The Nautilus article linked below talks about how important it is to pay attention to, and do something about, loneliness.
Well, duh!
To my mind a far more important question revolves around whether working and spending amongst significant numbers of people is really the best way to ensure that we keep loneliness to a minimum; especially when you consider how much time we spend doing each of these, as well as how much we earn, or don't earn, can be both a positive, and/or, a negative, in the socializing quality of the time spent. And isn't also interesting that we express such time as a thing one spends just like money.
In some places, of course, there can be a great deal of socially satisfying interaction, just as there can be the same when we purchase items or services. But can one really say that this would apply in regards to the majority of these kinds of "socializing?" Given the nature of ever increasing competition, and the employer wanting the most results per dollar of time; or that spending money can have so many variables connected to not only the amount spent, but also the many factors involved in what prompted the spending in the first place, as well as all of the many expectations of those involved, one can see just how problematic it is for there to be a good outcome as regards quality social interactions.
I ask these questions, of course, because of my particular axe to grind here. It seems to me that, lf our daily lives were involved around working together to keep our community going, shifting tasks on a regular basis so that we'd have the chance to get to know a significant portion of our neighbors in the community, we'd have a much better chance of not only interacting more in a more natural, and organic context, but also to get a real sense that we matter to the community as a whole.
Contrast that with the factory mentality, or market focused, organization of a cost based social operating system. where everything is subject to the questions of status, intent, and what you can afford in time or money.
Just some more things to think about as we all march along, absorbed in our own special, and quite separated, interests.
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