CV NEWS FEED // The rate of loneliness felt by American adults has crept up in 2024, rising to 20% in August and September from the 17% recorded at the beginning of 2023, a Gallup report suggests.
Gallup asked U.S. adults if they felt loneliness “a lot of the day yesterday” and discovered that loneliness increased across every quarter in 2024. February 2024 registered at 17%, similarly to the previous year, while May registered at 18%.
August and September’s measurement of 20%, which otherwise most recently occurred in October 2022, is still below the highest rate ever recorded (25%), which last occurred in March 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, Gallup pointed out that it does not have data to shed light on what loneliness might have looked like before the pandemic, “so it is unclear whether the current level represents a return to prior estimates or is higher than those estimates would have been, even though the pandemic has ended.”
Gallup’s report added, “Those experiencing daily loneliness are nearly five times as likely as those who do not report daily loneliness to rate their current life poorly.”
Loneliness can also be associated with negative expectations for the future, though not to the same degree as it is associated with a person’s current life.
“Although loneliness has a detrimental impact on general life satisfaction, it is encouraging that it appears to have a smaller effect on how people see their future lives, leaving room for hope. Hope is a powerful feeling that should not be underestimated,” Gallup reported.
Adults who said they were not lonely were more likely to be satisfied with their lives and be hopeful about the future. Gallup also found that if a person likes what they do every day, receives “positive energy” from family and friends daily, and has felt productive and active every day in the last week, the odds of experiencing loneliness decrease by at least 75%.
Gallup concluded by offering suggestions to combat loneliness. It recommended that people work in a field that they have a natural gift for, volunteer, exercise, and foster relationships in communities.