[HN Gopher] Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases m...
___________________________________________________________________
Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk
by 32%
Author : WASDAai
Score : 327 points
Date : 2025-09-29 13:25 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lightcapai.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lightcapai.medium.com)
| softwaredoug wrote:
| How much is related to people suffering a medical emergency and
| nobody being around to help? vs. How much is the actual emotional
| impact of loneliness?
| lapcat wrote:
| The article cites many measurable negative health effects aside
| from death, so it seems that the emotional impact does matter a
| lot.
| mongol wrote:
| This is a very valid question. I have had a few close calls
| where I afterwards wonder what would have happened if I had
| hurt myself seriously. Chances are, no one would have paid
| attention in days.
| stared wrote:
| Its anecdotical (though, I guess, there is plenty of data for
| that), but often people (especially men) don't visit a doctor
| early enough. It takes their partner (of friends, kids) to
| prompt them to get checked.
|
| Medical emergencies might be a cherry on the cake - but let's
| not forget that most diseases are not instantaneous - and
| sooner these are cached, less harm.
| trentnix wrote:
| It doesn't even have to be medical emergencies that go
| unnoticed. There are other declining health metrics that an
| independent observer might notice that a person is not aware of
| or is unwilling to confront. If there's no one to say "you
| might want to get that checked out", you probably won't get
| _that_ checked out!
|
| No mistake, almost all of us can refer to an anecdote of an
| elderly relative dying soon after their spouse. It can be both
| tragic and, in hindsight, romantic. But really, the
| consequences of loneliness are often and unfortunately quite
| practical.
| AaronAPU wrote:
| There's another side where the people you're around downplay
| any sort of medical concern you have and actually discourage
| getting help.
|
| So I guess you have:
|
| bad company < no company < good company
| trentnix wrote:
| That's only the case if you're unaware you're in bad
| company! I've known a few people that were excellent
| weathervanes as long as you were aware there were going to
| always be wrong by 180 degrees.
| kristopolous wrote:
| I saw an analysis that demonstrated this clearly by replacing
| loneliness with population density. Effectively you could see
| the same mortality effect for people who live out in the
| sticks.
| bckr wrote:
| A lot of PubMed links. Awesome.
|
| I'm curious what the research says about interacting online in
| e.g. Discord servers and other forums for niche communities.
| Also, is calling your childhood friend on the regular more or
| less potent than meeting IRL but recently-made friends?
| ipnon wrote:
| This is why doctors should recommend drinking and smoking. At a
| certain point the risk of premature death is greater from being a
| shut-in than it is from indulging in a pint and a ciggie with
| some buddies every once in a while.
| lapcat wrote:
| People can and do drink and smoke alone. Indeed, lonely people
| may turn to alcohol for self-medication. And of course those
| addicted to nicotine _have_ to smoke regardless of whether
| other people are around. That will just make the problem worse.
|
| Besides, smoking has largely been banned from buildings, so
| that habit doesn't make it convenient to gather with others,
| except perhaps huddled outside the door.
| the_af wrote:
| I know enough cases of heavy smokers and drinkers who are also
| asocial (if not shut-in) to be wary of this kind of
| assertions...
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| I'd opt for an AI friend first
| joules77 wrote:
| But I don't think it makes a diff. My friend circle has had a
| few guys drop into hermit mode. We have tried all kinds of
| things to pull them out, but it's like they have decided
| monastic life or whatever is their thing.
| balamatom wrote:
| Do tell more.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| >We have tried all kinds of things to pull them out
|
| Why?
| TriangleEdge wrote:
| Any Meta or X employees want to comment on loneliness? I always
| felt like social media platforms made people lonelier overall.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's the social equivalent of ultra-processed food. Hyper-
| palatable and habit-forming, you always crave more. You end up
| (socially) both overfed and malnourished.
| Herring wrote:
| A lot of the causes are deeply structural, so it's likely to keep
| getting worse for the foreseeable future.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness_epidemic#Causes_of_...
| jjice wrote:
| Aside from a formal study, _feels_ right (for what that's worth).
| The healthiest people I know are generally happy and have people
| around who care of them and they care for. I swear the social
| parts of life are what keep the elderly going, in my experience.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| _I swear the social parts of life are what keep the elderly
| going, in my experience._
|
| I could've sworn there was a paper, (or maybe just an article?
| can't remember), a long time ago about the community on a
| Mediterranean island somewhere? The thesis was that people
| there were living abnormally long lives because of the
| Mediterranean style food they ate, and how socially active and
| interconnected they were in old age.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240322-eat-beans-and-
| li...
| bilbo0s wrote:
| That's it!
|
| Thanks!
| paraknight wrote:
| I haven't dug into all the sources, but I think there's a
| potential confounder here, or maybe even reverse causality. The
| author seems to assume causation when the studies only indicate
| correlation. E.g. the first link says "chronic loneliness
| increases mortality risk" but the actual source says "actual and
| perceived social isolation are both associated with increased
| risk for early mortality".
|
| So for example, it's possible that if you already have chronic
| illness, a disability, or any other kind of health issues, you're
| more likely to have higher social isolation and therefore be more
| lonely, in addition to having a higher mortality risk. There's an
| outside variable (your health) that is correlated with both
| (loneliness and mortality), but that doesn't necessarily mean
| that loneliness causes mortality. If this were the case, we could
| defend claims like "autism increases mortality", because we
| already know that autism increases social isolation.
| vasco wrote:
| My dismissive but practical take is "well yeah there's nobody
| in the room to call an ambulance when you have the heart attack
| you'll most likely have", which mindfulness classes and support
| groups don't help with. There's practical benefits to having
| people around.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| By these statistics there aren't enough healthy people to
| provide care for those that are less healthy
|
| The challenge here is that healthy people don't desire to be
| around unhealthy people.
|
| Society provides no incentive or social benefit for otherwise
| healthy people to be around the unwell to call the
| ambulances. Even as a nurse, hospice worker or caregiver, the
| pay/benefits are non existent for the amount of emotional and
| physical labor needed for care.
