It is difficult to put a number on all the lonely people in the world. An estimate comes from the World Health Organisation, which approximates that at least 10% of adolescents, and 25% of older people are lonely. The Global State of Connections report says at least a quarter of 4.5 billion people felt ‘lonely’ or ‘very lonely’ this year. Both are an underestimation of the real scale of loneliness, which the WHO declared a pressing, albeit underappreciated, global health threat last month. The health impact has been likened to smoking 15 cigarettes, or a feeling of hunger or thirst “the body sends us when something we need for survival is missing.” The pandemic years have calcified loneliness as a feature of daily life, with implications on people’s long-term mental and physical health, longevity and well-being, the American Psychological Association noted. Wars, climate change and social inequality have only accelerated this ‘silent’ threat.
“The fact that WHO has put an identification mark to it emphasises a lot more that going through loneliness is serious — and needs to be dealt with urgent attention,” says Nidhi Thakore, a clinical psychologist. The Indian experience of loneliness, however, is relatively understudied and unacknowledged. In a collectivistic country with more than 140 billion people —almost twice the number of people living in Europe — loneliness as a public health and social concern fails to receive the targeted attention it needs, she notes. The Hindu examines the ‘loneliness epidemic’, the challenges of documenting loneliness in India and why experts think India needs to address loneliness as a structural problem.
