How to fight back against loneliness

One thing that seems to unite people is how isolated they feel.

As many as 1 in 5 adults in the United States reported feeling loneliness “a lot of the day” in 2024, and the country continues to experience what experts have called “a loneliness epidemic.”

Although it might feel like just your problem, maybe it’s not only you. If so many people are experiencing feeling alone, the problem must be more systemic. The consequences extend beyond our obvious feelings of dissatisfaction.

Loneliness is associated with poor health outcomes, and the lack of social connection could be limiting your success, according to psychologist Dr. Angela Duckworth, the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

In her latest book, “ Situated : Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best,” she highlights that internal drive is not the only factor that separates successful people –– it is also the resources, environments and people they surround themselves with.

The modern world is not set up to help people easily build those strong social networks and nurture happy lives, said Duckworth, who also wrote the 2018 bestseller “ Grit : The Power of Passion and Perseverance.” While that might seem daunting, there is plenty we can do to swim against the stream of isolation and create a more connected environment for ourselves.

“’You can’t control the situation,’ the saying goes, ‘but you can control how you respond to the situation.’ And I think that’s not right. I don’t think that is true,” she said. “You can control aspects of the situation, like which situations you choose to walk into.”

Much of the advice for making friends can feel silly or trite, but focusing on three areas may make a significant impact on your social situation.

Before you go out into the world and charge into new relationships, it might be time to take a look around your environment and see if you can eliminate obstacles to connection. More specifically, ask yourself how your technology use is helping or hurting your social life.

Screens, social media and AI chatbots have been marketed as a way to close the gap between how connected you want to feel and how lonely you actually are, but the reality is that relying on these devices can make the problem worse, said Dr. Sherry Turkle, the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Screens and online socialization didn’t create a world where we got too used to convenience and not taking risks, but it hasn’t helped, she said.

“Technology was a great enabler of that because it offered the possibility of feeling like friendship without the demands of vulnerability, feeling like intimacy without the demands of the vulnerability,” Turkle said. “But it turns out you can’t have intimacy or friendship without vulnerability.”

Yes, a video call, ongoing chat thread or social media posts can help you keep in regular touch with loved ones, but it isn’t enough to completely fill your social tank, Turkle said. Being a part of a community and having people physically with you in good and bad times is important.

Justin Paget/Digital Vision/Getty Images

‘Loneliness influencers’ have no friends, but they say they’re happy. What they can teach us

Increasingly, people are turning to AI chatbots for conversation. No matter how human the messages may appear, though, what people experience talking to AI is just a performance of empathy and connection, not the real thing, said Turkle, author of “ Artificial Intimacy : Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.”

To really satisfy your needs for connection, it’s imperative to talk to people who can relate to you, provide empathy, push back when they disagree, and challenge you to practice the social skills that make you part of a community, she added.

A virtual world can lead many people to lose the skills they need to build and sustain connections in real life and then be afraid to get back out there and risk rejection. Reorienting how you think about and use technology can help set you up for a more successful community-building venture.

“That’s your litmus test: ‘Can I use this technology or this virtual experience to increase the quality of my life in the real?’” Turkle said.

Where do you go to find your next best friend, mentor or serious partner? I don’t know, and neither do you. True, deep connection takes time, effort and vulnerability.

The reality is, you will likely meet a lot of people who you don’t feel deeply connected to before you meet those who you do, but they are important, too, said Dr. Lynn Bufka, the American Psychological Association’s executive lead psychologist for practice.

AzmanJaka/E+/Getty Images/File

Saying “hi” to the barista at your local coffee shop, waiting in line instead of going straight to self-checkout, chitchatting after a pottery class, or joining a run club may not amount to much more outside of those small interactions, Bufka said. But those instances both help to address feelings of loneliness and put you in the position to connect with people who will become important to you, she added.

“Not everyone is going to be our best friend, not everyone’s going to be a friend –– some people just might be friendly people that we can reliably see around us,” she said. “That matters as well, to know that I’m in a community where other people see each other.”

Maybe all you get is a pleasant exchange that lifts your spirits for the rest of the day, maybe a casual “hello” keeps you open to the possibility of meeting someone who you really click with. Maybe neither of those things happen and you move on with your day, but you built a social muscle that will help you next time.

MoMo Productions/Digital Vision/Getty Images

People are lonely. Small steps in your community can make a difference

At some point in your life, making connections was likely something that happened quite frequently. Perhaps it was when you were in school and you had to go up to the kids playing soccer to ask if you could play too. Or when you started your career and needed to build your network from the ground up.

Those muscles are still there; they just may have atrophied a bit as you got into the swing of regular life. Time to get back into the social gym.

One skill to focus on in your long-term efforts to combat loneliness is tolerating the discomfort that comes from stepping outside your comfort zone, Bufka said.

