Read the full Spinoff story about the impacts of social isolation and loneliness here in Aotearoa.
It’s a beautiful summer evening in Cornwall Park, with families scattered on the grass and a live band playing a backing track to their laughter. Sprawled on a picnic blanket with her young son, 46-year-old Florence* is trying to soak up the good vibes, but she can’t help feeling a heaviness. She loves doing these fun activities with her boy, but raising him alone is hard work and she craves adult company and longs to be part of a family unit again. Despite being surrounded by people, Florence is feeling lonely.
Ironically, she isn’t alone in her loneliness.
In 2023, a survey by global analytics firm Gallup revealed that 1 in 5 people worldwide said they felt lonely “a lot” during the previous day. In this study, Aotearoa was doing better than our allies Canada, US and the UK; on par with our neighbours Australia; but feeling lonelier than countries like Japan, Finland and Kazakhstan. But no matter where you go on this planet, loneliness is an issue.
Relationships and whanaungatanga provide humans with a sense of belonging, and because we are wired for connection, prolonged loneliness can have a profound effect on our physical and mental wellbeing. The World Health Organisation has declared loneliness to be a pressing global health threat, and the US surgeon general has been quoted in international headlines comparing the mortality risks from loneliness to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
While loneliness is not a new experience for humanity, the issue has been thrust into the spotlight care of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the forced social isolation that came with it.
According to the 2020 survey carried out by the Helen Clark Foundation during New Zealand’s first level four lockdown, the rate of loneliness increased significantly across the total population. Young people were hit especially hard – before the pandemic, 5.8% felt lonely “most or all of the time”. During lockdown, that number soared to 20.8%. But these increases were only a temporary spike, with the follow up survey a year later showing that loneliness across the population had almost returned to the pre-pandemic baseline.
Anecdotally there is an understanding that societal shifts such as increased use of technology, urbanisation and changes in community and family structures have rendered us feeling lonelier, but there is a lack of solid data to support the notion that loneliness is trending upwards. What definitely has occurred though is a greater awareness of the importance of the issue and the need for individuals and societies as a whole to work together to combat it.