| Y_Y wrote:
| You don't have to be that healthy to call an ambulance! As
| long as not everyone in the sick-and-poor commune has a
| heart attack at the same time this should be a safe enough
| system.
| e_y_ wrote:
| Ambulances are expensive enough that people are hesitant
| to call them, sometimes even in life threatening
| situations.
|
| And if the person is unsure whether the situation is
| critical, they might try to "sleep it off" rather than
| driving or getting a ride, because ER is also kind of
| expensive and you could be stuck there all day.
| Qem wrote:
| In US. But there are places with proper socialized health
| systems, where one must not be afraid of bankruptcy by
| calling an ambulance.
| nh23423fefe wrote:
| Dying of natural causes is ok though.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| _Preventably_ dying of natural causes is kind of a waste,
| though.
| JackFr wrote:
| There was a funny statistical artifact I read once (well, for
| some value of 'funny') that home was a terrible place to have
| a heart attack, because people are willing to 'just lie down
| and see how I feel' rather than in a restaurant or movie
| theater where an ambulance will be called.
| arandr0x wrote:
| It would be interesting then for similar studies to add a
| dimension in addition to self-reported loneliness on self-
| reported time spent outside the home. While it's likely
| that sedentary elders are lonelier, it's not a 100% overlap
| (some elders live with close family and some lonely people
| are still very physically active/outside). You would expect
| lonely, active people to have lower death rates than
| lonely, sedentary people with similar pre-existing
| conditions under your hypothesis, and it would be a
| powerful thing to prove because it's a lot easier to make
| people go out than to make them make friends.
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| Then what about work from home? Does it increase mortality?
| Qem wrote:
| I bet any change in mortality due to increased isolation
| is offset by decreased deaths due to traffic acidents.
| hhmc wrote:
| I once did a course with a paramedic on basic aid. We were
| discussing choking, which is a condition that really needs a
| 2nd party to intervene. Someone asked what to do if you live
| alone (with no close neighbours) - the answer was essentially
| 'good luck'
| vkou wrote:
| Most people don't know how to do a self-heimlich.
| mh- wrote:
| I know how to _in theory_ , and I think I'm probably
| "above average" at calm-in-crisis, but my confidence that
| I'd calmly rescue myself via self-heimlich while unable
| to breathe is not high.
| magneticnorth wrote:
| The idea of the heimlich is to put sudden force on the
| diaphragm and force air upward. You can do that alone by
| pushing your upper abdomen against a chair back, counter,
| railing, whatever. Not something I've ever tried, but good
| to know about in case.
| inciampati wrote:
| And if you're alone it's worth running with a chair into
| the street to do it as visibly as possible.
| hhmc wrote:
| Sure theoretically. Outcomes are dramatically better if
| someone else is around
| IMSAI8080 wrote:
| Or related: there's no one to nag you about going to get that
| funny ache checked out. Men particularly are notoriously
| reluctant to go to a doctor for various reasons but a worried
| partner might persuade them.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| When this happens to us, my wife says, "This is another
| reason why married men live longer."
|
| She's not wrong...
| bjourne wrote:
| Of course there is no direct causation between loneliness and
| death. You don't directly die from lack of social interaction,
| but you do directly die from lack of food. However, there is a
| clear causal link between loneliness and habits that increase
| mortality.
| Taek wrote:
| No I believe its reasonably well established that being
| lonely itself takes a toll on your health. Stress goes up
| etc.
|
| The problem is that this article is overstating the effect on
| mortality because its not controlling for confounding factors
| very well.
| mrkickling wrote:
| Do you not believe that mental well being is affected by
| loneliness? And that mental well being could affect
| mortality?
| lynx97 wrote:
| > Of course there is no direct causation between loneliness
| and death.
|
| Of course there is. If you are alone at home, who calls an
| ambulance if you have a heart attack or similar condition? If
| you are living together with someone, the chance they are
| arund while it happens is all thats needed to skew the
| statistics.
| vharuck wrote:
| Poor health increasing social isolation isn't even a hard
| casual path to argue. Common health problems can physically
| restrict how often and how long one leaves the house: people on
| oxygen can only travel as far as their supply and weakened
| lungs can take them, or people with bowel disorders might be
| reluctant to be do anything without easy and discrete bathroom
| use, people with visible symptoms might be embarrassed and
| avoid socializing.
|
| The loneliness-associated protein study linked in TFA doesn't
| seem to control for health status. So preexisting conditions
| may have affected the correlations.
| oncallthrow wrote:
| Yes, this seems blindingly obvious to me. Maybe because I
| have chronic health problems myself. Perhaps those blessed
| with good health are blissfully ignorant.
|
| When you are chronically ill, socializing falls pretty
| rapidly down your list of priorities.
| observationist wrote:
| That said, it seems pretty clear that incentivizing healthy
| socialization can significantly improve quality of life,
| reducing perceived suffering and quite possibly improving
| outcomes through reinforcement of the various social needs
| we have.
|
| We are fundamentally social primates; there are prior
| studies demonstrating the overt harms of isolation and
| ostracization in humans, primates, and other mammals. Our
| immune systems, metabolism, and cardiovascular health are
| all tied intimately to things like stress and hormones,
| with feedback effects that can amplify disorder, or
| suppress it, depending on the directionality of the inputs.
|
| I see the "just so" element of explanation to this study,
| but I think that even if the underlying causal factors are
| more complex, it is so directionally correct that I have no
| problem with the conclusion of the study, even if it's not
| correctly justified scientifically.
| biophysboy wrote:
| >Recent meta-analyses examining 2.2 million individuals across
| 90 cohort studies reveal that social isolation and loneliness
| trigger measurable biological cascades comparable to
| traditional disease risk factors.
|
| Its frustrating, because cohort study experimental designs like
| these can in principle chip away at reverse causality (i.e.
