Americans are lonely. Our loneliness is killing us.
It’s true. Loneliness is deadlier than obesity. Deadlier than smoking. And, yes, a great deal deadlier than the “assault weapons” some people are so obsessed with banning lately. A gun might kill more quickly, but loneliness will hasten death as surely as a bullet. One in five Americans, for example, say loneliness is “a major source of unhappiness in their lives.” At the same time, around 30 million Americans take antidepressants of one kind or another. Are we depressed because we’re lonely or we lonely because we’re depressed?
You may have seen news stories about “the loneliness epidemic.” It’s a real thing, not a public-relations gimmick. The man who coined the term about a decade ago passed away earlier this month . . .
Read the rest at the Sacramento Bee.