Loneliness

You Can Get a Robot to Keep Your Lonely Grandparents Company. Should You?

The ethical costs and benefits of a companion robot — during the pandemic and beyond.

Future Perfect, Vox

Why Do You Feel Lonely? Neuroscience Is Starting to Find Answers

A neuroscientist’s hunt for loneliness could help us better understand the costs of social isolation.

MIT Technology Review

We’re All Socially Awkward Now

Deprive people of interactions with peers, and their social skills will atrophy. This is yet another side effect of the pandemic.

The New York Times

In the Midst of the Pandemic, Loneliness Has Leveled Out

Studies suggest that we are finding ways to connect even amid quarantine.

Mind Matters, Scientific American

The Science of Staying Connected

With millions confined by the pandemic, social neuroscience shows how we can achieve real communication using virtual tools.

The Wall Street Journal

How Loneliness from Coronavirus Isolation Takes Its Own Toll

“Just like we’re worried about an economic recession, we should worry about a social recession,” a neuroscientist says.

The New Yorker

How Social Distancing Could Ultimately Teach Us How To Be Less Lonely

We need to do it at the moment. Maybe when the crisis ends, we’ll finally embrace what really makes us happy.

The Washington Post

Social Distancing Prevents Infections, But It Can Have Unintended Consequences

Past research sheds light on the potential impacts of isolation.

Science

Preliminary Evidence That Lonely People Lose the Reflex to Mimic Other People’s Smiles, Potentially Sustaining Their Isolation

A new study, available as a preprint on PsyArXiv, reveals a way in which loneliness seems to be maintained and, therefore, a potential route to an intervention.

British Psychological Society Research Digest

The Surprising Benefits of Talking to Strangers

Research suggests we may often underestimate the positive impact of connecting with others for both our own and others’ wellbeing.

BBC

A Solution for Loneliness

Get out and volunteer, research suggests.

Scientific American

Nostalgia: A Trip Down Memory Lane, and Back

Nostalgia not only brings back pleasant memories of the past, but it can promote our well-being in the present.

Character & Context, Society for Personality and Social Psychology

Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

Social disconnection is a serious matter. But let’s not whip up a panic.

Gray Matter, The New York Times

In Good Company: Why We Need Other People to Be Happy

According to biology, neuroscience, psychology, and more, our bodies actually tend to work better when we’re around not alone.

NBC News BETTER

The Surprising Effects of Loneliness on Health

Scientists are gaining a more refined — and surprising — understanding of the effects of loneliness and isolation on health.

Well, The New York Times

New Evidence for the Necessity of Loneliness

A specific set of neurons deep in the brain may motivate us to seek company, holding social species together.

Quanta Magazine

What Makes a Good Life? Lessons From the Longest Study on Happiness

What keeps us happy and healthy as we go through life? If you think it’s fame and money, you’re not alone — but, according to psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, you’re mistaken.

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