Giving Compass' Take:

• The author offers different views explaining the phenomenon of modern loneliness today and how it has shifted. 

• How will this impact the future workforce? Will loneliness affect our ability to work collaboratively?

• Read about how loneliness is tied to higher risk of dementia. 

In early December, The Wall Street Journal published a feature titled “The Loneliest Generation.”

“Baby boomers,” the article notes, “are aging alone more than any generation in U.S. history, and the resulting loneliness is a looming public health threat.”

The irony is that – in the midst of this loneliness crisis – we’re closer and more connected than ever before. Americans are moving to cities in record numbers, while internet use and smartphone ownership continue to grow.

What’s going on? Shouldn’t trends that ostensibly connect people and bring them closer together mitigate, not exacerbate, loneliness?

The way the meaning of loneliness has shifted – from physical solitude, to psychological isolation – could offer some clues.

  1. To stray ‘far from neighbours’ When researching the Romantic poets, Amherst College English professor Amelia Worsley discovered that the concept of loneliness didn’t emerge until the late-16th century. It was first used to describe the dangers of straying too far from society – to surrender the protections of town and city and enter the unknown.
  2. New World loneliness: As the first European explorers left their neighbors and ventured across the Atlantic, they didn’t know what they’d find.
  3. The wilderness of the web: The Pilgrims, due to a combination of luck and skill, survived. Others soon joined them. Land was cleared, streets were laid and a country was built.
  4. A sea of information: The overwhelming sea of information creates a sense of being unmoored – tugged in one direction by tweets and advertisements, spun in another by breaking news alerts and email notifications.

Read the full article about modern loneliness by Nick Lehr at The Conversation