9 April 2023
What the Loneliness Data Cannot Say About Technology
Surveys tracking loneliness alongside rising smartphone and social media use rarely measure technology use with enough precision to support the causal claims often drawn from them.
Research
Reviews, analysis and briefs
Everything the Center has published, most recent first. 257 items.
2023
3 April 2023
What the 61% Youth Loneliness Figure Doesn't Show
The oft-cited statistic that 61% of young adults are seriously lonely is itself an average. The evidence on who is driving that number, and who isn't, is far less settled than the headline suggests.
16 March 2023
What the Japanese Panel Data Can and Cannot Say About Pandemic Isolation
A longitudinal Japanese study tracked the same people through 2020 and 2021, letting researchers test a causal story about pandemic isolation rather than just observe a snapshot. What would still be needed to confirm the mechanism.
7 March 2023
Three Countries, Three Loneliness Numbers
The UK, Japan, and the United States each measure loneliness differently, and the resulting national figures are not comparable to one another, even though all three now inform policy.
26 February 2023
Effect Sizes, Not P-Values: What the Isolation Evidence Actually Licenses in Older-Adult Policy
National loneliness policies cite the mortality literature for its statistical significance and rarely for its magnitude. The pooled odds ratios are 1.26 to 1.32, they are larger in samples under 65, and the intervention side of the ledger reports almost no effect sizes at all.
17 February 2023
What Loneliness Policy Measures, and What It Does Not
National loneliness strategies rely almost entirely on self-reported survey instruments. Administrative and network measures of isolation exist but rarely inform policy, and the two kinds of measurement do not track each other cleanly.
9 February 2023
The 50% Figure That Split Into Three Smaller Ones
Julianne Holt-Lunstad's 2010 meta-analysis produced a widely cited 50% mortality figure for social relationships. Her 2015 follow-up split the construct into isolation, loneliness, and living alone — and each came out smaller.
5 February 2023
Loneliness Skews Younger, Not Older
Across several major surveys, young adults report higher rates of loneliness than older adults, even though most policy and research attention has concentrated on the older population.
28 January 2023
How a Mortality Statistic Became a Policy Mandate
Holt-Lunstad's 2010 finding that weak social ties carry a mortality risk comparable to established health hazards has travelled from meta-analysis to national strategy. The evidence for what to do about it has not kept pace.
27 January 2023
What a Longitudinal Study Would Show That the Cross-Sectional Ones Cannot
Most of the evidence linking loneliness and isolation to mortality and cardiovascular disease comes from studies that measure exposure and outcome at nearly the same moment. What that design can and cannot support is worth stating precisely.
13 January 2023
What '1990 to Today' Actually Compares in Friendship Surveys
A close look at how the widely cited claim that Americans have far fewer close friends than in 1990 depends on treating two different survey moments as one continuous series.
2 January 2023
Why 'One in Three' and 'One in Four' Are Not the Same Number
AARP's finding that a third of adults over 45 are lonely and the National Academies' finding that a quarter of adults over 65 are isolated are often cited interchangeably. They measure different things in different populations.
2022
16 December 2022
Should Doctors Screen for Loneliness? The Evidence Behind the Recommendation
Clinical bodies increasingly recommend routine screening for social isolation and loneliness. The evidence linking isolation to mortality is strong; the evidence that screening improves outcomes is not.
9 December 2022
The UCLA Loneliness Scale and What It Assumes About Loneliness
A close look at the UCLA Loneliness Scale, the most widely used instrument in loneliness research, and the assumptions built into its design that shape what surveys using it can and cannot show.
2 December 2022
How the American Heart Association Statement Handled Its Own Uncertainty
The AHA's 2022 scientific statement on social isolation and cardiovascular risk is unusually candid about what its evidence base cannot yet show. That candor is worth examining closely.
23 November 2022
Nine Studies, Nine Positive Results
The literature on connection interventions and connection tools almost never reports a failure. An examination of why, and of what a genuine null result would have to look like to be recognised as one.
11 November 2022
What a Null Result Would Look Like in the Social Connection Literature
The observational evidence linking isolation and loneliness to mortality is unusually uniform. This analysis asks what a disconfirming finding would actually look like, and whether current study designs are capable of producing one.
22 October 2022
The Age Question the Loneliness Literature Answers Backward
Meta-analytic evidence finds social isolation and loneliness predict mortality more strongly in samples under 65 than in older adults, even as most policy and press attention concentrates on the elderly.
4 October 2022
What the Loneliness Literature Does Not Cost Out
Mortality and morbidity evidence on loneliness and isolation is extensive; cost evidence is not. A look at what the literature actually supports about the economic burden, and what it does not.
30 September 2022
What the Evidence Actually Supports When Clinicians Are Told to Screen for Isolation
The recommendation to screen patients for social isolation and loneliness rests on strong observational associations but almost no evidence that screening changes outcomes. A look at what the underlying studies can and cannot bear.
8 September 2022
What the AHA's Redefinition of Isolation Left Out
The American Heart Association's August 2022 scientific statement split social isolation into objective and perceived components. The revision clarifies cardiovascular risk research but leaves unresolved whether contact by phone or video counts.
7 September 2022
What the National Loneliness Averages Leave Out About Men
National loneliness surveys report headline averages that obscure a specific trend: the collapse in the number of close friendships reported by American men since 1990.
14 August 2022
Countries Are Not Measuring the Same Thing
The American Heart Association's new statement pools studies that defined social isolation and loneliness in incompatible ways. Comparing national prevalence figures from the US, UK, and Japan shows how much of the variation is instrument, not population.
20 July 2022
Why the Odds Ratio Matters More Than the P-Value Here
In the loneliness and mortality literature, statistical significance is rarely in doubt; what varies, and what matters more, is the size of the effect. A look at how to read those numbers.