Society produces loneliness, and the rate of this production has reached epidemic levels, especially among children and young people. The vaccine for this epidemic is educating for empathy: the ability to understand and care for one another, write Chikako Ozawa-de Silva & Brendan Ozawa-de Silva.
I
n 2018, then UK Prime Minister Theresa May said, “Loneliness is one of the greatest public health challenges of our time,” and appointed the country’s first minister for loneliness. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called loneliness a “growing health epidemic,” stating that social isolation is “associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day.”
What do the following have in common? Rising rates of social anxiety and social withdrawal, alarming rates of suicide (up 51% among teenage girls in the U.S. in just a two-year period from 2019-2021, and up over 300% over a ten-year period), the increasing number of mass shootings, the epidemic of burnout in healthcare and other sectors, eating disorders. All too often, at the heart of each of these is a lack of social connection and the feeling of being loved, accepted, and understood. This is loneliness.
Loneliness is not just being alone; it’s feeling alone, feeling absence—specifically, the absence of love. As Mother Theresa put it: ““The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”
When I began writing my book The Anatomy of Loneliness, I thought I was writing a book on suicide. Suicide rates jumped in Japan in 1998 across the board (but by more than 50% among adolescents), and stayed elevated over the next decade. No one knew why or what to do about it. For years, I interviewed young Japanese and studied discussions on suicide websites and chatrooms, where people met to arrange suicide pacts. Repeatedly I came upon the theme of loneliness. One online post summed it up for me, a young woman who wrote: “I’m too lonely to die alone. Isn’t there anyone who will die with me?”
These young people expressed a yearning to be valued beyond the transactional productivity they contributed to society, their “instrumental value.” We don’t relate to those we care about in this way: we love them because of who they are. The instrumentalization of human value is a core cultural concept at the heart of our social structures that promotes loneliness and that needs to be re-examined. What message are we sending to young people if competition and productivity are not balanced with care and intrinsic self-worth?
So, where’s the solution? Johan Galtung, the father of Peace Studies, introduced the concept of “positive peace.” True peace is not just the absence of violence, but rather the presence of those things which prevent and protect against violence: institutions, norms, values. Norms and values like empathy, compassion, trust, understanding. Institutions that ensure fairness and justice. The next stage for us is to imagine how to build the norms, values, and institutions that will ensure the end of the lonely society. Increasingly, our world is a global family. If we can make people feel lonely, we can do the opposite too.
Education is the most powerful tool we have for bringing about this change. Recent research in psychology and neuroscience shows that young children and even infants have a natural orientation towards kindness and helping over cruelty.
Research in the field of Social Emotional Learning also shows that kindness, empathy, and compassion can be taught, leading to measurable improvements in academic achievement and prosocial behavior, and a decrease in antisocial behavior. At Emory University, an international education program called SEE Learning (Social, Emotional and Ethical Learning), developed in partnership with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, is one such example, providing free curricula and trainings across the world to cultivate these skills in children. My husband, who helped develop the SEE Learning program, had the rare opportunity to ask His Holiness the Dalai Lama about why young people were experiencing intense loneliness and turning to suicide. The Dalai Lama responded, “That is not that individual’s problem. It is society’s problem for not making them feel cared for.”
This is the shift in perspective we need. Society produces loneliness, an absence of feeling loved, seen, and understood. The rate of this production has reached epidemic levels, especially among children and young people. The vaccine for this epidemic is educating for empathy: the ability to understand and care for one another. With this vaccine, we can work towards the ultimate cure: a compassionate society.
