numbers: 43 percent of adults ages 45 through 49 are lonely,
similar to the 41 percent of 50- through 59-year-olds who
report being lonely. That compares with just 32 percent of
those ages 60 through 69, and just 25 percent of those age 70
or older, who are lonely.
The reasons aren’t clear, but the finding jibes with another
study, based on a Gallup survey of more than 340,000 adults
that was released in June, which found that overall levels of
life satisfaction go up as one gets older. In the survey, self-rankings of overall life satisfaction start out fairly high at
age 18, decline until about age 50, then start rising until, by
85, people are generally quite happy, regardless of whether
they’re living with anyone else.
Perhaps something deep and spiritual is going on—or
maybe not. “Once I started living alone, I was delighted
to discover that I could eat crackers in bed, come home
as late as I liked, and make all the mistakes I wanted
without answering to anyone,” says Virginia Ironside,
66, an advice columnist for the London Independent and
author of You’re Old, I’m Old…Get Used to It!
As a full-time caregiver to her husband, Jack, who has
dementia, Annette Arthur, 88, has a different perspective.
She and Jack have lived in the same Baltimore house for 50
years. The loss of their shared memories makes her lonely,
yet she feels more satisfied with her life than she did in
middle age. “The closer you get to the end of your life, the
more you cherish it,” she says. “I take a lot of pleasure being
in my home, and I savor the days I’m given.”
Boomers, by contrast, are increasingly dissatisfied: The
percentage who are lonely among people in their 50s nearly
doubled in the past 10 years, while loneliness among those in
their 60s increased by almost 50 percent. It’s partly a work-
place issue. Most Americans are working harder and longer
for less money: The median household income
stalled between 2000 and 2007, and it has de-
clined sharply in the years since then. That has
shown people like Charlotte Henry, 62, of San
Juan, Puerto Rico, just how dull the “all work, no
play” scenario can be. Divorced and living alone,
the independent contractor holds down two
jobs to make ends meet. “Once I get home from
work, make dinner for myself, and clean up after
it, I’m exhausted,” she says. “There’s no way I’m
going to get dressed and go out again.”
The workplace has also become inescapable,
with e-mail, texting, and Twitter making it dif-
ficut to unplug and socialize. This “persistently
frantic state of busyness” threatens our connec-
tions with one another, write psychiatrists Jac-
queline Olds and husband Richard Schwartz
in The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the
21st Century. “People are so frazzled now when
they’re done working—if they ever are done
working,” says Olds, who practices in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and teaches at Harvard Medical
School, as does her husband. “They just need a
25%›
Ages 45–49 Ages 70+
43%
l
Loneliness decreases with age
43 percent of respondents 45 through 49 are
chronically lonely, compared with just 25 percent
of those 70 and older.
bit of solitude and downtime at the end of the day, and there’s
nothing wrong with that. But if you put socializing at the end
of your to-do list, then you won’t see people and you’ll feel
more isolated. You will also feel as if everyone else is leaving
you out, even though you’re the one who started it all by send-
ing signals that you don’t want company. So what started off as
a reasonable wish fed on itself and became destructive.”
Staying connected once you retire from a job, on the other
hand, appears to thwart loneliness. Overall, retired people
are less lonely than those not retired—probably because
they have fewer obligations and thus more time for friends.
Only 16 percent of retirees who continue to interact regularly
with former coworkers are lonely, compared with 42 percent
who do not interact at all with former colleagues. Addition-
ally, almost half of older adults who had relocated to a new
address in the past year were lonely. So if you can afford to
retire to a dream home in the mountains or on the beach,
congratulations—but put “Make new friends” high on your
to-do list once you get there.
THE INTERNET MAY SOUND LIKE THE PERFECT way to stay connected with old friends—and to make new ones—but Facebook is no substitute for face
time. Although our survey found no evidence that social
media are diminishing social connections, the results
suggest that the Internet can make loneli-
ness worse. Lonely respondents were more
likely to agree with the statement “I have
fewer deep connections now that I keep in
touch with people using the Internet.” Says
loneliness expert Cacioppo: “Using social
networking as a substitute for human contact
can be like eating celery when you’re hungry.
It makes you feel better for a short while, but
it isn’t real nourishment, so you get hungrier
in the long run.”
This explains why Franklin Crawford spends
his late nights roaming grocery aisles. He
worked for 20 years as a reporter in newsrooms
but now works from home, where he lives alone.
“I miss that office because of the warm bodies,
not the work,” he says. “Despite my loneli-
ness, I know I’m an outgoing person. But the
computer isolates me. When I communicate
without in-the-flesh contact, I fail to connect;
in the meantime, though, I pretend it works.
The problem with the meantime is that it gets
to be all the time.” (CONTINUED ON PAGE 78)
28%
Helping others
helps you
More than 40
percent of people
who did not volun-
teer their time in
the past 12 months
reported being
lonely, compared
with 28 percent
who did volunteer.
