Overview

Loneliness kills more people than obesity. The Surgeon General says it is equivalent to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. This book explains why-and what we can do about it. Half of American adults report feeling lonely. One in six people worldwide is affected. The World Health Organization estimates loneliness contributes to 871,000 deaths per year-100 every hour. This is not a soft problem. It is a public health emergency with the mortality impact of a pack-a-day habit, and it was decades in the making. THE LONELINESS EPIDEMIC traces how we built a civilization that produces isolation at industrial scale. From the suburban cul-de-sacs that eliminated the front porch to the algorithms that replaced conversation with scrolling, from the collapse of churches and civic organizations to the gig economy that turned workers into solitary productivity units, this book follows the evidence through twenty chapters of unflinching investigation. Drawing on the U.S. Surgeon General's landmark advisory, the WHO's global report, Harvard's Making Caring Common research, and the pioneering neuroscience of John Cacioppo, THE LONELINESS EPIDEMIC documents what disconnection does to the body (cardiovascular damage, immune suppression, dementia risk), the mind (depression, anxiety, the erosion of meaning), democracy (polarization, radicalization, civic collapse), and the economy ($6.7 billion in Medicare costs alone). But this is not a book of despair. The final chapters profile the communities, policies, and individuals who are proving that connection can be rebuilt-from a vacant lot in Boise that became a neighborhood village to a state legislator in Minnesota who reframed social infrastructure as healthcare cost reduction and got a bill passed. If you have ever felt alone in a room full of people, this book will show you why-and what comes next.

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