I haven't dug into all the sources, but I think there's a potential confounder here, or maybe even reverse causality. The author seems to assume causation when the studies only indicate correlation. E.g. the first link says "chronic loneliness increases mortality risk" but the actual source says "actual and perceived social isolation are both associated with increased risk for early mortality".
So for example, it's possible that if you already have chronic illness, a disability, or any other kind of health issues, you're more likely to have higher social isolation and therefore be more lonely, in addition to having a higher mortality risk. There's an outside variable (your health) that is correlated with both (loneliness and mortality), but that doesn't necessarily mean that loneliness causes mortality. If this were the case, we could defend claims like "autism increases mortality", because we already know that autism increases social isolation.
Poor health increasing social isolation isn't even a hard casual path to argue. Common health problems can physically restrict how often and how long one leaves the house: people on oxygen can only travel as far as their supply and weakened lungs can take them, or people with bowel disorders might be reluctant to be do anything without easy and discrete bathroom use, people with visible symptoms might be embarrassed and avoid socializing.
The loneliness-associated protein study linked in TFA doesn't seem to control for health status. So preexisting conditions may have affected the correlations.
Yes, this seems blindingly obvious to me. Maybe because I have chronic health problems myself. Perhaps those blessed with good health are blissfully ignorant.
When you are chronically ill, socializing falls pretty rapidly down your list of priorities.
Another huge factor is probably lack of feedback loop. Its surprisingly easy to press on by yourself through various health issues until its too late. However someone around you might say you look pale recently you should see doctor as an obviously contrived example.
And don't forget that physical loneliness, that is, actually being alone, eliminates one major feedback source that something could be wrong with your health, or a source of immediate aid if e.g. you go into cardiac arrest.
Maybe the researcher above touches on these things, but more generally, there should be a standardized probability and statistics exam for ALL aspiring scientific researchers, and a high score should be the minimum cutoff. The influence that a statistically flawed study can have over our collective futures is too dangerous.
The first source I clicked into was a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.
What you say sounds true about chronic illness and isolation. These researchers are looking at research done using actual interventions and real results.
What should they do to analyze this more than RCTs and then meta-analysis of RCTs?
Social isolation is also not the same thing as loneliness. The paper recognizes this and gives different outcomes for three distinct categories (social isolation, loneliness and living alone). The blog post mistakenly cites the outcome for living alone as the outcome for loneliness.
>The author seems to assume causation when the studies only indicate correlation.
once I heard Feynmann say in a youtube video that (paraphrasal) "we don't know what causes gravity, we just know that it exists, it's a property of matter"
then I realized, our experiments never show causation, they only show correlation. gravity has 100% (in our experience) correlation to matter. admittedly, that's a pretty good correlation, but for all we know, gravity causes matter. energy too, apparently.
Philosophers have worried for a long time about whether we can actually observe causation.
David Hume was famous for arguing in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding that we can't observe it and we instead have a "custom" or habit of expecting effects to follow causes.
> After the constant conjunction of two objects—heat and flame, for instance, weight and solidity—we are determined by custom to expect the one from the appearance of the other.
Religious philosophers have sometimes gone to the extreme of occasionalism, where they've maintained that patterns and regularities in nature were just habits or customs that God chooses to follow:
As an anecdote, I have a couple of elderly family members who did not mellow with age. Instead they became even more toxic and abusive as they approached their 80s. (I have another who was the complete opposite.). The abusive ones hurled curse words as soon as you entered the door; then they "switched" personalities and acted as if nothing happened. I also know of an acquaintance whose son had the similar personality traits even though he's only in his 40s. The son needed a 24 hour a day caregiver because he's mentally challenged. In short there are a whole host of physical and/or mental problems that confound the situation.
>Recent meta-analyses examining 2.2 million individuals across 90 cohort studies reveal that social isolation and loneliness trigger measurable biological cascades comparable to traditional disease risk factors.
Its frustrating, because cohort study experimental designs like these can in principle chip away at reverse causality (i.e. observe loneliness exposure before a cardiovascular disease prognosis, compare difference-in-difference between treatment/control), but the meta-analysis doesnt clearly state whether this constraint was applied. But even a study like this would have issues with medical participation, so that would need to be controlled, preferably with a prospective design.
My dismissive but practical take is "well yeah there's nobody in the room to call an ambulance when you have the heart attack you'll most likely have", which mindfulness classes and support groups don't help with. There's practical benefits to having people around.
There was a funny statistical artifact I read once (well, for some value of 'funny') that home was a terrible place to have a heart attack, because people are willing to 'just lie down and see how I feel' rather than in a restaurant or movie theater where an ambulance will be called.
It would be interesting then for similar studies to add a dimension in addition to self-reported loneliness on self-reported time spent outside the home. While it's likely that sedentary elders are lonelier, it's not a 100% overlap (some elders live with close family and some lonely people are still very physically active/outside). You would expect lonely, active people to have lower death rates than lonely, sedentary people with similar pre-existing conditions under your hypothesis, and it would be a powerful thing to prove because it's a lot easier to make people go out than to make them make friends.
Or related: there's no one to nag you about going to get that funny ache checked out. Men particularly are notoriously reluctant to go to a doctor for various reasons but a worried partner might persuade them.
I once did a course with a paramedic on basic aid. We were discussing choking, which is a condition that really needs a 2nd party to intervene. Someone asked what to do if you live alone (with no close neighbours) - the answer was essentially ‘good luck’
The idea of the heimlich is to put sudden force on the diaphragm and force air upward. You can do that alone by pushing your upper abdomen against a chair back, counter, railing, whatever. Not something I've ever tried, but good to know about in case.
I know how to in theory, and I think I'm probably "above average" at calm-in-crisis, but my confidence that I'd calmly rescue myself via self-heimlich while unable to breathe is not high.
By these statistics there aren’t enough healthy people to provide care for those that are less healthy
The challenge here is that healthy people don’t desire to be around unhealthy people.
Society provides no incentive or social benefit for otherwise healthy people to be around the unwell to call the ambulances. Even as a nurse, hospice worker or caregiver, the pay/benefits are non existent for the amount of emotional and physical labor needed for care.
You don't have to be that healthy to call an ambulance! As long as not everyone in the sick-and-poor commune has a heart attack at the same time this should be a safe enough system.
Ambulances are expensive enough that people are hesitant to call them, sometimes even in life threatening situations.
And if the person is unsure whether the situation is critical, they might try to "sleep it off" rather than driving or getting a ride, because ER is also kind of expensive and you could be stuck there all day.
Of course there is no direct causation between loneliness and death. You don't directly die from lack of social interaction, but you do directly die from lack of food. However, there is a clear causal link between loneliness and habits that increase mortality.
> Of course there is no direct causation between loneliness and death.
Of course there is. If you are alone at home, who calls an ambulance if you have a heart attack or similar condition?
If you are living together with someone, the chance they are arund while it happens is all thats needed to skew the statistics.
If you think things through like that then you can only ever attribute physical, material, biological factors as the only things involved in mapping the causation. In other words, every time we attempt to draw the line to mortality, it gets hacked down as we keep reducing the argument.
We cannot explore the possibilities of truth if we do that, but I can appreciate the due diligence. It’s a tricky subject, but life experience informs many of us that there is something more going on than “I materially feel like shit”.
There is a taboo element to loneliness that isn’t often discussed, and that is “I feel hurt that I can be left alone, or that anyone can be left alone or isolated”. So, while the source of the isolation could be material, the feeling that manifests from it is an actual hurt that one feels from the actual thing (isolation). For example, we may be killing our elders when we isolate them in care facilities.
I can’t say if we have the sense as a society to accept data that suggests this pain can be linked to mortality. Isolation in itself isn’t the killer, it’s the pain of “well how could any society leave anyone alone”, and such a phenomenon can be witnessed in the macro outside of yourself (how can we leave people on the street? Etc).
Loneliness and isolation is often in sequence, after abandonment, or negligence, or unforgivingness (if the person “deserved” the isolating). A phantom, immeasurable pain. And even more painful, to deny it afterwards.
I've seen this happen in person, to my grandmother. She hitched her identity to the man of the house, even signing checks "Mrs. grandad's name." She was the accountant of their farm along with housewife and cook and chicken tender. He was most of the muscle until he had to relinquish the work to their youngest son, who had moved out and into his own house. She was in relatively good health when grandad died at 76. She suddenly lost her identity, being alone in that farmhouse which she helped build and maintain, it was too full of ghosts to live alone, she moved in with the son. I never saw her smile after that. She died within months.