| observe loneliness exposure before a cardiovascular disease
| prognosis, compare difference-in-difference between
| treatment/control), but the meta-analysis doesnt clearly state
| whether this constraint was applied. But even a study like this
| would have issues with medical participation, so that would
| need to be controlled, preferably with a prospective design.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| As an anecdote, I have a couple of elderly family members who
| did not mellow with age. Instead they became even more toxic
| and abusive as they approached their 80s. (I have another who
| was the complete opposite.). The abusive ones hurled curse
| words as soon as you entered the door; then they "switched"
| personalities and acted as if nothing happened. I also know of
| an acquaintance whose son had the similar personality traits
| even though he's only in his 40s. The son needed a 24 hour a
| day caregiver because he's mentally challenged. In short there
| are a whole host of physical and/or mental problems that
| confound the situation.
| ken47 wrote:
| And don't forget that physical loneliness, that is, actually
| being alone, eliminates one major feedback source that
| something could be wrong with your health, or a source of
| immediate aid if e.g. you go into cardiac arrest.
|
| Maybe the researcher above touches on these things, but more
| generally, there should be a standardized probability and
| statistics exam for ALL aspiring scientific researchers, and a
| high score should be the minimum cutoff. The influence that a
| statistically flawed study can have over our collective futures
| is too dangerous.
| fn-mote wrote:
| > The influence that a statistically flawed study can have
| over our collective futures is too dangerous.
|
| An even bigger danger: with all of the flawed / p-hacked /
| over-hyped studies, the public (and the legislature) will
| start to believe that NO science is real.
|
| It worries me how much argument there is over things I
| consider to be facts. And how much effort goes into
| undermining science when it is not in the corporate interest
| (eg cigarette manufacturers funding "inconclusive" studies).
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _The author seems to assume causation when the studies only
| indicate correlation._
|
| once I heard Feynmann say in a youtube video that (paraphrasal)
| "we don't know what causes gravity, we just know that it
| exists, it's a property of matter"
|
| then I realized, our experiments _never_ show causation, they
| only show correlation. gravity has 100% (in our experience)
| correlation to matter. admittedly, that 's a pretty good
| correlation, but for all we know, gravity causes matter. energy
| too, apparently.
| schoen wrote:
| Philosophers have worried for a long time about whether we
| can actually observe causation.
|
| David Hume was famous for arguing in _An Enquiry Concerning
| Human Understanding_ that we can 't observe it and we instead
| have a "custom" or habit of expecting effects to follow
| causes.
|
| > After the constant conjunction of two objects--heat and
| flame, for instance, weight and solidity--we are determined
| by custom to expect the one from the appearance of the other.
|
| Religious philosophers have sometimes gone to the extreme of
| occasionalism, where they've maintained that patterns and
| regularities in nature were just habits or customs that God
| chooses to follow:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasionalism
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Skipping punctuation makes your writing harder to parse. It's
| a false economy.
| fsckboy wrote:
| i didn't skip any punctuation
| blablabla123 wrote:
| The myth of the lonely hero (and probably risk taker) has been
| mentioned as a problematic factor before
| ramblingrain wrote:
| The first source I clicked into was a meta-analysis of
| randomized clinical trials.
|
| What you say sounds true about chronic illness and isolation.
| These researchers are looking at research done using actual
| interventions and real results.
|
| What should they do to analyze this more than RCTs and then
| meta-analysis of RCTs?
|
| https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...
| Tackling social disconnection: an umbrella review of RCT-based
| interventions targeting social isolation and loneliness
| ivape wrote:
| If you think things through like that then you can only ever
| attribute physical, material, biological factors as the only
| things involved in mapping the causation. In other words, every
| time we attempt to draw the line to mortality, it gets hacked
| down as we keep reducing the argument.
|
| We cannot explore the possibilities of truth if we do that, but
| I can appreciate the due diligence. It's a tricky subject, but
| life experience informs many of us that there is something more
| going on than "I materially feel like shit".
|
| There is a taboo element to loneliness that isn't often
| discussed, and that is "I feel hurt that I can be left alone,
| or that anyone can be left alone or isolated". So, while the
| source of the isolation could be material, the feeling that
| manifests from it is an actual _hurt_ that one feels from the
| actual thing (isolation). For example, we may be _killing_ our
| elders when we isolate them in care facilities.
|
| I can't say if we have the sense as a society to accept data
| that suggests this pain can be linked to mortality. Isolation
| in itself isn't the killer, it's the pain of "well how could
| any society leave anyone alone", and such a phenomenon can be
| witnessed in the macro outside of yourself ( _how can we leave
| people on the street? Etc_ ).
|
| Loneliness and isolation is often in sequence, after
| abandonment, or negligence, or unforgivingness (if the person
| "deserved" the isolating). A phantom, immeasurable pain. And
| even more painful, to deny it afterwards.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Social isolation is also not the same thing as loneliness. The
| paper recognizes this and gives different outcomes for three
| distinct categories (social isolation, loneliness and living
| alone). The blog post mistakenly cites the outcome for living
| alone as the outcome for loneliness.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| Another huge factor is probably lack of feedback loop. Its
| surprisingly easy to press on by yourself through various
| health issues until its too late. However someone around you
| might say you look pale recently you should see doctor as an
| obviously contrived example.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comorbidity
| fullstop wrote:
| Before getting tied up with bureaucratic nonsense my daughter was
| looking at starting a "borrow a grandma / grandpa" club at her
| university. The idea was to connect students with elderly people
| who are lonely, and they could have tea / coffee together. The
| elderly get to be social with a younger generation, and the
| younger generation gets to understand the struggles that a lot of
| elderly people face.
|
| I think that the university was concerned with liability. I still
| think that it's a good idea.
| raffael_de wrote:
| A liability for having tea with elderly citizens?
| fullstop wrote:
| There's a lot of aspects here, such as where they would meet
| up, etc. If it's on school property and something happens,
| for example. Additionally there are restrictions for clubs
| operating off-campus. I don't know, it was seemingly more
| complicated than any of us had anticipated.
| raffael_de wrote:
| If you ask, the answer will always be No.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| If you have sufficient money such that litigating against
| you is worth it, then playing defense is worth it.
| Universities surely qualify.
| russfink wrote:
| Liability that one of them will don a Robert De Niro grin and
| say, "hey kid, wanna get out of here?" and the youth will
| oblige by lowering the roof on the GT and cranking up Deep
| Purple's Highway Star as they peel rubber from beneath the
| pastel peach awning, thousands of foot pounds of torque
| expressing a shared joy in a cloud of smoke and a squeal of
| delight.
