Loneliness is a serious public health problem in our post-pandemic world. According to a 2023 Meta-Gallup survey across 142 countries, 24 percent of adults 15 and older reported feeling "very" or "fairly" lonely.

Feeling lonely can have serious psychological consequences, such as depression , self-harm , and suicide . There are physical ramifications as well, such as hypertension, fatigue, and premature aging. By one estimate, being lonely can be just as harmful to a person’s mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

What can people do to combat loneliness? This was the central question of a study conducted by researchers Colter D. Ray and Holly Rushin of the University of Tampa. To pursue this inquiry, they recruited a nationally representative sample of 621 adults and asked th

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