My great-grandmother was different. her husband died young. she had 50 more years of life after that. She gardened, she sewed, she pickled and canned. She established a strong personal identity and experienced evergreen personal growth. She was a happy woman, cackling all of the time when we'd visit. When she died at 95, it was a surprise, she seemed very alive and healthy shortly beforehand. She died in her sleep, no chronic diseases.
Makes me think that 32% might be traced to psychological/sociological factors.
It sounds like your grandma passed from a broken heart.
My mother in law lost her husband when she was in her early 60s, and I was worried that she would suffer the same fate as your grandma. She sold her house after a few years to escape the ghosts and moved into a condo near me. Her social schedule is jam-packed.
There is so much to be said about having your own identity, hobbies, and passions.
The person she spent her life with died. She could have just been sad and lonely over that, not some lack of "identity".
I've been married for over 30 years and we both have our own independent identities and successes (as well as shared ones). We are still very close and loving. Neither needs the other to live but after so long our emotional involvement with each other is as deep and foundational as the roots of a great tree. Losing her (or her me) would be utterly devastating and how we identify ourselves has nothing to do with it.
Before getting tied up with bureaucratic nonsense my daughter was looking at starting a "borrow a grandma / grandpa" club at her university. The idea was to connect students with elderly people who are lonely, and they could have tea / coffee together. The elderly get to be social with a younger generation, and the younger generation gets to understand the struggles that a lot of elderly people face.
I think that the university was concerned with liability. I still think that it's a good idea.
Old people's homes are very welcoming to ANYONE willing to spend time with the residents. No need to join a club: pick up the phone or stop by and ask if they would like your time. I guarantee the answer will be, "When can you start?"
Maybe a scheduled get togethers of a retirement home group with a that student org either at the home or the university could work. That way it's easier to have a person trained to chaperone, a more controlled environment, and reduced general overhead for planning.
Holy... That just unlocked a memory. When I was a 10 y.o. kid and a member of Young Pioneers organization in the late Soviet Union, we had a routine elderly care assignment. There was literally a task "to help N lonely elderly people next week"! We were split in pairs and provided with a list of addresses of nearby "targets" and a general guidance on what this help may constitute, like helping them with groceries, walking a dog, house cleaning, etc. And I remember there was a nice old lady who were treating us with tea and pies, and showing us some old photos, and who we then visited few times outside of the assignment just because she welcomed us and we liked it there. For me it was just some secondary quest that I barely registered and completely forgot about until now, but now I wonder if it was a big deal for her
Liability that one of them will don a Robert De Niro grin and say, “hey kid, wanna get out of here?” and the youth will oblige by lowering the roof on the GT and cranking up Deep Purple’s Highway Star as they peel rubber from beneath the pastel peach awning, thousands of foot pounds of torque expressing a shared joy in a cloud of smoke and a squeal of delight.
There's a lot of aspects here, such as where they would meet up, etc. If it's on school property and something happens, for example. Additionally there are restrictions for clubs operating off-campus. I don't know, it was seemingly more complicated than any of us had anticipated.
> A liability for having tea with elderly citizens?
In their homes? It's a mountain of liability. The elderly tend to be a combination of paranoid and senile.
The first time they misplace a checkbook or forget some valuable was already given to some grandchild they'll accuse the most recent new guest in memory of stealing.
And that's just one of an infinite number of possibilities having spent zero time dwelling on it.
Did your daughter talk to a few local senior citizen agencies or nursing homes? Last I knew, quite a few of those are interested in "just visit occasionally" volunteers. And if another org (which specialized in seniors) was handling that end of things, the U might not be so hung up on allowing the club.
Or, "we're adults, just do it". The U can't actually stop of-age students from volunteering for local organizations, or joining churches, or playing soccer in a city park.
Mindfullness as a treatment for loneliness is strange to me. This doesn't actually help with the problem of being alone, it could just make someone be more OK with it.
As someone who spends a lot of time alone, one of my big fears is having a medical emergency, even just choking on food, and dying from something that would be easily avoided had another person been in the house. I've gone and looked up how to give myself the Heimlich maneuver on myself, and play out that scenario in my head all the time... or trying to get to a neighbor's house or just outside where someone might see me. Mindfulness won't help if this is how I meet my fate, actually community and relationships would.
It's quite a rare thing to die by choking. It just doesn't feel like it, which is where mindfulness can help. You do more dangerous things every day like walking (falls) and driving, eating (obesity), and brushing your teeth (gum disease), so if you want to work on prevention it's better to have a head that correctly assesses risk and spends your limited time/money/effort optimally.
But then choking is not the only health emergency when having people around is a plus. Even active people sometimes suffer from heart attacks and having someone being there doing chest compressions or at least calling for help leads to quite difficult health outcomes versus being found hours later. Same goes for strokes…
Exactly. Many of the statistically more dangerous things are either chronic issues (obesity) or inherently in public (driving). Choking, a heart attack, etc are acute issues happening in private, which is where the fear lies. Some of those acute issues could be made more likely by the chronic issue, but not always. And if the chronic issues are known, a person can proactively get tests to hopefully avoid an acute issue. My dad just had a quadruple bypass, identified as a need based on a proactive calcium scan, rather than waiting for a heart attack.
I had a mildly embarrassing shower fall that ended in a deep wound. I tried to sleep it off not realizing how bad it was and ended up having to get surgery. Because of the location of the injury, there was a big risk of infection.
I was alone, but luckily I was only 19 and healthy at the time. But I came away with a new understanding of the dangers of these things and whys there’s so much advertising to older people it. I can imagine a frail individual not surviving something like that if alone.
Yes, roughly speaking meditation is inner work. You are still gonna have things to do out in the world.
It's like someone advises you to go to the gym and you say but I drive everywhere. Yes they're not conflicting. In fact unless you live in a place like NYC or London, you need to be good at both.
I think probably the idea is that Mindfulness helps you make peace with yourself and trouble-shoot your personality, both of which could make it easier to make connections with other people.
I think so much of it is our fear of dealing with conflicts and running away. Mindfulness, if it helps us have the courage to talk with people, apologize, forgive, and reconcile relationships with ourselves and others, can probably be super helpful. However, I think a lot of it has us actually move farther away from others, retreating into ourselves and then yeah, if you need someone to take you to the hospital, the relationships aren't there or aren't so immediate to help with that.
I think I feel you and I hope that if something like that were to happen, you would have people willing to offer and give that help and you'd be willing to ask for and receive that help.
How much is related to people suffering a medical emergency and nobody being around to help? vs. How much is the actual emotional impact of loneliness?
It doesn't even have to be medical emergencies that go unnoticed. There are other declining health metrics that an independent observer might notice that a person is not aware of or is unwilling to confront. If there's no one to say "you might want to get that checked out", you probably won't get that checked out!
No mistake, almost all of us can refer to an anecdote of an elderly relative dying soon after their spouse. It can be both tragic and, in hindsight, romantic. But really, the consequences of loneliness are often and unfortunately quite practical.
That's only the case if you're unaware you're in bad company! I've known a few people that were excellent weathervanes as long as you were aware there were going to always be wrong by 180 degrees.
I saw an analysis that demonstrated this clearly by replacing loneliness with population density. Effectively you could see the same mortality effect for people who live out in the sticks.
Its anecdotical (though, I guess, there is plenty of data for that), but often people (especially men) don't visit a doctor early enough. It takes their partner (of friends, kids) to prompt them to get checked.
Medical emergencies might be a cherry on the cake - but let's not forget that most diseases are not instantaneous - and sooner these are cached, less harm.
This is a very valid question. I have had a few close calls where I afterwards wonder what would have happened if I had hurt myself seriously. Chances are, no one would have paid attention in days.
We're an international movement whereby volunteer cyclists pedal passengers around on what is essentially a small couch on wheels. The elderly get out into their neighbourhood while engaging with volunteers in conversation, jokes, and memories. The benefits of even brief but regular social connection are lasting, as we hear from medical professionals and care home workers and the residents themselves and their families.
There's a great TED Talk on it which inspired us to start a local chapter almost eight years ago. We are in high demand and growing so if you're looking for a healthy way to serve others, consider getting in touch with your local chapter (or starting it!)
Aside from a formal study, _feels_ right (for what that's worth). The healthiest people I know are generally happy and have people around who care of them and they care for. I swear the social parts of life are what keep the elderly going, in my experience.
I swear the social parts of life are what keep the elderly going, in my experience.
I could've sworn there was a paper, (or maybe just an article? can't remember), a long time ago about the community on a Mediterranean island somewhere? The thesis was that people there were living abnormally long lives because of the Mediterranean style food they ate, and how socially active and interconnected they were in old age.
