I was aware of the issue of loneliness and how dangerous it is to the health and well being of our senior population. In fact, I am on a team looking at the issue of isolation and loneliness in my city. However, I was not aware that loneliness was an issue among Millennials until I read the following article by Brian Resnick Aug 1, 2019. For the full article go here,
Today,
members of the millennial generation are ages 23 to 38. These ought to be prime
years of careers taking off and starting families before joints really begin
to ache. Yet as a recent poll and some corresponding research indicate, there’s
something missing for many in this generation: companionship.
A
recent poll from YouGov, a polling firm and market research company, found that
30 percent of millennials say they feel lonely. This is the highest percentage
of all the generations surveyed.
Furthermore,
22 percent of millennials in the poll said they had zero friends. Twenty-seven
percent said they had “no close friends,” 30 percent said they have “no best
friends,” and 25 percent said they have no acquaintances. (I wonder if the poll
respondents have differing thoughts on what “acquaintance” means; I take it to
mean “people you interact with now and then.”)
In
comparison, just 16 percent of Gen Xers and 9 percent of baby boomers say they
have no friends.
The poll, which looked at 1,254 adults 18 and up, did not report results for the
up-and-coming Gen Z (who report high levels of loneliness on other surveys), or
for the oldest adults in the country. And we should note: Loneliness tends to
increase markedly after age 75; social isolation among the elderly remains a
huge problem that will only grow worse as baby boomers age. So perhaps it’s not
the case that millennials are the loneliest of all.
If
this generation is truly lonelier, that’s concerning for a number of reasons:
Research shows that loneliness tends to increase as we get older. What will
happen to millennials, who are already reporting high levels of loneliness,
when they reach old age?
But
while there may be something particular happening with millennials, it’s also
possible loneliness naturally ebbs and flows throughout life. In 1990 a meta-analysis (a study of studies), which included data on 25,000 people, found
that “loneliness was highest among young adults, declined over midlife, and
increased modestly in old age.”
More
recently, in a 2016 paper, researchers in Germany found a peak of loneliness in
a sample of 16,000 Germans at around age 30, another around age 50, and then
increasing again at age 80.
The bigger point, she said, was “researchers have ignored that loneliness can
happen at any time.”
And
that’s important. Because loneliness is bad for our health.
Loneliness
is associated with higher blood pressure and heart disease — it literally
breaks our hearts. A 2015 meta-review of 70 studies showed that loneliness
increases the risk of dying by 26 percent. (Compare that to depression and
anxiety, which is associated with a comparable 21 percent increase in
mortality.) There’s evidence that chronic loneliness can turn on genes involved
with inflammation, which can be a risk factor for heart disease and cancer.
Make
no mistake: We need the stress. We need some amount of loneliness. The pain of
loneliness is a reminder that we are social creatures who need other people.
It’s also important to recognize that loneliness isn’t the same as having a few
friends. It’s the perceived social isolation that harms us. We can certainly
have fulfilling, protective relationships with just a few people.
“As
long as we then do what we should do — reconnect with people — then loneliness
is a good thing,” Luhmann said. “It becomes a bad thing when it becomes
chronic. That’s when the health effects kick in. And it becomes harder and
harder to connect with other people the longer you are in the state of loneliness.”
