mind

BEHAVIOR & SOCIETY

A Solution

for Loneliness

Get out and volunteer, research suggests

I

was riding a bus recently and noticed an older

man sitting outside a coffee shop on a busy

sidewalk. He had set up a chessboard on the

table in front of him, and he watched as people

passed by, mostly engrossed in their phones. His

eyes kept jumping from person to person, search-

ing for someone to notice and join him for a game

of chess. Right before the traffic cleared and my

bus moved on, he reached over to make the first

move and then resumed his searching.

Loneliness is rampant, and it’s killing us—liter-

ally. Anywhere from one quarter to one half of

Americans feel lonely a lot of the time, which puts

them at risk for developing a range of physical

and mental illnesses, including heart disease,

cancer, diabetes and depression. This is a public

health problem that needs to be addressed on a

wide scale.

But at the individual level, there is much we

can do to ward off loneliness. One strategy is to

bring a chessboard to a busy street and wait for

someone to play with you. For the older man’s

sake, I sincerely hope that this is effective, but I

can’t be sure.

Another strategy is to volunteer. In a recent

survey of more than 10,000 people in the U.K.,

two thirds reported that volunteering helped them

feel less isolated. Similarly, a 2018 study of nearly

6,000 people across the U.S. examined widows

who, unsurprisingly, felt lonelier than married

adults. After starting to volunteer for two or more

hours per week, their average level of loneliness

subsided to match that of married adults, even

Kasley Killam drives community engagement in

health research for Project Baseline at Verily and is a

World Economic Forum global shaper. Her background

is in psychology research and health care innovation.

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OPINION