It’s not unusual for many Americans to spend a lot of time alone — more than a quarter live by themselves, and more than a third of those who can work from home do so every day, surveys have found.
Add food delivery and online shopping to the mix, and you might never interact with another human being in person for days, which can be fine if that’s what you want. But when does all that alone time turn into loneliness?
A recent study put a number on that question: People start feeling lonely when they spend more than 75% of their time by themselves, researchers reported in the December issue of the Journal of Research in Personality.
That sounds like a lot of solitary time, but it may be surprisingly common in real life. It amounts to engaging in less than four hours of conversation with others every day, says Matthias Mehl, Ph.D., co-author of the study and professor of psychology at the University of Arizona.
“My guess would be that way too many people don’t make that four-hour mark,” Mehl tells TODAY.com.
“Socializing is equally related to health and longevity as exercise, sleep and good eating … (but) we don’t know how much we socialize and how much we should socialize.”
For the study, participants wore a device that (with their permission) recorded brief audio snippets of their life several times an hour. When researchers analyzed the recordings, it allowed them to measure how many social interactions the participants had and how much time they spent alone.
The study found, on average, people talk with others for about 33% of their waking hours.
“So if you fall not too far below the mean — 25% versus 33% — you suddenly are at risk of your of alone time actually leading into loneliness,” Mehl says.
The problem is particularly acute for older adults. A lot of alone time among people over 65 most likely means loneliness, he adds.
But young people are suffering from a lack of meaningful connection, too.
No matter the age, feelings of loneliness…
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