Loneliness is rising across all age groups, driven by shifts in work, technology, culture and social life that are weakening everyday human connection.

Loneliness, once thought to be the province of the elderly, seems to have become a widespread epidemic. A year ago, I quit my job in Australia and moved to Belgium with my boyfriend. What followed was the loneliest year of my life.

Away from my family and friends, and my partner occupied with his PhD research, I struggled with a level of isolation I hadn’t experienced before. A new country and a new language were part of my problem but then I found, with almost anyone I spoke to, there was an immediate recognition of what I was feeling. Many of my friends were expats, but expat or local, it seemed loneliness was widespread and had become a defining feature of our modern world.

In the United Kingdom, a Minister for Loneliness has been appointed, and in Japan, where there are more aged people than anywhere else in the world, the crisis is so severe that some elderly people have committed petty crimes to go to prison for company.

In Australia, one in three adults report regularly feeling lonely and 38 per cent of 18- to 24- year-olds report feeling lonely often or always. In the United States, around one in five adults feel lonely daily, and roughly half experience loneliness occasionally.

We now know that loneliness has physical consequences. In 2023, the US Surgeon General’s Advisory declared loneliness a public health epidemic, with mortality impacts comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The quality of a person’s relationships is the........

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