Kenneth Glad
Isolation is no longer treated only as a private feeling. It now shapes debates about health, online life, politics and local services.
A person can be surrounded by people and still feel cut off. That is why loneliness is now being discussed not just in bedrooms, hospitals or care homes, but in public health reports, local councils and debates about online radicalization.
The World Health Organization’s 2025 Commission on Social Connection said one in six people worldwide experiences loneliness, and warned that weak social ties carry serious health and social consequences.
The Health Survey for England 2024 found that 22% of adults felt lonely at least some of the time, including 6% who felt lonely often or always.
Online spaces can turn isolation into anger
The British Red Cross reported that 41% of UK adults felt lonelier since the covid lockdown.
Its findings also pointed to more ordinary fears: People worrying that something could happen to them and no one would notice.
British writer Olivia Laing, writing in The Guardian, argues that loneliness is often wrongly treated as personal failure. Her essay places it closer to illness, bereavement, poverty, discrimination, moving home and exclusion from everyday social life.
Unfortunately, people who feel unseen can be more open to groups that promise status, belonging and someone to blame.
Laing links that danger to far-right politics and online grievance communities. George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, in The Third Generation of Online Radicalization, describes how digital platforms have changed recruitment, propaganda and decentralized extremist networks.
Laing also cites Hannah Arendt, who wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism that “loneliness is the common ground of terror.”
AI companions are not simple answers
Technology now offers another response as chatbots and virtual companions are always available.
Some research suggests AI companions may reduce loneliness for certain users, while other reviews warn about dependency, privacy risks and possible damage to human relationship skills.
Laing’s concern is that simulated intimacy can make real intimacy feel harder. Human connection involves delay, awkwardness, disagreement and care that cannot be ordered on demand.
England’s Community Life Survey for October 2024 to March 2025 found that 7% of adults felt lonely often or always.
That makes ordinary places important: A bus stop where the same passengers talk, a library room used by pensioners on weekday mornings, a youth club, a clinic, a park bench, a parent-and-baby group.
The policy question is practical. When local services disappear, casual contact disappears with them. Rebuilding connection may start with keeping those small meeting points open.
Sources: The Guardian; WHO; Health Survey for England; British Red Cross; GOV.UK; George Washington University
