Americans are lonely.
That’s the finding of a number of recent studies. Loneliness among Americans was prevalent even before the COVID pandemic, which only increased isolation among many people. A pre-pandemic report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that in 2020 more than a third of people over age 45 described themselves as lonely. Some surveys reveal that around 60 percent of people in the U.S. report feeling lonely on a regular basis.
We asked Dr. James Collins, MGA professor of psychology, to provide some perspective on the American epidemic of loneliness.