It's the social equivalent of ultra-processed food. Hyper-palatable and habit-forming, you always crave more. You end up (socially) both overfed and malnourished.
I would expect this to be correlated to not having kids as well. Anecdotally the healthiest elderly I know are deeply involved in raising grandkids/great grandkids, and those relatives without kids I've lost early.
I've heard of some efforts to pair retirement homes and preschools in some way, to benefit both, and I'd love to see that idea work in some way. I expect it to have many liability challenges but would be so good for both parties.
Not to take anything away from the meta-analysis and the important points in the blog post, but there's a glaring error in the abstract: "the weighted average effect sizes were as follows: social isolation odds ratio (OR) = 1.29, loneliness OR = 1.26, and living alone OR = 1.32, corresponding to an average of 29%, 26%, and 32% increased likelihood of mortality, respectively."
The authors mean increased /odds/, not likelihood (probability). WHy does it matter? Well, when your whole paper is a statistical exercise, misusing basic statistical language in the abstract is not a great sign.
The following is perfectly compatible with everything in the article being correct and important (though I share the suspicion that there may be some reverse-causality going on), but the author seems to be extremely fishy in some ways.
He's posting about two substantial (~10-30 pages) papers per week to the arXiv, in various areas of mathematics. He claims to have developed "Alpay Algebra: A recursive language for thought" and what he's written about it looks to me like (1) it was actually written by an LLM and (2) it's basically word/symbol salad. (He has some papers about it on the arXiv. The first isn't particularly bullshitty, but uses a great deal of formalism to say almost nothing. Later ones look like grandiose AI-written slop. And he has some web pages that are just grandiose AI-written slop.)
I repeat: none of this needs to cast any particular doubt on what he writes about loneliness. He might be an AI-driven mathematical crank who also has wise thoughts about loneliness. I might just be wrong about his being an AI-driven mathematical crank, though I'd be pretty surprised. Or, for that matter, his post about loneliness might be AI-written but none the less correct. (It's the kind of thing I would expect an LLM to be able to write something reasonable about -- though in that case it would be advisable to double-check the references.) But it doesn't inspire confidence.
I didn't dig in to every cite but a few seemed suspicious. One linked on digital interventions specifically said it showed no positive results. Another on pet ownership having 100% success rate was sponsored by the pet industry. I think the author is tripping over a lot of data and cherry picking. We know that loneliness can cause problems and interventions can help but this post seems like it is indeed a rambling jumble and not a cogent argument for anything in particular.
Loneliness directly contributes to alcoholism and a number of other self-medication addictions. Part of it is social - pubs and places that profit off of alcohol are where lonely men often go to find company. Is it malicious to exploit loneliness by offering respite to it to sell addictive substances?
nothing more than a n=1 anecdote, but I'm noticeably more depressed when my wife is in the office and I don't go in to a coworking space and/or do something with my friends after work.
Even as an introvert I can easily see if I didn't have a partner and access to friends and socialization I'd be significantly more likely to kill myself.
Before my mother started joining more retiree clubs I could literally see on her face how much more weathered and haggard she was. The isolation was physically visible on her face.
I’m curious what the research says about interacting online in e.g. Discord servers and other forums for niche communities. Also, is calling your childhood friend on the regular more or less potent than meeting IRL but recently-made friends?
Is it generally understood as feeling (being in a particular state of mind) as being lonely or just lacking social interactions in general, regardless of how one feels about it? Those two things, to my understanding, aren't the same.
For example, I never had friends, and generally, I despise people. I have no "social life," and I wouldn't even be able to clearly define what it is without googling. If I lost my voice, I wouldn't notice that it happened for about a week. However, I don't feel like I am missing out on anything. Does that increase my mortality risk by over 30% or not? I only skimmed the sources, but may read it later.
>Loneliness increases death risk by 32% but we know how to fix it. Real solutions that cut loneliness in half, from mindfulness to community programs that actually work.
And what, pray tell, works? He goes on:
>Those programs in Barcelona where almost half the people stopped feeling lonely? The mindfulness stuff that works in just two weeks? Even the robot pets for elderly people “it all works”. We’re not talking about maybe or possibly here. This stuff actually works. What gets me is that fixing loneliness doesn’t require some massive revolution. Twenty minutes of mindfulness a day. A weekly volunteer shift.
Would you like to know why some people are lonely? Because they have interacted with people before and found the experience to be quite objectionable.
I am lonely because I have dealt with too many assholes. And if it kills me sooner, good. Humanity is a garbage species full of opportunistic and adversarial people just waiting to find new people to exert power over.
No need to jump on the latest buzzwords, doing science. I remember this kind of study has already been done with married/unmarried peope, with basically a similar result. The explanation they gave back then was pretty logical: If you are living alone, there is nobody around to call an ambulance if you have a heart attack or similar.
Mortality risk is already 100% isn’t it? We’re going to die, guaranteed, so what’s another 23% increase on 100%?
I think a good study would be the effects of likes, upvotes and karma on overall lifespan. I’d bet that people who gain more upvotes and positive engagement in general probably live much longer than people who are chronically downvoted or ignored.
That is a very clever null hypothesis to check whether disliked people tilt the balance, or whether lack of human interactions do.
The ones who should do this study would be the CIA. They could remotely kill people by giving them negative social feedback all the time. It would also give weight to online harassment complaints.
Strategically weaponized cyberbullying on a person whose mental state has been compromised by social media can be a creative way to kill them off if they are driven to suicide. Might be the plot of a thriller at least.
This is why doctors should recommend drinking and smoking. At a certain point the risk of premature death is greater from being a shut-in than it is from indulging in a pint and a ciggie with some buddies every once in a while.
People can and do drink and smoke alone. Indeed, lonely people may turn to alcohol for self-medication. And of course those addicted to nicotine have to smoke regardless of whether other people are around. That will just make the problem worse.
Besides, smoking has largely been banned from buildings, so that habit doesn't make it convenient to gather with others, except perhaps huddled outside the door.
But I don't think it makes a diff. My friend circle has had a few guys drop into hermit mode. We have tried all kinds of things to pull them out, but it's like they have decided monastic life or whatever is their thing.
Another way to put it: Start dragging your sorry ass to church.
I'm quite serious about this, by the way. To attend a church (other religious traditions will do, but I'm partial) means not only to involve yourself in a community, but to situate yourself in a story which provides meaning and makes sense of the world.
All the government programs he advocates for are just pale imitations of the vibrant communities that humans were made for and which modern society has done its best to destroy.
> All the government programs he advocates for are just pale imitations of the vibrant communities that humans were made for and which modern society has done its best to destroy.
Humans were not made for anything, and for most of the existence of our species, there were no churches, indeed no buildings of any kind. Until ~10k years ago, with the development of agriculture and permanent settlements, humans lived in relatively small hunter-gatherer groups. These communities may indeed have been "vibrant", but they were organized around family and survival, not religion.
Contrary to your claim, churches and organized religion have been made possible by modern society, not destroyed by it. It's unclear where exactly you see the destructive causes, apart from the progress of science that has tended to undermine religious belief?
In the United States, churches are tax-exempt. In that sense, they are promoted by the government in a crucial way.
To some of us weirdos, it actually matters whether things we repeatedly stand up and declare or sing about are true, and whether the stories we draw meaning from are factually correct, and whether values we repeatedly and publicly affiliate ourselves with are good.
And, among this admittedly weird fragment of the population, those of us who think the things churchgoers affirm and derive meaning from and value are true and good are mostly already going to church, and those of us who think they're not so true and mostly not so good shouldn't be going to church, no matter how sorry our asses.
I've given many Christmas gifts. None of them required anyone to believe in flying reindeer, Turkish bishops living at the north pole, frosty winds and frozen water in a place that never gets below 10degC or so, etc. All it requires is a tradition of exchanging gifts at that time of the year.
If giving gifts at Christmas required me to declare solemnly that I was doing it in the name of the incarnate Son of God and that the presents under the tree had actually been delivered by flying reindeer, then I wouldn't do it; I'd find some other way of being nice to the people I love that didn't require me to lie.
So, anyway, perhaps your point is that I could find a church that doesn't expect me to actually believe, or say, or sing, any of the usual churchy things, and then I could go there every week. I suppose I could. But I think all those things Christians believe are somewhat load-bearing for Christianity and suspect that going to church every week while remaining an atheist wouldn't actually get me most of the benefits that regular churchgoing is alleged to give the people who do it.
I’m not the person you replied to. I was raised catholic, but these days I don’t believe in god and think the church is a waste of time.