It can feel scary to be the one who starts a conversation or reaches out first and not know how someone will react — but treating it as an experiment instead of a rejection risk can help make it more doable, she said.

“Part of it will be stepping outside of ourselves and not interpreting the responses we get from others as an indication that connection is not desirable,” Bufka said. You have “just got to find the right person to have that conversation with.”

Another important skill to hone is curiosity, said Scott Shigeoka, the Bridging Differences fellow for UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. One major impediment that the online world has put on our lives is that it silos us into groups based on who we agree with and who we don’t –– often vilifying others in the process.

“No two young people are the same, no two Southerners are the same, no two Democrats are the same,” he said. “That curiosity really does help us to see the person that is in front of us and to see who they truly are.”

You don’t need to find people who align with you in every way. You need to learn how to connect –– through both similarities and differences. Keeping curiosity as a well-sharpened tool can help you to do that, said Shigeoka, who is also the author of “ Seek : How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World.”

It is easy to turn inward when feeling rejected, or if your viewpoint is threatened, but try just continuing to ask questions, he said. Why does someone love a movie that you hate? What does that particular thing that bothers you about them say about how they’ve experienced the world?

Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever: How to hack loneliness

Practicing at really getting to know someone can help turn the attention away from your own anxieties and open you up to surprising connections. You don’t have to start by asking about their deepest, darkest secret. Keep it light at first, Shigeoka said.

He has gotten very skilled at starting small and going deeper to connect with people. Shigeoka has spent time in the last few years traveling around the country where he, a progressive California academic, has had meaningful connections with Republican politicians and coal mining communities.

Maybe you, too, will make some unexpected friends with a little more curiosity. Maybe not. But neither of you will find out if you don’t start practicing the conversation.

Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple. Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Better newsletter for information and tools designed to improve your well-being.

人们似乎都有一个共同点，那就是他们都感到孤立无援。

2024 年，美国多达五分之一的成年人表示“一天中的大部分时间”都感到孤独，而美国正持续经历专家所称的“孤独流行病”。

虽然你可能觉得这只是你自己的问题，但也许并非只有你一个人感到孤独。如果这么多人都有这种孤独感，那么问题必然更加系统性。其后果远不止我们显而易见的不满情绪。

宾夕法尼亚大学罗莎·李和埃格伯特·张教授、心理学家安吉拉·达克沃斯博士表示，孤独与不良的健康结果有关，缺乏社交联系可能会限制你的成功。

在她最新出版的《定位：找到能让你发挥最佳状态的人和地方》一书中，她强调，内在动力并不是区分成功人士的唯一因素——他们所处的资源、环境和人也同样重要。

达克沃斯说，现代社会并没有为人们轻松建立强大的社交网络和培养幸福生活做好准备。她也是2018年畅销书《坚毅：激情与毅力的力量》的作者。虽然这听起来令人望而生畏，但我们仍然可以做很多事情来对抗孤立，为自己创造一个联系更紧密的环境。

“俗话说，‘你无法控制局面，但你可以控制你如何应对局面。’我觉得这种说法不对，也不对，”她说。“你可以控制局面的某些方面，比如你选择进入哪些局面。”

许多交友建议可能感觉很傻或者很老套，但关注以下三个方面可能会对你的社交状况产生重大影响。

在你步入社会、开始新的人际关系之前，或许应该先审视一下周围的环境，看看能否消除人际交往的障碍。更具体地说，问问自己，你使用科技产品的方式究竟是促进还是阻碍了你的社交生活。

麻省理工学院艾比·洛克菲勒·莫泽科学与技术社会研究教授雪莉·特克尔博士表示，屏幕、社交媒体和人工智能聊天机器人被宣传为缩小你想要感受到的联系程度与你实际感受到的孤独程度之间差距的一种方式，但现实情况是，依赖这些设备可能会使问题变得更糟。

她说，屏幕和网络社交并没有创造一个让我们过于习惯便利和不愿冒险的世界，但也没有起到任何积极作用。

“科技在这方面起到了很大的推动作用，因为它让人感觉像是在友谊中相处，却不必付出脆弱的代价；感觉像是在亲密关系中相处，却不必付出脆弱的代价，”特克尔说。“但事实证明，没有脆弱，就没有亲密关系，也没有友谊。”

没错，视频通话、持续的聊天或社交媒体帖子可以帮助你与亲人保持定期联系，但这不足以完全满足你的社交需求，特克尔说。成为社群的一份子，在顺境和逆境中都有人陪伴在身边，这才是最重要的。

Justin Paget/Digital Vision/Getty Images

“孤独网红”们没有朋友，但他们却说自己很快乐。他们能教会我们什么？

人们越来越倾向于使用人工智能聊天机器人进行对话。然而，无论这些信息看起来多么像人类的交流，人们与人工智能对话所体验到的只是同理心和联结的表演，而不是真正的情感联结，《人工亲密：当我们与机器对话时，我们会变成什么样》一书的作者特克尔说道。