| pengaru wrote:
| > A liability for having tea with elderly citizens?
|
| In their homes? It's a mountain of liability. The elderly
| tend to be a combination of paranoid and senile.
|
| The first time they misplace a checkbook or forget some
| valuable was already given to some grandchild they'll accuse
| the most recent new guest in memory of stealing.
|
| And that's just one of an infinite number of possibilities
| having spent zero time dwelling on it.
| raffael_de wrote:
| no wonder they are all lonely those pesky old folks!
| anavat wrote:
| Holy... That just unlocked a memory. When I was a 10 y.o. kid
| and a member of Young Pioneers organization in the late
| Soviet Union, we had a routine elderly care assignment. There
| was literally a task "to help N lonely elderly people next
| week"! We were split in pairs and provided with a list of
| addresses of nearby "targets" and a general guidance on what
| this help may constitute, like helping them with groceries,
| walking a dog, house cleaning, etc. And I remember there was
| a nice old lady who were treating us with tea and pies, and
| showing us some old photos, and who we then visited few times
| outside of the assignment just because she welcomed us and we
| liked it there. For me it was just some secondary quest that
| I barely registered and completely forgot about until now,
| but now I wonder if it was a big deal for her
| bell-cot wrote:
| Did your daughter talk to a few local senior citizen agencies
| or nursing homes? Last I knew, quite a few of those are
| interested in "just visit occasionally" volunteers. And if
| another org (which specialized in seniors) was handling that
| end of things, the U might not be so hung up on allowing the
| club.
|
| Or, "we're adults, just do it". The U can't actually stop of-
| age students from volunteering for local organizations, or
| joining churches, or playing soccer in a city park.
| fullstop wrote:
| Right, she has done that in the past. Her goal was to start a
| club so that it would persist long after she graduated.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Old people's homes are very welcoming to ANYONE willing to
| spend time with the residents. No need to join a club: pick up
| the phone or stop by and ask if they would like your time. I
| guarantee the answer will be, "When can you start?"
| fullstop wrote:
| Right, she has done that, but she wanted to start a club so
| that it could continue after she's graduated.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Make the club HQ the old people's home.
| fauria wrote:
| There is an organization doing this in Spain, Adopta un Abuelo:
| https://www.eib.org/en/stories/isolation-elderly
|
| https://adoptaunabuelo.org
| fullstop wrote:
| That's awesome, and fitting, since my daughter has an Abuela.
| :-)
| Jimpulse wrote:
| Maybe a scheduled get togethers of a retirement home group with
| a that student org either at the home or the university could
| work. That way it's easier to have a person trained to
| chaperone, a more controlled environment, and reduced general
| overhead for planning.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| There's plenty of programs that do just that in the US, so
| maybe the university just didn't want to deal with the
| liability if someone else already is (if it was a US
| university, of course).
| smithkl42 wrote:
| Another way to put it: Start dragging your sorry ass to church.
|
| I'm quite serious about this, by the way. To attend a church
| (other religious traditions will do, but I'm partial) means not
| only to involve yourself in a community, but to situate yourself
| in a story which provides meaning and makes sense of the world.
|
| All the government programs he advocates for are just pale
| imitations of the vibrant communities that humans were made for
| and which modern society has done its best to destroy.
| whatevaa wrote:
| It's the church which destroyed itself. Using its influence for
| political power, that gave it short term power but destroyed it
| long term.
|
| And I would not agree with religion providing sense of the
| world. It's another coping mechanism to deal with absurdity in
| the world. There is a reason people fallback to religion when
| times get tough.
| dcminter wrote:
| > Using its influence for political power, that gave it short
| term power but destroyed it long term.
|
| I'm no fan of organised religion, but this is a pretty wild
| take to me. "The church" has been around for the best part of
| 2000 years. It's been wildly political for most if not all of
| that. It doesn't show much sign of disappearing any time
| soon.
| gjm11 wrote:
| To some of us weirdos, it actually matters whether things we
| repeatedly stand up and declare or sing about are true, and
| whether the stories we draw meaning from are factually correct,
| and whether values we repeatedly and publicly affiliate
| ourselves with are good.
|
| And, among this admittedly weird fragment of the population,
| those of us who think the things churchgoers affirm and derive
| meaning from and value are true and good are mostly already
| going to church, and those of us who think they're not so true
| and mostly not so good _shouldn 't_ be going to church, no
| matter how sorry our asses.
| gosub100 wrote:
| Have you ever given a Christmas gift to someone? Or do you
| abstain because it requires a belief in flying reindeer?
| lurking_swe wrote:
| I'm not the person you replied to. I was raised catholic,
| but these days I don't believe in god and think the church
| is a waste of time.
|
| But i DO still celebrate christmas. Not for ME, but as an
| excuse to connect with family and friends. In other words,
| i don't go to church and subject myself to nodding to 60
| minutes of nonsense (to me). Instead I join for christmas
| lunch / dinner. The socializing part. The good part. If my
| family was not catholic then i'd just throw a nice new
| year's party instead. Again - just to get everyone
| together.
|
| I have a friend that celebrates Hanukkah and i've
| occasionally joined their family to celebrate as well.
|
| What does belief in a religion have to do with
| participating in social events that happen to be rooted in
| religion?
|
| Maybe i don't "get it"?
| gosub100 wrote:
| > What does belief in a religion have to do with
| participating in social events that happen to be rooted
| in religion?
|
| I'm not making that claim. I'm addressing the reverse:
| someone who refuses to go to church ("participating in
| social events ") because he doesn't believe the dogma.
| And so I brought up that many people have no such
| reservations about participating in Christmas traditions
| and activities.
| gjm11 wrote:
| I've given many Christmas gifts. None of them required
| anyone to believe in flying reindeer, Turkish bishops
| living at the north pole, frosty winds and frozen water in
| a place that never gets below 10degC or so, etc. All it
| requires is a tradition of exchanging gifts at that time of
| the year.
