If you’ve ever tried to make new friends as an adult, you’ll probably see why loneliness is at an all-time high. Making new friends feels just plain hard.
In school, making friends can be as simple as going on the monkey bars together. But as adults, making, developing and maintaining friendships can be much more difficult.
This matters, because we need friends. And while old friends are golden, nothing stays the same forever. Old friends move away, or have their time taken up by child-rearing or their careers. Without action, loneliness can quietly grow around you. It’s worth taking seriously, because evidence now suggests chronic loneliness can be lethal – the equivalent impact of 15 cigarettes a day on mortality rates.
It’s not just you, either. In many countries, loneliness is at epidemic proportions. And that was before COVID-19 made it much harder for us to see our friends.
Read the full article published in ‘The Conversation’ here.