All over the world, more and more is being written about the “loneliness epidemic”. A 2018 study by the Kaiser Foundation found that one in five American and British adults always or often feels lonely, lacks company, feels excluded or isolated. The British BBC’s Loneliness Experiment, carried out in the same year, found that as many as 40% of young people aged 16-24 feel lonely often or very often. According to a 2018 Cigna survey of Americans, nearly half of respondents sometimes or always feel lonely (46%) and feel abandoned (47%), and more than half sometimes or always feel that no one knows them well.
Leaving home, changing school, work, place of residence, mourning – all these situations can weaken the strength of our social bonds. Loneliness mainly affects vulnerable people who are more prone to harm: the elderly, people with disabilities or mental illnesses, young parents, divorcees, adolescents, immigrants and refugees. According to a 2017 Jo Cox report, as many as 58% of immigrants mention loneliness as the main problem they face, half of disabled people feel lonely, as do 8 out of 10 carers of the elderly.