|
| If giving gifts at Christmas required me to declare
| solemnly that I was doing it in the name of the incarnate
| Son of God and that the presents under the tree had
| actually been delivered by flying reindeer, then I wouldn't
| do it; I'd find some other way of being nice to the people
| I love that didn't require me to lie.
|
| So, anyway, perhaps your point is that I could find a
| church that doesn't expect me to actually believe, or say,
| or sing, any of the usual churchy things, and then I could
| go there every week. I suppose I could. But I think all
| those things Christians believe are somewhat load-bearing
| for Christianity and suspect that going to church every
| week while remaining an atheist wouldn't actually get me
| most of the benefits that regular churchgoing is alleged to
| give the people who do it.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| It's hard. I belong to an atheist-inclusive church, but I've
| been skipping for about a month and I'm reluctant to show up
| again.
|
| Words like "community", "fellowship", "connection" are used a
| lot, but there's no obvious checklist for me to follow when I
| wake up Sunday morning feeling like a piece of shit and having
| no desire to inflict myself on others.
| Herring wrote:
| Actual pieces of shit don't care. It's very likely more
| mental than you think. Delete facebook, join the gym,
| meditate, etc.
| mikemarsh wrote:
| As a "believer" myself (we don't typically use that
| evangelical terminology but it's close enough) I can
| completely understand that. People should go to Church for
| Christ, and anything else, even "community" is a nice bonus
| but is not going to sustain people when pursued for its own
| sake, as you're experiencing.
|
| Maybe a sport or hobby club or some other thing you're
| interested in where people have a specific motivation to get
| together, bonding and forming "community" more naturally?
| ambicapter wrote:
| It is perfectly possible to go to church regularly and talk to
| no one there.
| Zambyte wrote:
| Conversely, it's perfectly impossible no never go anywhere
| and have meaningful relationships with your neighbors.
| GratiaTerra wrote:
| Attending church can have negative consequences because
| religion promotes belief in unprovable claims, building life on
| a false premise: since the central claim isn't true, the
| practices and rules around it may seem hollow or misleading.
|
| Religion discourages critical thinking, consumes time and
| money, enforces conformity through social pressure, and expose
| individuals to guilt, shame, or manipulation by institutions
| with histories of abuse or corruption.
| flipnotyk wrote:
| Not every church is associated with a large international
| community. My girlfriend is an avid churchgoer and her church
| has 46 members I believe. They aren't Catholic and not
| associated with a broader group. They're called "Primitive
| Methodist" so I guess there's a broader denominational link
| to other churches, but they don't get orders from anyplace
| above them or anything.
|
| It sounds nice to someone like me who doesn't do any
| organized religious stuff, because the money and things
| donated there go back to their little community or for
| maintaining the building and things like that. I see
| firsthand how that kind of church drastically helps her have
| a sense of community in an increasingly digital-first world.
| balamatom wrote:
| I'll do you one better: start your own cult!
| gosub100 wrote:
| > All the government programs he advocates for are just pale
| imitations of the vibrant communities that human were made for
| and which modern society has done its best to destroy.
|
| Modern leftism is essentially a reincarnated Christianity:
|
| - "the government" is their Trinity. Just "believe" and
| eventually the right one will get elected and fix everything.
|
| - legislation and regulations are their Bible.
|
| - police (an arm of the government) are the
| scapegoat/substitute for our sins.
|
| - tithing through higher taxes
|
| - feel bad about yourself (historical racism / sexism that they
| keep bringing up) but turn to the light (leftist progress,
| signalling) and ye shall be saved
|
| - forces of evil: those who want smaller government and
| personal freedom.
|
| - prosperity gospel: welfare and fiscal recklessness because we
| can just turn on the money printer
|
| - signalling: businesses are pressured to display leftist icons
| or slogans to signal their inclusion in the faith.
| balamatom wrote:
| Correct, if only because, unlike actual left-wing political
| movements, such as anarchism, communism, or socialism,
| "leftism" is right of center.
| Zambyte wrote:
| The important part of the "church" in this context is finding a
| third space[0]. A church can be a reasonable third space, even
| for atheists. Particularly in smaller communities with limited
| resources. Other healthy options include hackerspaces /
| makerspackes (that is my third space of choice), libraries,
| parks, sporting events, etc.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Is this true? I see a lot of people on the right complaining
| about loneliness epidemic, so it would seem odd that people who
| are attending church would have this issue and it still being a
| problem. You hear about lots of young, right-wing men talking
| about this as an issue, so church is clearly not solving it for
| them.
|
| This is all hearsay and anecdotal, mind you, and I admit I have
| _not_ done the research here. It 's not a condition I have, nor
| do any of my friends. I believe it's happening, but the claim
| of "just attend church" doesn't seem to being paying off to me.
| mikemarsh wrote:
| Talk to any right-leaning young man who's actively engaged in
| a church community (even better if they're actually pursuing
| Christ, and not just chasing an abstract ideal of
| "community") and you won't hear very much about the
| "loneliness epidemic", except maybe in reference to their
| peers.
|
| It may be hard to find them online in order to "talk" to them
| though, and of course that's the whole point :-) Selection
| bias at work.
| lapcat wrote:
| > All the government programs he advocates for are just pale
| imitations of the vibrant communities that humans were made for
| and which modern society has done its best to destroy.
|
| Humans were not made for anything, and for most of the
| existence of our species, there were no churches, indeed no
| buildings of any kind. Until ~10k years ago, with the
| development of agriculture and permanent settlements, humans
| lived in relatively small hunter-gatherer groups. These
| communities may indeed have been "vibrant", but they were
| organized around family and survival, not religion.
|
| Contrary to your claim, churches and organized religion have
| been made possible by modern society, not destroyed by it. It's
| unclear where exactly you see the destructive causes, apart
| from the progress of science that has tended to undermine
| religious belief?
|
| In the United States, churches are tax-exempt. In that sense,
| they are _promoted_ by the government in a crucial way.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I'm an atheist, but I do wish I could go to church, or at least
| something like that. I've tried going to other non-religious
| clubs but it's not really the same. A pottery class just
| doesn't give that same feeling of "belonging".