But i DO still celebrate christmas. Not for ME, but as an excuse to connect with family and friends. In other words, i don’t go to church and subject myself to nodding to 60 minutes of nonsense (to me). Instead I join for christmas lunch / dinner. The socializing part. The good part. If my family was not catholic then i’d just throw a nice new year’s party instead. Again - just to get everyone together.
I have a friend that celebrates Hanukkah and i’ve occasionally joined their family to celebrate as well.
What does belief in a religion have to do with participating in social events that happen to be rooted in religion?
> What does belief in a religion have to do with participating in social events that happen to be rooted in religion?
I'm not making that claim. I'm addressing the reverse: someone who refuses to go to church ("participating in social events ") because he doesn't believe the dogma. And so I brought up that many people have no such reservations about participating in Christmas traditions and activities.
It's the church which destroyed itself. Using its influence for political power, that gave it short term power but destroyed it long term.
And I would not agree with religion providing sense of the world. It's another coping mechanism to deal with absurdity in the world. There is a reason people fallback to religion when times get tough.
> Using its influence for political power, that gave it short term power but destroyed it long term.
I'm no fan of organised religion, but this is a pretty wild take to me. "The church" has been around for the best part of 2000 years. It's been wildly political for most if not all of that. It doesn't show much sign of disappearing any time soon.
The important part of the "church" in this context is finding a third space[0]. A church can be a reasonable third space, even for atheists. Particularly in smaller communities with limited resources. Other healthy options include hackerspaces / makerspackes (that is my third space of choice), libraries, parks, sporting events, etc.
Attending church can have negative consequences because religion promotes belief in unprovable claims, building life on a false premise: since the central claim isn’t true, the practices and rules around it may seem hollow or misleading.
Religion discourages critical thinking, consumes time and money, enforces conformity through social pressure, and expose individuals to guilt, shame, or manipulation by institutions with histories of abuse or corruption.
Not every church is associated with a large international community. My girlfriend is an avid churchgoer and her church has 46 members I believe. They aren't Catholic and not associated with a broader group. They're called "Primitive Methodist" so I guess there's a broader denominational link to other churches, but they don't get orders from anyplace above them or anything.
It sounds nice to someone like me who doesn't do any organized religious stuff, because the money and things donated there go back to their little community or for maintaining the building and things like that. I see firsthand how that kind of church drastically helps her have a sense of community in an increasingly digital-first world.
Honest question: for women, are there any churches or other religious or spiritual traditions that do not limit them or afford them a second-class status relative to other members? (This can be in terms of church elders/leadership positions or just importance in activities, speeches giving women good role models, etc). For instance Catholic traditions usually provide quite a few female role models (not least Mary) but heavily sideline women in actual church operations, whereas Protestant traditions have more equitable leadership ranks, but don't give as much space to women who are not in leadership. I am not clueful enough to discuss other traditions sadly.
church only provides meaning if you actually _believe_ the stuff the priest lectures about for 30 minutes at mass. Otherwise you get to play make-believe for 1 hour each week.
For me, church increases my blood pressure. I was forced to attend church as a child and didn’t believe any of the stuff by the time i was an older teen. Going to church feels patronizing to me, since i don’t believe any of it. And i’m bitter that i was “forced” into it by my parents. They never at ANY point asked me if I want to continue going, and I know for certain that even if i spoke up they would have ignored me. Ugh.
Anyway i’ve had good luck making friends at my local Y, through friends of friends, and occasionally work.
It's hard. I belong to an atheist-inclusive church, but I've been skipping for about a month and I'm reluctant to show up again.
Words like "community", "fellowship", "connection" are used a lot, but there's no obvious checklist for me to follow when I wake up Sunday morning feeling like a piece of shit and having no desire to inflict myself on others.
As a "believer" myself (we don't typically use that evangelical terminology but it's close enough) I can completely understand that. People should go to Church for Christ, and anything else, even "community" is a nice bonus but is not going to sustain people when pursued for its own sake, as you're experiencing.
Maybe a sport or hobby club or some other thing you're interested in where people have a specific motivation to get together, bonding and forming "community" more naturally?
I'm an atheist, but I do wish I could go to church, or at least something like that. I've tried going to other non-religious clubs but it's not really the same. A pottery class just doesn't give that same feeling of "belonging".
The trouble is it just seems a bit too serious every time I've been. I don't believe any of it, and I can't believe anyone with intelligence could believe it either. But unlike, say, WWE-style wrestling, there are way too many people taking it far too seriously. You never hear of atrocities or stupidity happening because someone took wrestling too seriously. Are there churches that are more like wrestling?
I think the issue you're having is that taking it way too seriously is exactly what creates the feeling of belonging. There's a number of forums or clubs where one might discuss morality, myth, creation stories etc more like wrestling - fantasy roleplaying groups and fantasy writing circles often do include those themes for instance. But it's harder to feel true belonging through discussing whether your bard is an asshole for sleeping with a gold-hoarding dragon if you're 100% aware that neither bards or dragons exist.
Is there anything you do take super seriously? The environment, your job, parenting, a specific hobby or something? Something you think other people are missing out on by not experiencing? Looks like a club based on that would work better for you.
Is this true? I see a lot of people on the right complaining about loneliness epidemic, so it would seem odd that people who are attending church would have this issue and it still being a problem. You hear about lots of young, right-wing men talking about this as an issue, so church is clearly not solving it for them.
This is all hearsay and anecdotal, mind you, and I admit I have not done the research here. It's not a condition I have, nor do any of my friends. I believe it's happening, but the claim of "just attend church" doesn't seem to being paying off to me.
Talk to any right-leaning young man who's actively engaged in a church community (even better if they're actually pursuing Christ, and not just chasing an abstract ideal of "community") and you won't hear very much about the "loneliness epidemic", except maybe in reference to their peers.
It may be hard to find them online in order to "talk" to them though, and of course that's the whole point :-) Selection bias at work.
> All the government programs he advocates for are just pale imitations of the vibrant communities that human were made for and which modern society has done its best to destroy.
Modern leftism is essentially a reincarnated Christianity:
- "the government" is their Trinity. Just "believe" and eventually the right one will get elected and fix everything.
- legislation and regulations are their Bible.
- police (an arm of the government) are the scapegoat/substitute for our sins.
- tithing through higher taxes
- feel bad about yourself (historical racism / sexism that they keep bringing up) but turn to the light (leftist progress, signalling) and ye shall be saved
- forces of evil: those who want smaller government and personal freedom.
- prosperity gospel: welfare and fiscal recklessness because we can just turn on the money printer
- signalling: businesses are pressured to display leftist icons or slogans to signal their inclusion in the faith.
I haven't dug into all the sources, but I think there's a potential confounder here, or maybe even reverse causality. The author seems to assume causation when the studies only indicate correlation. E.g. the first link says "chronic loneliness increases mortality risk" but the actual source says "actual and perceived social isolation are both associated with increased risk for early mortality".
So for example, it's possible that if you already have chronic illness, a disability, or any other kind of health issues, you're more likely to have higher social isolation and therefore be more lonely, in addition to having a higher mortality risk. There's an outside variable (your health) that is correlated with both (loneliness and mortality), but that doesn't necessarily mean that loneliness causes mortality. If this were the case, we could defend claims like "autism increases mortality", because we already know that autism increases social isolation.
Poor health increasing social isolation isn't even a hard casual path to argue. Common health problems can physically restrict how often and how long one leaves the house: people on oxygen can only travel as far as their supply and weakened lungs can take them, or people with bowel disorders might be reluctant to be do anything without easy and discrete bathroom use, people with visible symptoms might be embarrassed and avoid socializing.
The loneliness-associated protein study linked in TFA doesn't seem to control for health status. So preexisting conditions may have affected the correlations.
Yes, this seems blindingly obvious to me. Maybe because I have chronic health problems myself. Perhaps those blessed with good health are blissfully ignorant.
When you are chronically ill, socializing falls pretty rapidly down your list of priorities.
Another huge factor is probably lack of feedback loop. Its surprisingly easy to press on by yourself through various health issues until its too late. However someone around you might say you look pale recently you should see doctor as an obviously contrived example.
And don't forget that physical loneliness, that is, actually being alone, eliminates one major feedback source that something could be wrong with your health, or a source of immediate aid if e.g. you go into cardiac arrest.
Maybe the researcher above touches on these things, but more generally, there should be a standardized probability and statistics exam for ALL aspiring scientific researchers, and a high score should be the minimum cutoff. The influence that a statistically flawed study can have over our collective futures is too dangerous.
The first source I clicked into was a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.
What you say sounds true about chronic illness and isolation. These researchers are looking at research done using actual interventions and real results.
