I spoke to CNN News this week about loneliness and why it will linger longer than Covid-19.
Over the past year I’ve talked to various international news outlets, and mostly the questions are the same: why are people so lonely? Why shouldn’t we call it a pandemic? How can we ‘fix’ loneliness?
My answers are the same during Covid-19 as prior to the pandemic (and presumably afterwards). Loneliness is a product of social and political and economic structures, as I argue in my Biography of Loneliness.
Loneliness is a social and emotional problem, rather than a medical and individual one. And we cannot improve the lives of those who experience loneliness without tending to its common cause: a disconnect between the relationships we have and those we want, and a lack of meaning in people’s lives.
These existential causes connect with structural causes during Covid-19 for the same reasons pandemics traditionally affect the most vulnerable. We need to reframe the meanings of the individual and our connections (and responsibilities) to others if we want to make a difference to ‘loneliness’. Framing it as a medical problem, or an individual failing is never the answer.