|
| The trouble is it just seems a bit too serious every time I've
| been. I don't believe any of it, and I can't believe anyone
| with intelligence could believe it either. But unlike, say,
| WWE-style wrestling, there are way too many people taking it
| far too seriously. You never hear of atrocities or stupidity
| happening because someone took wrestling too seriously. Are
| there churches that are more like wrestling?
| arandr0x wrote:
| I think the issue you're having is that taking it way too
| seriously is exactly what creates the feeling of belonging.
| There's a number of forums or clubs where one might discuss
| morality, myth, creation stories etc more like wrestling -
| fantasy roleplaying groups and fantasy writing circles often
| do include those themes for instance. But it's harder to feel
| true belonging through discussing whether your bard is an
| asshole for sleeping with a gold-hoarding dragon if you're
| 100% aware that neither bards or dragons exist.
|
| Is there anything you do take super seriously? The
| environment, your job, parenting, a specific hobby or
| something? Something you think other people are missing out
| on by not experiencing? Looks like a club based on that would
| work better for you.
| arandr0x wrote:
| Honest question: for women, are there any churches or other
| religious or spiritual traditions that do not limit them or
| afford them a second-class status relative to other members?
| (This can be in terms of church elders/leadership positions or
| just importance in activities, speeches giving women good role
| models, etc). For instance Catholic traditions usually provide
| quite a few female role models (not least Mary) but heavily
| sideline women in actual church operations, whereas Protestant
| traditions have more equitable leadership ranks, but don't give
| as much space to women who are not in leadership. I am not
| clueful enough to discuss other traditions sadly.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| church only provides meaning if you actually _believe_ the
| stuff the priest lectures about for 30 minutes at mass.
| Otherwise you get to play make-believe for 1 hour each week.
|
| For me, church increases my blood pressure. I was forced to
| attend church as a child and didn't believe any of the stuff by
| the time i was an older teen. Going to church feels patronizing
| to me, since i don't believe any of it. And i'm bitter that i
| was "forced" into it by my parents. They never at ANY point
| asked me if I want to continue going, and I know for certain
| that even if i spoke up they would have ignored me. Ugh.
|
| Anyway i've had good luck making friends at my local Y, through
| friends of friends, and occasionally work.
| aethrum wrote:
| no
| deadbabe wrote:
| Mortality risk is already 100% isn't it? We're going to die,
| guaranteed, so what's another 23% increase on 100%?
|
| I think a good study would be the effects of likes, upvotes and
| karma on overall lifespan. I'd bet that people who gain more
| upvotes and positive engagement in general probably live much
| longer than people who are chronically downvoted or ignored.
| eastbound wrote:
| That is a very clever null hypothesis to check whether disliked
| people tilt the balance, or whether lack of human interactions
| do.
|
| The ones who should do this study would be the CIA. They could
| remotely kill people by giving them negative social feedback
| all the time. It would also give weight to online harassment
| complaints.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Strategically weaponized cyberbullying on a person whose
| mental state has been compromised by social media can be a
| creative way to kill them off if they are driven to suicide.
| Might be the plot of a thriller at least.
| al_borland wrote:
| Mindfullness as a treatment for loneliness is strange to me. This
| doesn't actually help with the problem of being alone, it could
| just make someone be more OK with it.
|
| As someone who spends a lot of time alone, one of my big fears is
| having a medical emergency, even just choking on food, and dying
| from something that would be easily avoided had another person
| been in the house. I've gone and looked up how to give myself the
| Heimlich maneuver on myself, and play out that scenario in my
| head all the time... or trying to get to a neighbor's house or
| just outside where someone might see me. Mindfulness won't help
| if this is how I meet my fate, actually community and
| relationships would.
| Herring wrote:
| It's quite a rare thing to die by choking. It just doesn't feel
| like it, which is where mindfulness can help. You do more
| dangerous things every day like walking (falls) and driving,
| eating (obesity), and brushing your teeth (gum disease), so if
| you want to work on prevention it's better to have a head that
| correctly assesses risk and spends your limited
| time/money/effort optimally.
| SirHumphrey wrote:
| But then choking is not the only health emergency when having
| people around is a plus. Even active people sometimes suffer
| from heart attacks and having someone being there doing chest
| compressions or at least calling for help leads to quite
| difficult health outcomes versus being found hours later.
| Same goes for strokes...
| al_borland wrote:
| Exactly. Many of the statistically more dangerous things
| are either chronic issues (obesity) or inherently in public
| (driving). Choking, a heart attack, etc are acute issues
| happening in private, which is where the fear lies. Some of
| those acute issues could be made more likely by the chronic
| issue, but not always. And if the chronic issues are known,
| a person can proactively get tests to hopefully avoid an
| acute issue. My dad just had a quadruple bypass, identified
| as a need based on a proactive calcium scan, rather than
| waiting for a heart attack.
| red_rech wrote:
| I had a mildly embarrassing shower fall that ended in a
| deep wound. I tried to sleep it off not realizing how bad
| it was and ended up having to get surgery. Because of the
| location of the injury, there was a big risk of
| infection.
|
| I was alone, but luckily I was only 19 and healthy at the
| time. But I came away with a new understanding of the
| dangers of these things and whys there's so much
| advertising to older people it. I can imagine a frail
| individual not surviving something like that if alone.
| al_borland wrote:
| Glad you were able to make it out ok. That's another
| thing I think about often. I will often double back to
| grab my phone before I do something knowingly risky, like
| climbing on something. I don't want to test how hard my
| survival instinct kicks in to find other means to get to
| help if left in a bad spot.
|
| I'm thankful my dad is into tech and has an Apple Watch.
| He does a lot of walking, watch is good to keep him
| mobile. But just last year he stepped backward off a curb
| and fell in a parking lot. The Apple Watch went off and
| was ready to call for an ambulance had he needed it.
|
| 20 years ago he was worried about falls with his mom, he
| was thinking of solutions for this and wanted to make a
| device the seniors would need to check-in with every
| hour. A missed check-in would trigger a call to emergency
| contacts. The various monitors on the watch seem much
| more elegant and less annoying, while being a step up
| from Life Alert.
