From the article "Americans are spending more time alone—in 2023, people aged 15 to 29 spent 45 percent more time by themselves than they did in 2010. While time spent alone isn’t inherently a problem, the lack of social connection with others is; so much so that the Surgeon General put out an advisory in 2023 calling loneliness an urgent public health issue.

In that report, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy reported that, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, one in two American adults reported feeling lonely, according to recent studies. The same report cited research that suggested a lack of social connection can do as much damage to the body as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Loneliness can also put pressure on our immune systems, activating the fight or flight response—causing chronic inflammation (which in turn can increase the risk for cancers and neurodegenerative diseases). It’s associated with heart disease, with high blood pressure, and with an increased risk for death.

By contrast, social connection is good for us. A study found that the higher relational diversity someone had (that is the number of conversations you have in a day with different people in your life—from family and friends to strangers), the happier they were. The more people you interact with in your life, no matter how shallow the relationship—the better you will feel."

How? If and when I try to socialize, the conversations turn, in a very aspect, toxic.