她补充说，要真正满足你对人际关系的需求，就必须与那些能够理解你、给予你同理心、在他们不同意你的观点时提出异议、并激励你练习社交技能的人交谈，这样你才能成为社区的一份子。

虚拟世界会让许多人失去在现实生活中建立和维系人际关系所需的技能，进而害怕重返社交圈，担心遭到拒绝。重新思考和使用技术的方式，可以帮助你更成功地建立社群。

“这就是你的试金石：‘我能否利用这项技术或这种虚拟体验来提高我现实生活中的生活质量？’”特克尔说道。

去哪里寻找你的下一个挚友、导师或伴侣？我不知道，你也不知道。的确，建立深厚的联系需要时间、精力和坦诚。

美国心理学会实践执行首席心理学家林恩·布夫卡博士表示，现实情况是，在你遇到那些与你真正有深厚联系的人之前，你可能会遇到很多你感觉不到深厚联系的人，但他们也很重要。

AzmanJaka/E+/Getty Images/文件

布夫卡说，在当地咖啡店和咖啡师打招呼、排队结账而不是直接去自助结账、陶艺课后闲聊几句，或者加入跑步俱乐部，这些看似微不足道的小事，除了这些互动之外，或许并无其他意义。但她补充道，这些事既有助于缓解孤独感，又能让你有机会结识那些将来对你很重要的人。

“不是每个人都会成为我们最好的朋友，也不是每个人都会成为朋友——有些人可能只是友善的人，我们经常能在身边见到他们，”她说。“知道自己身处一个大家彼此都能看到的社区，这一点也很重要。”

或许你只是得到了一次愉快的交流，让你一整天都心情愉悦；或许一句随意的“你好”让你保持开放的心态，期待遇到真正合得来的人。或许这些都没发生，你继续着自己的一天，但你锻炼了一项社交技能，这将在下次对你有所帮助。

MoMo Productions/Digital Vision/Getty Images

人们会感到孤独。社区里的小小举动就能带来改变。

在你的人生中，建立人脉关系很可能是件非常频繁的事情。也许是在学生时代，你不得不主动上前询问正在踢足球的孩子们是否可以加入；又或许是在你刚开始职业生涯时，你需要从零开始建立自己的人脉网络。

那些肌肉还在；只是随着你逐渐适应正常生活，它们可能有些萎缩了。是时候重拾社交锻炼了。

布夫卡说，在长期对抗孤独的努力中，需要重点培养的一项技能是忍受走出舒适区所带来的不适感。

主动发起对话或主动联系他人，却不知道对方会作何反应，这可能会让人感到害怕——但将其视为一次实验，而不是被拒绝的风险，就能让这件事变得更容易做到，她说。

“部分原因在于我们要跳出自己的视角，不要把别人的回应解读为不想建立联系的信号，”布夫卡说。“你只需要找到合适的人进行这样的对话。”

加州大学伯克利分校“美好生活科学中心”的“弥合分歧”研究员斯科特·重冈表示，另一项需要培养的重要技能是好奇心。网络世界给我们的生活带来的一个主要障碍是，它将我们根据观点的认同程度划分到不同的群体中——在这个过程中，我们常常会诋毁他人。

他说：“没有两个年轻人是完全一样的，没有两个南方人是完全一样的，也没有两个民主党人是完全一样的。这种好奇心确实能帮助我们看清眼前的人，看清他们的真实面目。”

你不需要找到与你各方面都一致的人。你需要学习如何与他人建立联系——既要关注相似之处，也要关注差异。保持好奇心这件锋利的工具可以帮助你做到这一点，Shigeoka说道，他也是《探索：好奇心如何改变你的人生并改变世界》一书的作者。

他说，当感到被拒绝或自己的观点受到威胁时，很容易变得内向，但试着继续提问。为什么有人喜欢一部你讨厌的电影？他们身上让你感到不舒服的那点，又反映了他们怎样的世界观呢？

卡拉·斯威舍想要永生：如何摆脱孤独

练习真正了解一个人，可以帮助你转移对自身焦虑的注意力，并让你有机会建立意想不到的联系。你不必一开始就问他们最深最黑暗的秘密。一开始要保持轻松愉快的氛围，Shigeoka说道。

他非常擅长从小处着手，逐步深入了解与人建立联系。过去几年，身为加州进步派学者的重冈先生走遍全国各地，与共和党政客和煤矿社区建立了意义深远的联系。

或许，只要你多一些好奇心，也能结识一些意想不到的朋友。或许不能。但如果你不开始练习对话，就永远不会知道结果。

每周精选健康生活小贴士，助您轻松享受美好生活。订阅 CNN 的“生活更美好”电子报，获取提升幸福感的资讯和实用工具。