|
| However, with the Apple Watch needing a smart phone,
| charging, and general know-how, I don't see it as a
| viable general purpose safeguard for seniors. At least
| not for a while longer. I don't think my would get a
| smart watch for fall detection, and she's made some
| comments that worry me. I think she's fallen several
| times and hasn't really told anyone.
| Herring wrote:
| Yes, roughly speaking meditation is inner work. You are
| still gonna have things to do out in the world.
|
| It's like someone advises you to go to the gym and you say
| but I drive everywhere. Yes they're not conflicting. In
| fact unless you live in a place like NYC or London, you
| need to be good at both.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Here you go: https://www.bookofjoe.com/2025/09/my-entry-47.html
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I think so much of it is our fear of dealing with conflicts and
| running away. Mindfulness, if it helps us have the courage to
| talk with people, apologize, forgive, and reconcile
| relationships with ourselves and others, can probably be super
| helpful. However, I think a lot of it has us actually move
| farther away from others, retreating into ourselves and then
| yeah, if you need someone to take you to the hospital, the
| relationships aren't there or aren't so immediate to help with
| that.
|
| I think I feel you and I hope that if something like that were
| to happen, you would have people willing to offer and give that
| help and you'd be willing to ask for and receive that help.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I think probably the idea is that Mindfulness helps you make
| peace with yourself and trouble-shoot your personality, both of
| which could make it easier to make connections with other
| people.
| criddell wrote:
| Are people who lack connections with other people _lonely_ by
| definition?
| jmkni wrote:
| "Mindfullness" only works for people who are already happy
| damnesian wrote:
| I've seen this happen in person, to my grandmother. She hitched
| her identity to the man of the house, even signing checks "Mrs.
| grandad's name." She was the accountant of their farm along with
| housewife and cook and chicken tender. He was most of the muscle
| until he had to relinquish the work to their youngest son, who
| had moved out and into his own house. She was in relatively good
| health when grandad died at 76. She suddenly lost her identity,
| being alone in that farmhouse which she helped build and
| maintain, it was too full of ghosts to live alone, she moved in
| with the son. I never saw her smile after that. She died within
| months.
|
| My great-grandmother was different. her husband died young. she
| had 50 more years of life after that. She gardened, she sewed,
| she pickled and canned. She established a strong personal
| identity and experienced evergreen personal growth. She was a
| happy woman, cackling all of the time when we'd visit. When she
| died at 95, it was a surprise, she seemed very alive and healthy
| shortly beforehand. She died in her sleep, no chronic diseases.
|
| Makes me think that 32% might be traced to
| psychological/sociological factors.
| fullstop wrote:
| It sounds like your grandma passed from a broken heart.
|
| My mother in law lost her husband when she was in her early
| 60s, and I was worried that she would suffer the same fate as
| your grandma. She sold her house after a few years to escape
| the ghosts and moved into a condo near me. Her social schedule
| is jam-packed.
|
| There is so much to be said about having your own identity,
| hobbies, and passions.
| JackFr wrote:
| > She hitched her identity to the man of the house, even
| signing checks "Mrs. grandad's name."
|
| That was quite common for much of the 20th century.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| Yep. I have been doing genealogy, and the women are very hard
| to track down because of this. There is a lot of "Mrs. Joe
| Schmoe" in the papers.
| gaoshan wrote:
| The person she spent her life with died. She could have just
| been sad and lonely over that, not some lack of "identity".
|
| I've been married for over 30 years and we both have our own
| independent identities and successes (as well as shared ones).
| We are still very close and loving. Neither needs the other to
| live but after so long our emotional involvement with each
| other is as deep and foundational as the roots of a great tree.
| Losing her (or her me) would be utterly devastating and how we
| identify ourselves has nothing to do with it.
| r721 wrote:
| OP was accused of posting AI-generated articles previously:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45368911
| jwpapi wrote:
| I'm unsure because I don't enjoy most social things others do but
| at the same time I keep reading loneliness is bad for you lol
| naikrovek wrote:
| Would you like to know why some people are lonely? Because they
| have interacted with people before and found the experience to be
| quite objectionable.
|
| I am lonely because I have dealt with too many assholes. And if
| it kills me sooner, good. Humanity is a garbage species full of
| opportunistic and adversarial people just _waiting_ to find new
| people to exert power over.
|
| I can't wait to leave this hellhole.
| dzink wrote:
| Loneliness directly contributes to alcoholism and a number of
| other self-medication addictions. Part of it is social - pubs and
| places that profit off of alcohol are where lonely men often go
| to find company. Is it malicious to exploit loneliness by
| offering respite to it to sell addictive substances?
| mchusma wrote:
| I would expect this to be correlated to not having kids as well.
| Anecdotally the healthiest elderly I know are deeply involved in
| raising grandkids/great grandkids, and those relatives without
| kids I've lost early.
|
| I've heard of some efforts to pair retirement homes and
| preschools in some way, to benefit both, and I'd love to see that
| idea work in some way. I expect it to have many liability
| challenges but would be so good for both parties.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| This might go against the whole "just use positive thinking out
| of loneliness"
| lynx97 wrote:
| No need to jump on the latest buzzwords, doing science. I
| remember this kind of study has already been done with
| married/unmarried peope, with basically a similar result. The
| explanation they gave back then was pretty logical: If you are
| living alone, there is nobody around to call an ambulance if you
| have a heart attack or similar.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Loneliness increases death risk by 32% but we know how to fix
| it. Real solutions that cut loneliness in half, from mindfulness
| to community programs that actually work._
|
| And what, pray tell, works? He goes on:
|
| > _Those programs in Barcelona where almost half the people
| stopped feeling lonely? The mindfulness stuff that works in just
| two weeks? Even the robot pets for elderly people "it all works".
| We're not talking about maybe or possibly here. This stuff
| actually works. What gets me is that fixing loneliness doesn't
| require some massive revolution. Twenty minutes of mindfulness a
| day. A weekly volunteer shift._
|
| Slop.