What should they do to analyze this more than RCTs and then meta-analysis of RCTs?
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s... Tackling social disconnection: an umbrella review of RCT-based interventions targeting social isolation and loneliness
Social isolation is also not the same thing as loneliness. The paper recognizes this and gives different outcomes for three distinct categories (social isolation, loneliness and living alone). The blog post mistakenly cites the outcome for living alone as the outcome for loneliness.
>The author seems to assume causation when the studies only indicate correlation.
once I heard Feynmann say in a youtube video that (paraphrasal) "we don't know what causes gravity, we just know that it exists, it's a property of matter"
then I realized, our experiments never show causation, they only show correlation. gravity has 100% (in our experience) correlation to matter. admittedly, that's a pretty good correlation, but for all we know, gravity causes matter. energy too, apparently.
Philosophers have worried for a long time about whether we can actually observe causation.
David Hume was famous for arguing in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding that we can't observe it and we instead have a "custom" or habit of expecting effects to follow causes.
> After the constant conjunction of two objects—heat and flame, for instance, weight and solidity—we are determined by custom to expect the one from the appearance of the other.
Religious philosophers have sometimes gone to the extreme of occasionalism, where they've maintained that patterns and regularities in nature were just habits or customs that God chooses to follow:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasionalism
Skipping punctuation makes your writing harder to parse. It's a false economy.
As an anecdote, I have a couple of elderly family members who did not mellow with age. Instead they became even more toxic and abusive as they approached their 80s. (I have another who was the complete opposite.). The abusive ones hurled curse words as soon as you entered the door; then they "switched" personalities and acted as if nothing happened. I also know of an acquaintance whose son had the similar personality traits even though he's only in his 40s. The son needed a 24 hour a day caregiver because he's mentally challenged. In short there are a whole host of physical and/or mental problems that confound the situation.
>Recent meta-analyses examining 2.2 million individuals across 90 cohort studies reveal that social isolation and loneliness trigger measurable biological cascades comparable to traditional disease risk factors.
Its frustrating, because cohort study experimental designs like these can in principle chip away at reverse causality (i.e. observe loneliness exposure before a cardiovascular disease prognosis, compare difference-in-difference between treatment/control), but the meta-analysis doesnt clearly state whether this constraint was applied. But even a study like this would have issues with medical participation, so that would need to be controlled, preferably with a prospective design.
The myth of the lonely hero (and probably risk taker) has been mentioned as a problematic factor before
My dismissive but practical take is "well yeah there's nobody in the room to call an ambulance when you have the heart attack you'll most likely have", which mindfulness classes and support groups don't help with. There's practical benefits to having people around.
There was a funny statistical artifact I read once (well, for some value of 'funny') that home was a terrible place to have a heart attack, because people are willing to 'just lie down and see how I feel' rather than in a restaurant or movie theater where an ambulance will be called.
It would be interesting then for similar studies to add a dimension in addition to self-reported loneliness on self-reported time spent outside the home. While it's likely that sedentary elders are lonelier, it's not a 100% overlap (some elders live with close family and some lonely people are still very physically active/outside). You would expect lonely, active people to have lower death rates than lonely, sedentary people with similar pre-existing conditions under your hypothesis, and it would be a powerful thing to prove because it's a lot easier to make people go out than to make them make friends.
Then what about work from home? Does it increase mortality?
Or related: there's no one to nag you about going to get that funny ache checked out. Men particularly are notoriously reluctant to go to a doctor for various reasons but a worried partner might persuade them.
When this happens to us, my wife says, "This is another reason why married men live longer."
She's not wrong...
I once did a course with a paramedic on basic aid. We were discussing choking, which is a condition that really needs a 2nd party to intervene. Someone asked what to do if you live alone (with no close neighbours) - the answer was essentially ‘good luck’
The idea of the heimlich is to put sudden force on the diaphragm and force air upward. You can do that alone by pushing your upper abdomen against a chair back, counter, railing, whatever. Not something I've ever tried, but good to know about in case.
And if you're alone it's worth running with a chair into the street to do it as visibly as possible.
Sure theoretically. Outcomes are dramatically better if someone else is around
Most people don't know how to do a self-heimlich.
I know how to in theory, and I think I'm probably "above average" at calm-in-crisis, but my confidence that I'd calmly rescue myself via self-heimlich while unable to breathe is not high.
Dying of natural causes is ok though.
Preventably dying of natural causes is kind of a waste, though.
By these statistics there aren’t enough healthy people to provide care for those that are less healthy
The challenge here is that healthy people don’t desire to be around unhealthy people.
Society provides no incentive or social benefit for otherwise healthy people to be around the unwell to call the ambulances. Even as a nurse, hospice worker or caregiver, the pay/benefits are non existent for the amount of emotional and physical labor needed for care.
You don't have to be that healthy to call an ambulance! As long as not everyone in the sick-and-poor commune has a heart attack at the same time this should be a safe enough system.
Ambulances are expensive enough that people are hesitant to call them, sometimes even in life threatening situations.
And if the person is unsure whether the situation is critical, they might try to "sleep it off" rather than driving or getting a ride, because ER is also kind of expensive and you could be stuck there all day.
Of course there is no direct causation between loneliness and death. You don't directly die from lack of social interaction, but you do directly die from lack of food. However, there is a clear causal link between loneliness and habits that increase mortality.
No I believe its reasonably well established that being lonely itself takes a toll on your health. Stress goes up etc.
The problem is that this article is overstating the effect on mortality because its not controlling for confounding factors very well.
Do you not believe that mental well being is affected by loneliness? And that mental well being could affect mortality?
> Of course there is no direct causation between loneliness and death.
Of course there is. If you are alone at home, who calls an ambulance if you have a heart attack or similar condition? If you are living together with someone, the chance they are arund while it happens is all thats needed to skew the statistics.
If you think things through like that then you can only ever attribute physical, material, biological factors as the only things involved in mapping the causation. In other words, every time we attempt to draw the line to mortality, it gets hacked down as we keep reducing the argument.
We cannot explore the possibilities of truth if we do that, but I can appreciate the due diligence. It’s a tricky subject, but life experience informs many of us that there is something more going on than “I materially feel like shit”.
There is a taboo element to loneliness that isn’t often discussed, and that is “I feel hurt that I can be left alone, or that anyone can be left alone or isolated”. So, while the source of the isolation could be material, the feeling that manifests from it is an actual hurt that one feels from the actual thing (isolation). For example, we may be killing our elders when we isolate them in care facilities.
I can’t say if we have the sense as a society to accept data that suggests this pain can be linked to mortality. Isolation in itself isn’t the killer, it’s the pain of “well how could any society leave anyone alone”, and such a phenomenon can be witnessed in the macro outside of yourself (how can we leave people on the street? Etc).
Loneliness and isolation is often in sequence, after abandonment, or negligence, or unforgivingness (if the person “deserved” the isolating). A phantom, immeasurable pain. And even more painful, to deny it afterwards.
I've seen this happen in person, to my grandmother. She hitched her identity to the man of the house, even signing checks "Mrs. grandad's name." She was the accountant of their farm along with housewife and cook and chicken tender. He was most of the muscle until he had to relinquish the work to their youngest son, who had moved out and into his own house. She was in relatively good health when grandad died at 76. She suddenly lost her identity, being alone in that farmhouse which she helped build and maintain, it was too full of ghosts to live alone, she moved in with the son. I never saw her smile after that. She died within months.
My great-grandmother was different. her husband died young. she had 50 more years of life after that. She gardened, she sewed, she pickled and canned. She established a strong personal identity and experienced evergreen personal growth. She was a happy woman, cackling all of the time when we'd visit. When she died at 95, it was a surprise, she seemed very alive and healthy shortly beforehand. She died in her sleep, no chronic diseases.
Makes me think that 32% might be traced to psychological/sociological factors.
It sounds like your grandma passed from a broken heart.
My mother in law lost her husband when she was in her early 60s, and I was worried that she would suffer the same fate as your grandma. She sold her house after a few years to escape the ghosts and moved into a condo near me. Her social schedule is jam-packed.
There is so much to be said about having your own identity, hobbies, and passions.
> She hitched her identity to the man of the house, even signing checks "Mrs. grandad's name."
That was quite common for much of the 20th century.
Yep. I have been doing genealogy, and the women are very hard to track down because of this. There is a lot of "Mrs. Joe Schmoe" in the papers.
The person she spent her life with died. She could have just been sad and lonely over that, not some lack of "identity".
