Loneliness Epidemic Driven by Lack of Meaningful Connections

One in three people experience persistent loneliness, with nearly 60% reporting feelings of loneliness at least some of the time. In the workplace, eight out of ten employees feel isolated and disconnected, leading to decreased efficiency, mental and emotional struggles, and lower job satisfaction. The U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness an “epidemic” in 2023, highlighting the pervasive impact of loneliness on health and performance.

The widespread advice to combat loneliness has been to “connect more,” shifting the responsibility to individuals to solve their own loneliness by reengaging with others and getting involved in their communities. This has led to an increase in meetings and the use of technological platforms promising community. However, despite being more connected than ever, loneliness continues to rise. The key to addressing loneliness lies not in the quantity of connections but in the quality of interactions.

Research by psychologist Alexander Danvers shows that the quantity of connections does not drive feelings of loneliness; the quality does. A defining feature of a quality interaction is experiencing companionate love, which includes behaviors like attention, respect, affirmation, and compassion. In a study of 750 work groups, the only variable that significantly reduced loneliness and increased performance was whether employees experienced companionate love from their peers or leaders. The opposite of loneliness is not having more people around but feeling significant to those around you—feeling truly seen, heard, and valued.

Psychologist Gordon Flett calls the feeling of being insignificant to others “anti-mattering,” the sense that you’re unseen, unheard, or unvalued by those around you. The opposite of anti-mattering is the experience of mattering—feeling significant to those around you that comes from feeling valued and knowing how you add value. Polls show that close to 42% of people feel “left out,” 30% feel “invisible” at work, 39% say they don’t have someone at work who cares about them as a person, and more than half of respondents in one poll said that no one knows them well. We aren’t facing a “loneliness epidemic.” We’re facing a mattering deficit. Too many of us feel overlooked, ignored, and unvalued in our daily interactions.

To address this mattering deficit, it is essential to create more moments of mattering in our daily interactions. Research for the book The Power of Mattering uncovered three defining features of interactions in which we feel that we matter: feeling noticed (seen and heard), feeling affirmed (being shown how our unique gifts make a difference), and feeling needed (knowing someone relies on us). To start reducing loneliness, begin by noticing, affirming, and showing people how they’re needed in your daily interactions.

Being a noticer involves taking an interest in and paying attention to the details of someone else’s life and showing them that you remember them. It starts with acknowledging people, making eye contact, and saying hello. Ask deeper questions than “How are you?” or “How’s it going?” and try to ask clear, open, and exploratory questions like, “What has your attention today?” “What’s been most meaningful to you today?” or “What are you struggling with and how can I help?”

Affirmation shows people how their uniqueness makes a unique difference. It’s different than general appreciation or recognition. Start with saying better “thank yous” by going a step further to name the person’s unique gifts and tell them exactly how they make a difference for you. Everyone gives us four gifts every day: their strengths, their purpose, their perspective, and their wisdom. People who show people how they matter regularly illuminate in others what they don’t see in themselves.

Reminding people that they’re needed involves thinking of someone you rely on in your life or work and telling them how they add value to your life or work. Try saying “If it wasn’t for you…” and show them how they add value. You’ll see the power of mattering. There’s an added benefit to showing people how they matter in these ways: You start to see how you matter. It’s a boomerang effect known as the “complementarity principle” in relationships. The more we start noticing, affirming, and showing others how they’re needed, the more they’ll start doing it for us. And that’s how we’ll tackle loneliness—one moment of mattering at a time.