| gjm11 wrote:
| The following is perfectly compatible with everything in the
| article being correct and important (though I share the suspicion
| that there may be some reverse-causality going on), but the
| author seems to be extremely fishy in some ways.
|
| He's posting about two substantial (~10-30 pages) papers per week
| to the arXiv, in various areas of mathematics. He claims to have
| developed "Alpay Algebra: A recursive language for thought" and
| what he's written about it looks to me like (1) it was actually
| written by an LLM and (2) it's basically word/symbol salad. (He
| has some papers about it on the arXiv. The first isn't
| particularly bullshitty, but uses a great deal of formalism to
| _say_ almost nothing. Later ones look like grandiose AI-written
| slop. And he has some web pages that are just grandiose AI-
| written slop.)
|
| I repeat: none of this _needs_ to cast any particular doubt on
| what he writes about loneliness. He might be an AI-driven
| mathematical crank who also has wise thoughts about loneliness. I
| might just be wrong about his being an AI-driven mathematical
| crank, though I 'd be pretty surprised. Or, for that matter, his
| post about loneliness might be AI-written but none the less
| correct. (It's the kind of thing I would expect an LLM to be able
| to write something reasonable about -- though in that case it
| would be advisable to double-check the references.) But it
| doesn't inspire confidence.
| tootie wrote:
| I didn't dig in to every cite but a few seemed suspicious. One
| linked on digital interventions specifically said it showed no
| positive results. Another on pet ownership having 100% success
| rate was sponsored by the pet industry. I think the author is
| tripping over a lot of data and cherry picking. We know that
| loneliness can cause problems and interventions can help but
| this post seems like it is indeed a rambling jumble and not a
| cogent argument for anything in particular.
| Wonnk13 wrote:
| nothing more than a n=1 anecdote, but I'm noticeably more
| depressed when my wife is in the office and I don't go in to a
| coworking space and/or do something with my friends after work.
|
| Even as an introvert I can easily see if I didn't have a partner
| and access to friends and socialization I'd be significantly more
| likely to kill myself.
|
| Before my mother started joining more retiree clubs I could
| literally see on her face how much more weathered and haggard she
| was. The isolation was physically visible on her face.
| patates wrote:
| Germany has great bread, how come did the author have a problem
| to find good bread?
|
| Yes, that's my only issue with the article :)
| willyg123 wrote:
| There's a YC company solving for this, Papa.com
| polalavik wrote:
| Ah just the solution - vc funded for profit friendship and
| caretaking as a service. That will surely be the remedy! (/s)
| thaw13579 wrote:
| Hopefully they're solving for better social connection, not
| solving for chronic loneliness as so many other for-profit
| ventures have...
| m3kw9 wrote:
| The very first thing this article should define is what is
| considered loneliness in this context
| cassowary37 wrote:
| Not to take anything away from the meta-analysis and the
| important points in the blog post, but there's a glaring error in
| the abstract: "the weighted average effect sizes were as follows:
| social isolation odds ratio (OR) = 1.29, loneliness OR = 1.26,
| and living alone OR = 1.32, corresponding to an average of 29%,
| 26%, and 32% increased likelihood of mortality, respectively."
|
| The authors mean increased /odds/, not likelihood (probability).
| WHy does it matter? Well, when your whole paper is a statistical
| exercise, misusing basic statistical language in the abstract is
| not a great sign.
| ZpJuUuNaQ5 wrote:
| >Chronic loneliness
|
| Is it generally understood as feeling (being in a particular
| state of mind) as being lonely or just lacking social
| interactions in general, regardless of how one feels about it?
| Those two things, to my understanding, aren't the same. For
| example, I never had friends, and generally, I despise people. I
| have no "social life," and I wouldn't even be able to clearly
| define what it is without googling. If I lost my voice, I
| wouldn't notice that it happened for about a week. However, I
| don't feel like I am missing out on anything. Does that increase
| my mortality risk by over 30% or not? I only skimmed the sources,
| but may read it later.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| There is a lot of debate and misinformation on this subject. My
| understanding is this is primarily an aging or elderly issue.
| For the majority of people, as we age, we mentally decline
| which worsens health in all aspects. If you are one of the
| lucky ones who remain sharp until passing, this doesn't affect
| you as much. If you are more average, the advice is that a
| social network of some sort will help you as you age.
|
| There was the famous incident involving Gene Hackman. His care
| taker was his wife. The wife collapsed/died due to Henta virus
| and he passed a week later oblivious to what had happened to
| her. If Gene Hackman and his wife had more proactive support
| network (the kids or friends FaceTime them everyday), maybe
| this tragedy could have been avoided.
| emptybits wrote:
| Shameless plug for a good organization that helps fight social
| isolation and loneliness among elderly: Cycling Without Age.
|
| https://cyclingwithoutage.org/
|
| We're an international movement whereby volunteer cyclists pedal
| passengers around on what is essentially a small couch on wheels.
| The elderly get out into their neighbourhood while engaging with
| volunteers in conversation, jokes, and memories. The benefits of
| even brief but regular social connection are lasting, as we hear
| from medical professionals and care home workers and the
| residents themselves and their families.
|
| There's a great TED Talk on it which inspired us to start a local
| chapter almost eight years ago. We are in high demand and growing
| so if you're looking for a healthy way to serve others, consider
| getting in touch with your local chapter (or starting it!)
| constantcrying wrote:
| This is just fake science, which invents a mystical force that
| makes people healthy when they interact with other people.
|
| The causality is _reversed_. Unhealthy people socialize less,
| this explains every correlation result cited, it is a simple
| explanation, which doesn 't need to invent some mystic force
| which turns people healthy, when they talk to other people.
|
| Unless there is incredibly strong evidence that the reversed
| causation is wrong, no other explanation should be accepted over
| it.
| tsoukase wrote:
| Another correlation that has to take into account decades long
| lifetime confounders that are the elephant in the room,
| especially somatic and latent mental diseases. For example lonely
| people are so because their relatives died early and they will
| soon too.
| philipallstar wrote:
| Similar meta-analysis might conclude that plaster of paris on the
| body increases broken limb risk by 98%.
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