I've been married for over 30 years and we both have our own independent identities and successes (as well as shared ones). We are still very close and loving. Neither needs the other to live but after so long our emotional involvement with each other is as deep and foundational as the roots of a great tree. Losing her (or her me) would be utterly devastating and how we identify ourselves has nothing to do with it.
Before getting tied up with bureaucratic nonsense my daughter was looking at starting a "borrow a grandma / grandpa" club at her university. The idea was to connect students with elderly people who are lonely, and they could have tea / coffee together. The elderly get to be social with a younger generation, and the younger generation gets to understand the struggles that a lot of elderly people face.
I think that the university was concerned with liability. I still think that it's a good idea.
There is an organization doing this in Spain, Adopta un Abuelo: https://www.eib.org/en/stories/isolation-elderly
https://adoptaunabuelo.org
That's awesome, and fitting, since my daughter has an Abuela. :-)
Old people's homes are very welcoming to ANYONE willing to spend time with the residents. No need to join a club: pick up the phone or stop by and ask if they would like your time. I guarantee the answer will be, "When can you start?"
Right, she has done that, but she wanted to start a club so that it could continue after she's graduated.
Make the club HQ the old people's home.
Maybe a scheduled get togethers of a retirement home group with a that student org either at the home or the university could work. That way it's easier to have a person trained to chaperone, a more controlled environment, and reduced general overhead for planning.
A liability for having tea with elderly citizens?
Holy... That just unlocked a memory. When I was a 10 y.o. kid and a member of Young Pioneers organization in the late Soviet Union, we had a routine elderly care assignment. There was literally a task "to help N lonely elderly people next week"! We were split in pairs and provided with a list of addresses of nearby "targets" and a general guidance on what this help may constitute, like helping them with groceries, walking a dog, house cleaning, etc. And I remember there was a nice old lady who were treating us with tea and pies, and showing us some old photos, and who we then visited few times outside of the assignment just because she welcomed us and we liked it there. For me it was just some secondary quest that I barely registered and completely forgot about until now, but now I wonder if it was a big deal for her
Liability that one of them will don a Robert De Niro grin and say, “hey kid, wanna get out of here?” and the youth will oblige by lowering the roof on the GT and cranking up Deep Purple’s Highway Star as they peel rubber from beneath the pastel peach awning, thousands of foot pounds of torque expressing a shared joy in a cloud of smoke and a squeal of delight.
There's a lot of aspects here, such as where they would meet up, etc. If it's on school property and something happens, for example. Additionally there are restrictions for clubs operating off-campus. I don't know, it was seemingly more complicated than any of us had anticipated.
If you ask, the answer will always be No.
If you have sufficient money such that litigating against you is worth it, then playing defense is necessary. Universities surely qualify.
> A liability for having tea with elderly citizens?
In their homes? It's a mountain of liability. The elderly tend to be a combination of paranoid and senile.
The first time they misplace a checkbook or forget some valuable was already given to some grandchild they'll accuse the most recent new guest in memory of stealing.
And that's just one of an infinite number of possibilities having spent zero time dwelling on it.
no wonder they are all lonely those pesky old folks!
Did your daughter talk to a few local senior citizen agencies or nursing homes? Last I knew, quite a few of those are interested in "just visit occasionally" volunteers. And if another org (which specialized in seniors) was handling that end of things, the U might not be so hung up on allowing the club.
Or, "we're adults, just do it". The U can't actually stop of-age students from volunteering for local organizations, or joining churches, or playing soccer in a city park.
Right, she has done that in the past. Her goal was to start a club so that it would persist long after she graduated.
Mindfullness as a treatment for loneliness is strange to me. This doesn't actually help with the problem of being alone, it could just make someone be more OK with it.
As someone who spends a lot of time alone, one of my big fears is having a medical emergency, even just choking on food, and dying from something that would be easily avoided had another person been in the house. I've gone and looked up how to give myself the Heimlich maneuver on myself, and play out that scenario in my head all the time... or trying to get to a neighbor's house or just outside where someone might see me. Mindfulness won't help if this is how I meet my fate, actually community and relationships would.
It's quite a rare thing to die by choking. It just doesn't feel like it, which is where mindfulness can help. You do more dangerous things every day like walking (falls) and driving, eating (obesity), and brushing your teeth (gum disease), so if you want to work on prevention it's better to have a head that correctly assesses risk and spends your limited time/money/effort optimally.
But then choking is not the only health emergency when having people around is a plus. Even active people sometimes suffer from heart attacks and having someone being there doing chest compressions or at least calling for help leads to quite difficult health outcomes versus being found hours later. Same goes for strokes…
Exactly. Many of the statistically more dangerous things are either chronic issues (obesity) or inherently in public (driving). Choking, a heart attack, etc are acute issues happening in private, which is where the fear lies. Some of those acute issues could be made more likely by the chronic issue, but not always. And if the chronic issues are known, a person can proactively get tests to hopefully avoid an acute issue. My dad just had a quadruple bypass, identified as a need based on a proactive calcium scan, rather than waiting for a heart attack.
I had a mildly embarrassing shower fall that ended in a deep wound. I tried to sleep it off not realizing how bad it was and ended up having to get surgery. Because of the location of the injury, there was a big risk of infection.
I was alone, but luckily I was only 19 and healthy at the time. But I came away with a new understanding of the dangers of these things and whys there’s so much advertising to older people it. I can imagine a frail individual not surviving something like that if alone.
Yes, roughly speaking meditation is inner work. You are still gonna have things to do out in the world.
It's like someone advises you to go to the gym and you say but I drive everywhere. Yes they're not conflicting. In fact unless you live in a place like NYC or London, you need to be good at both.
I think probably the idea is that Mindfulness helps you make peace with yourself and trouble-shoot your personality, both of which could make it easier to make connections with other people.
I think so much of it is our fear of dealing with conflicts and running away. Mindfulness, if it helps us have the courage to talk with people, apologize, forgive, and reconcile relationships with ourselves and others, can probably be super helpful. However, I think a lot of it has us actually move farther away from others, retreating into ourselves and then yeah, if you need someone to take you to the hospital, the relationships aren't there or aren't so immediate to help with that.
I think I feel you and I hope that if something like that were to happen, you would have people willing to offer and give that help and you'd be willing to ask for and receive that help.
Here you go: https://www.bookofjoe.com/2025/09/my-entry-47.html
"Mindfullness" only works for people who are already happy
How much is related to people suffering a medical emergency and nobody being around to help? vs. How much is the actual emotional impact of loneliness?
It doesn't even have to be medical emergencies that go unnoticed. There are other declining health metrics that an independent observer might notice that a person is not aware of or is unwilling to confront. If there's no one to say "you might want to get that checked out", you probably won't get that checked out!
No mistake, almost all of us can refer to an anecdote of an elderly relative dying soon after their spouse. It can be both tragic and, in hindsight, romantic. But really, the consequences of loneliness are often and unfortunately quite practical.
There’s another side where the people you’re around downplay any sort of medical concern you have and actually discourage getting help.
So I guess you have:
bad company < no company < good company
That's only the case if you're unaware you're in bad company! I've known a few people that were excellent weathervanes as long as you were aware there were going to always be wrong by 180 degrees.
I saw an analysis that demonstrated this clearly by replacing loneliness with population density. Effectively you could see the same mortality effect for people who live out in the sticks.
Its anecdotical (though, I guess, there is plenty of data for that), but often people (especially men) don't visit a doctor early enough. It takes their partner (of friends, kids) to prompt them to get checked.
Medical emergencies might be a cherry on the cake - but let's not forget that most diseases are not instantaneous - and sooner these are cached, less harm.
The article cites many measurable negative health effects aside from death, so it seems that the emotional impact does matter a lot.
This is a very valid question. I have had a few close calls where I afterwards wonder what would have happened if I had hurt myself seriously. Chances are, no one would have paid attention in days.
Shameless plug for a good organization that helps fight social isolation and loneliness among elderly: Cycling Without Age.
https://cyclingwithoutage.org/
We're an international movement whereby volunteer cyclists pedal passengers around on what is essentially a small couch on wheels. The elderly get out into their neighbourhood while engaging with volunteers in conversation, jokes, and memories. The benefits of even brief but regular social connection are lasting, as we hear from medical professionals and care home workers and the residents themselves and their families.
There's a great TED Talk on it which inspired us to start a local chapter almost eight years ago. We are in high demand and growing so if you're looking for a healthy way to serve others, consider getting in touch with your local chapter (or starting it!)
Aside from a formal study, _feels_ right (for what that's worth). The healthiest people I know are generally happy and have people around who care of them and they care for. I swear the social parts of life are what keep the elderly going, in my experience.
I swear the social parts of life are what keep the elderly going, in my experience.
