Disclaimer: I am not a professional, just a mom with a blog and a lot of thoughts I want to share. The research that I find on this topic will be linked within the post. Thank you.

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It wasn’t easy to define then.

The feeling of silence that settled on the walls at 2 AM as I’m rocking my restless infant back to sleep. Or the texts from friends that go unanswered, not because I don’t want to answer, but because I can’t. Or the quiet tears that fall while doing the dishes, taking just a moment to feel. To feel something so strong it presses against my ribs, screaming for someone to hear, but unsure if anyone could.

It was early spring of 2020, just as the flowers began to blossom, when the pandemic collided with my postpartum experience, teaching me a seemingly endless lesson in what loneliness felt like.

I know I wasn’t the only one during this time to experience this kind of loneliness. Not only do statistics show shocking results, but so do personal testimonies from people I’ve spoken with and even from social commentators.

What is Loneliness?

When you think of the word loneliness, what does it mean to you? How does it look? What does it make you feel? Now hold on to those answers and just sit with them.

At some point in our lives, most of us have been lonely… yet we never talk about it. Why is that?

Maybe it starts with defining the word itself. We all understand what it means, but our life experiences make the weight of the word very different for each of us. Loneliness or feeling lonely is defined by Merriam-Webster as “being without company” and “being cut off from others.” This is a global problem. It’s more than just the physical state of being alone. It’s the feeling of being unseen in a crowd, unfelt, or disconnected from others even when surrounded.

So why is it that, during a time of modern technology and the ability to communicate at our fingertips, we are still so lonely?

The Statistics

The modernization of technology, more specifically the internet, has found a way for us to speak to people thousands of miles away. Followers on social media are the new form of social currency. We are more connected than ever, yet we still find ourselves seeking human connection.

When it comes to statistics on this topic, they’re a bit all over the place, since many are based on surveys or estimations drawn from collected data. There’s also very little recorded on loneliness rates from just 60 years ago. That being said I will try and give the most accurate information possible.

As of May 2024, the CDC reported that around 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. feel lonely, a number that increased to 1 in 2 adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pre-pandemic, loneliness was already trending upward across all age groups, but we saw the largest spike in 2020. Adults aged 18–49 were among the loneliest, and several other factors, like marriage status and gender identity, can play a huge role.

In 2023, the U.S. Attorney General recognized modern-day loneliness as a Public Health Crisis in a major advisory titled “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” In their findings, loneliness affected several areas of a person’s life and really, the overall health of our society — both physically and socioeconomically. “Loneliness and social isolation increase the risk for premature death by 26% and 29%, respectively.”

Social connection is found to be one of the best indicators of a society’s overall health. Meaning, the better we’re able to connect as a society, the better off we will be as a whole.

But loneliness doesn’t just wear one face…

Why we need to talk about it?

Like I said before, our experience with loneliness looks different for everyone. It depends on how and when you were raised, what you lived through, and what the social norms expect from you. For men, it can feel like utter isolation… a demand to take on roles that never allow space for softness. For women, it’s the invisible labor, slowly smoldering toward burnout from feeling like they have to hold everything together. And somewhere along the way, we stopped reaching for one another. Now we opt for pointing fingers, keeping tally of the wrongs we do to each other. Blaming others for the baggage we have to carry.

We fell for the lie that the other is the problem, rather than asking: who benefits from the abandonment of social connection, the ones we choose to uphold, whether through a lack of personal accountability or our hyper-individualism? Someone is benefitting.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be diving deep into how loneliness impacts social norms, gender and the generations. And what it means to stitch ourselves back together, individually and collectively.

Every voice counts. Every story matters.
Because loneliness isn’t just a feeling…

It’s a demand.

A call for connection, for change, and for just showing up for each other.

But first, we have to talk about it.

Sincerly,

Shay

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