The Problem

In the last 60 years, Americans have experienced weakening social bonds and deteriorating communities, leading to profound isolation for people from every walk of life. During the same period, we have seen alarming increases in the kinds of human suffering that accompany social isolation.

•  Low levels of educational and economic achievement, a high incidence of violence and crime, shorter life expectancies, and skyrocketing disease rates characterize cities where people are most disengaged from community.

•  Depression and social disengagement are tightly linked. In fact, Americans born in the 1970s and 1980s have been three to four times more likely to kill themselves than people had been at midcentury, and from 1950 to 1995 the suicide rate among adolescents more than quadrupled.

•  Child abuse and neglect are more prevalent in families lacking support networks, the communities of care that can sustain even single-parent homes with economic hardships.

Isolation is the through-line in this troubling story. Somehow, in the absence of a thriving community, life itself becomes more tenuous—with the greatest impact falling to our youth.*

Yet our response reflects the problem: traumatized by social deprivation, we have retreated into self-care activities that ironically promote more isolation. Mental health professionals have only scratched the surface. While evidence-based psychotherapy and psychotropic medications have achieved some success in reducing the symptoms of mental illness, they do not cure the underlying despair that accompanies our isolation. And no wonder, for isolation is not a disease: it is a serious social problem, reaching to our core where we are communal by our very nature. So, as our communal bonds wither, we lose the essential ties that keep us resilient in the face of life's challenges.

To read about our vision of a solution, click here.

*For more detailed information and statistics, see Chapter 20 of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.

References for Health Risks Associated With Social Isolation