I could've sworn there was a paper, (or maybe just an article? can't remember), a long time ago about the community on a Mediterranean island somewhere? The thesis was that people there were living abnormally long lives because of the Mediterranean style food they ate, and how socially active and interconnected they were in old age.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240322-eat-beans-and-li...
That's it!
Thanks!
Any Meta or X employees want to comment on loneliness? I always felt like social media platforms made people lonelier overall.
It's the social equivalent of ultra-processed food. Hyper-palatable and habit-forming, you always crave more. You end up (socially) both overfed and malnourished.
I would expect this to be correlated to not having kids as well. Anecdotally the healthiest elderly I know are deeply involved in raising grandkids/great grandkids, and those relatives without kids I've lost early.
I've heard of some efforts to pair retirement homes and preschools in some way, to benefit both, and I'd love to see that idea work in some way. I expect it to have many liability challenges but would be so good for both parties.
Not to take anything away from the meta-analysis and the important points in the blog post, but there's a glaring error in the abstract: "the weighted average effect sizes were as follows: social isolation odds ratio (OR) = 1.29, loneliness OR = 1.26, and living alone OR = 1.32, corresponding to an average of 29%, 26%, and 32% increased likelihood of mortality, respectively."
The authors mean increased /odds/, not likelihood (probability). WHy does it matter? Well, when your whole paper is a statistical exercise, misusing basic statistical language in the abstract is not a great sign.
The following is perfectly compatible with everything in the article being correct and important (though I share the suspicion that there may be some reverse-causality going on), but the author seems to be extremely fishy in some ways.
He's posting about two substantial (~10-30 pages) papers per week to the arXiv, in various areas of mathematics. He claims to have developed "Alpay Algebra: A recursive language for thought" and what he's written about it looks to me like (1) it was actually written by an LLM and (2) it's basically word/symbol salad. (He has some papers about it on the arXiv. The first isn't particularly bullshitty, but uses a great deal of formalism to say almost nothing. Later ones look like grandiose AI-written slop. And he has some web pages that are just grandiose AI-written slop.)
I repeat: none of this needs to cast any particular doubt on what he writes about loneliness. He might be an AI-driven mathematical crank who also has wise thoughts about loneliness. I might just be wrong about his being an AI-driven mathematical crank, though I'd be pretty surprised. Or, for that matter, his post about loneliness might be AI-written but none the less correct. (It's the kind of thing I would expect an LLM to be able to write something reasonable about -- though in that case it would be advisable to double-check the references.) But it doesn't inspire confidence.
I didn't dig in to every cite but a few seemed suspicious. One linked on digital interventions specifically said it showed no positive results. Another on pet ownership having 100% success rate was sponsored by the pet industry. I think the author is tripping over a lot of data and cherry picking. We know that loneliness can cause problems and interventions can help but this post seems like it is indeed a rambling jumble and not a cogent argument for anything in particular.
A lot of the causes are deeply structural, so it's likely to keep getting worse for the foreseeable future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness_epidemic#Causes_of_...
Germany has great bread, how come did the author have a problem to find good bread?
Yes, that's my only issue with the article :)
Loneliness directly contributes to alcoholism and a number of other self-medication addictions. Part of it is social - pubs and places that profit off of alcohol are where lonely men often go to find company. Is it malicious to exploit loneliness by offering respite to it to sell addictive substances?
nothing more than a n=1 anecdote, but I'm noticeably more depressed when my wife is in the office and I don't go in to a coworking space and/or do something with my friends after work.
Even as an introvert I can easily see if I didn't have a partner and access to friends and socialization I'd be significantly more likely to kill myself.
Before my mother started joining more retiree clubs I could literally see on her face how much more weathered and haggard she was. The isolation was physically visible on her face.
A lot of PubMed links. Awesome.
I’m curious what the research says about interacting online in e.g. Discord servers and other forums for niche communities. Also, is calling your childhood friend on the regular more or less potent than meeting IRL but recently-made friends?
I’m unsure because I don’t enjoy most social things others do but at the same time I keep reading loneliness is bad for you lol
>Chronic loneliness
Is it generally understood as feeling (being in a particular state of mind) as being lonely or just lacking social interactions in general, regardless of how one feels about it? Those two things, to my understanding, aren't the same. For example, I never had friends, and generally, I despise people. I have no "social life," and I wouldn't even be able to clearly define what it is without googling. If I lost my voice, I wouldn't notice that it happened for about a week. However, I don't feel like I am missing out on anything. Does that increase my mortality risk by over 30% or not? I only skimmed the sources, but may read it later.
There's a YC company solving for this, Papa.com
Hopefully they're solving for better social connection, not solving for chronic loneliness as so many other for-profit ventures have...
Ah just the solution - vc funded for profit friendship and caretaking as a service. That will surely be the remedy! (/s)
>Loneliness increases death risk by 32% but we know how to fix it. Real solutions that cut loneliness in half, from mindfulness to community programs that actually work.
And what, pray tell, works? He goes on:
>Those programs in Barcelona where almost half the people stopped feeling lonely? The mindfulness stuff that works in just two weeks? Even the robot pets for elderly people “it all works”. We’re not talking about maybe or possibly here. This stuff actually works. What gets me is that fixing loneliness doesn’t require some massive revolution. Twenty minutes of mindfulness a day. A weekly volunteer shift.
Slop.
Would you like to know why some people are lonely? Because they have interacted with people before and found the experience to be quite objectionable.
I am lonely because I have dealt with too many assholes. And if it kills me sooner, good. Humanity is a garbage species full of opportunistic and adversarial people just waiting to find new people to exert power over.
I can't wait to leave this hellhole.
The very first thing this article should define is what is considered loneliness in this context
No need to jump on the latest buzzwords, doing science. I remember this kind of study has already been done with married/unmarried peope, with basically a similar result. The explanation they gave back then was pretty logical: If you are living alone, there is nobody around to call an ambulance if you have a heart attack or similar.
This might go against the whole "just use positive thinking out of loneliness"
Mortality risk is already 100% isn’t it? We’re going to die, guaranteed, so what’s another 23% increase on 100%?
I think a good study would be the effects of likes, upvotes and karma on overall lifespan. I’d bet that people who gain more upvotes and positive engagement in general probably live much longer than people who are chronically downvoted or ignored.
That is a very clever null hypothesis to check whether disliked people tilt the balance, or whether lack of human interactions do.
The ones who should do this study would be the CIA. They could remotely kill people by giving them negative social feedback all the time. It would also give weight to online harassment complaints.
Strategically weaponized cyberbullying on a person whose mental state has been compromised by social media can be a creative way to kill them off if they are driven to suicide. Might be the plot of a thriller at least.
This is why doctors should recommend drinking and smoking. At a certain point the risk of premature death is greater from being a shut-in than it is from indulging in a pint and a ciggie with some buddies every once in a while.
People can and do drink and smoke alone. Indeed, lonely people may turn to alcohol for self-medication. And of course those addicted to nicotine have to smoke regardless of whether other people are around. That will just make the problem worse.
Besides, smoking has largely been banned from buildings, so that habit doesn't make it convenient to gather with others, except perhaps huddled outside the door.
But I don't think it makes a diff. My friend circle has had a few guys drop into hermit mode. We have tried all kinds of things to pull them out, but it's like they have decided monastic life or whatever is their thing.
>We have tried all kinds of things to pull them out
Why?
Do tell more.
I know enough cases of heavy smokers and drinkers who are also asocial (if not shut-in) to be wary of this kind of assertions...
I'd opt for an AI friend first
Another way to put it: Start dragging your sorry ass to church.
I'm quite serious about this, by the way. To attend a church (other religious traditions will do, but I'm partial) means not only to involve yourself in a community, but to situate yourself in a story which provides meaning and makes sense of the world.
All the government programs he advocates for are just pale imitations of the vibrant communities that humans were made for and which modern society has done its best to destroy.
> All the government programs he advocates for are just pale imitations of the vibrant communities that humans were made for and which modern society has done its best to destroy.
Humans were not made for anything, and for most of the existence of our species, there were no churches, indeed no buildings of any kind. Until ~10k years ago, with the development of agriculture and permanent settlements, humans lived in relatively small hunter-gatherer groups. These communities may indeed have been "vibrant", but they were organized around family and survival, not religion.
Contrary to your claim, churches and organized religion have been made possible by modern society, not destroyed by it. It's unclear where exactly you see the destructive causes, apart from the progress of science that has tended to undermine religious belief?
In the United States, churches are tax-exempt. In that sense, they are promoted by the government in a crucial way.
