Writing in the Week, journalist Theara Coleman has declared 2023 “the year of the loneliness epidemic”. In May, the US surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, said loneliness posed a public health risk on a par with smoking and drinking.
“It’s like hunger or thirst,” Murthy said. “It’s a feeling the body sends us when something we need for survival is missing. Millions of people in America are struggling in the shadows, and that’s not right.”