To some of us weirdos, it actually matters whether things we repeatedly stand up and declare or sing about are true, and whether the stories we draw meaning from are factually correct, and whether values we repeatedly and publicly affiliate ourselves with are good.
And, among this admittedly weird fragment of the population, those of us who think the things churchgoers affirm and derive meaning from and value are true and good are mostly already going to church, and those of us who think they're not so true and mostly not so good shouldn't be going to church, no matter how sorry our asses.
Have you ever given a Christmas gift to someone? Or do you abstain because it requires a belief in flying reindeer?
I've given many Christmas gifts. None of them required anyone to believe in flying reindeer, Turkish bishops living at the north pole, frosty winds and frozen water in a place that never gets below 10degC or so, etc. All it requires is a tradition of exchanging gifts at that time of the year.
If giving gifts at Christmas required me to declare solemnly that I was doing it in the name of the incarnate Son of God and that the presents under the tree had actually been delivered by flying reindeer, then I wouldn't do it; I'd find some other way of being nice to the people I love that didn't require me to lie.
So, anyway, perhaps your point is that I could find a church that doesn't expect me to actually believe, or say, or sing, any of the usual churchy things, and then I could go there every week. I suppose I could. But I think all those things Christians believe are somewhat load-bearing for Christianity and suspect that going to church every week while remaining an atheist wouldn't actually get me most of the benefits that regular churchgoing is alleged to give the people who do it.
I’m not the person you replied to. I was raised catholic, but these days I don’t believe in god and think the church is a waste of time.
But i DO still celebrate christmas. Not for ME, but as an excuse to connect with family and friends. In other words, i don’t go to church and subject myself to nodding to 60 minutes of nonsense (to me). Instead I join for christmas lunch / dinner. The socializing part. The good part. If my family was not catholic then i’d just throw a nice new year’s party instead. Again - just to get everyone together.
I have a friend that celebrates Hanukkah and i’ve occasionally joined their family to celebrate as well.
What does belief in a religion have to do with participating in social events that happen to be rooted in religion?
Maybe i don’t “get it”?
> What does belief in a religion have to do with participating in social events that happen to be rooted in religion?
I'm not making that claim. I'm addressing the reverse: someone who refuses to go to church ("participating in social events ") because he doesn't believe the dogma. And so I brought up that many people have no such reservations about participating in Christmas traditions and activities.
It's the church which destroyed itself. Using its influence for political power, that gave it short term power but destroyed it long term.
And I would not agree with religion providing sense of the world. It's another coping mechanism to deal with absurdity in the world. There is a reason people fallback to religion when times get tough.
> Using its influence for political power, that gave it short term power but destroyed it long term.
I'm no fan of organised religion, but this is a pretty wild take to me. "The church" has been around for the best part of 2000 years. It's been wildly political for most if not all of that. It doesn't show much sign of disappearing any time soon.
The important part of the "church" in this context is finding a third space[0]. A church can be a reasonable third space, even for atheists. Particularly in smaller communities with limited resources. Other healthy options include hackerspaces / makerspackes (that is my third space of choice), libraries, parks, sporting events, etc.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
Attending church can have negative consequences because religion promotes belief in unprovable claims, building life on a false premise: since the central claim isn’t true, the practices and rules around it may seem hollow or misleading.
Religion discourages critical thinking, consumes time and money, enforces conformity through social pressure, and expose individuals to guilt, shame, or manipulation by institutions with histories of abuse or corruption.
Not every church is associated with a large international community. My girlfriend is an avid churchgoer and her church has 46 members I believe. They aren't Catholic and not associated with a broader group. They're called "Primitive Methodist" so I guess there's a broader denominational link to other churches, but they don't get orders from anyplace above them or anything.
It sounds nice to someone like me who doesn't do any organized religious stuff, because the money and things donated there go back to their little community or for maintaining the building and things like that. I see firsthand how that kind of church drastically helps her have a sense of community in an increasingly digital-first world.
Honest question: for women, are there any churches or other religious or spiritual traditions that do not limit them or afford them a second-class status relative to other members? (This can be in terms of church elders/leadership positions or just importance in activities, speeches giving women good role models, etc). For instance Catholic traditions usually provide quite a few female role models (not least Mary) but heavily sideline women in actual church operations, whereas Protestant traditions have more equitable leadership ranks, but don't give as much space to women who are not in leadership. I am not clueful enough to discuss other traditions sadly.
church only provides meaning if you actually _believe_ the stuff the priest lectures about for 30 minutes at mass. Otherwise you get to play make-believe for 1 hour each week.
For me, church increases my blood pressure. I was forced to attend church as a child and didn’t believe any of the stuff by the time i was an older teen. Going to church feels patronizing to me, since i don’t believe any of it. And i’m bitter that i was “forced” into it by my parents. They never at ANY point asked me if I want to continue going, and I know for certain that even if i spoke up they would have ignored me. Ugh.
Anyway i’ve had good luck making friends at my local Y, through friends of friends, and occasionally work.
It is perfectly possible to go to church regularly and talk to no one there.
Conversely, it's perfectly impossible no never go anywhere and have meaningful relationships with your neighbors.
It's hard. I belong to an atheist-inclusive church, but I've been skipping for about a month and I'm reluctant to show up again.
Words like "community", "fellowship", "connection" are used a lot, but there's no obvious checklist for me to follow when I wake up Sunday morning feeling like a piece of shit and having no desire to inflict myself on others.
As a "believer" myself (we don't typically use that evangelical terminology but it's close enough) I can completely understand that. People should go to Church for Christ, and anything else, even "community" is a nice bonus but is not going to sustain people when pursued for its own sake, as you're experiencing.
Maybe a sport or hobby club or some other thing you're interested in where people have a specific motivation to get together, bonding and forming "community" more naturally?
Actual pieces of shit don't care. It's very likely more mental than you think. Delete facebook, join the gym, meditate, etc.
I'm an atheist, but I do wish I could go to church, or at least something like that. I've tried going to other non-religious clubs but it's not really the same. A pottery class just doesn't give that same feeling of "belonging".
The trouble is it just seems a bit too serious every time I've been. I don't believe any of it, and I can't believe anyone with intelligence could believe it either. But unlike, say, WWE-style wrestling, there are way too many people taking it far too seriously. You never hear of atrocities or stupidity happening because someone took wrestling too seriously. Are there churches that are more like wrestling?
I think the issue you're having is that taking it way too seriously is exactly what creates the feeling of belonging. There's a number of forums or clubs where one might discuss morality, myth, creation stories etc more like wrestling - fantasy roleplaying groups and fantasy writing circles often do include those themes for instance. But it's harder to feel true belonging through discussing whether your bard is an asshole for sleeping with a gold-hoarding dragon if you're 100% aware that neither bards or dragons exist.
Is there anything you do take super seriously? The environment, your job, parenting, a specific hobby or something? Something you think other people are missing out on by not experiencing? Looks like a club based on that would work better for you.
no
Is this true? I see a lot of people on the right complaining about loneliness epidemic, so it would seem odd that people who are attending church would have this issue and it still being a problem. You hear about lots of young, right-wing men talking about this as an issue, so church is clearly not solving it for them.
This is all hearsay and anecdotal, mind you, and I admit I have not done the research here. It's not a condition I have, nor do any of my friends. I believe it's happening, but the claim of "just attend church" doesn't seem to being paying off to me.
Talk to any right-leaning young man who's actively engaged in a church community (even better if they're actually pursuing Christ, and not just chasing an abstract ideal of "community") and you won't hear very much about the "loneliness epidemic", except maybe in reference to their peers.
It may be hard to find them online in order to "talk" to them though, and of course that's the whole point :-) Selection bias at work.
I'll do you one better: start your own cult!
> All the government programs he advocates for are just pale imitations of the vibrant communities that human were made for and which modern society has done its best to destroy.
Modern leftism is essentially a reincarnated Christianity:
- "the government" is their Trinity. Just "believe" and eventually the right one will get elected and fix everything.
- legislation and regulations are their Bible.
- police (an arm of the government) are the scapegoat/substitute for our sins.
- tithing through higher taxes
- feel bad about yourself (historical racism / sexism that they keep bringing up) but turn to the light (leftist progress, signalling) and ye shall be saved
- forces of evil: those who want smaller government and personal freedom.
- prosperity gospel: welfare and fiscal recklessness because we can just turn on the money printer
- signalling: businesses are pressured to display leftist icons or slogans to signal their inclusion in the faith.
Correct, if only because, unlike actual left-wing political movements, such as anarchism, communism, or socialism, "leftism" is right of center.
OP was accused of posting AI-generated articles previously:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45368911