Loneliness is not something you can solve alone [new European research]
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The COVID pandemic has helped accelerate research into loneliness in Europe. What are the consequences of loneliness for your physical and mental health? And what influence do social media and the internet have on this? New European research provides insights and raises new questions.
On June 6, a conference on Loneliness in
Europe was held in Brussels. The results of a study by the EC Joint Research Centre were shown: “Loneliness in Europe”. phone number leadThe results do not lie, the consequences of loneliness are great. Not only for the lonely person, but also for society.
The first ever EU-wide survey on loneliness (EU-LS 2022) shows that on average 13% of respondents report feeling lonely almost or all of the time in the past 4 weeks, while 35% report feeling lonely at least some of the time. The survey was conducted among more than 25,000 respondents from all European Member States in November and December 2022. Loneliness can lead to poorer physical and mental health and, as we will read further, a substantial cost.
Why all this attention all of a sudden?
As early as 2010, MEP Judith Merkies asked then-European Commissioner for Digitalisation Kroes questions about the impact of social european union phone number media and the internet on loneliness. Since 2015, she has been intensively involved in this subject, because she saw the growing impact of loneliness. And in 2018/2019, she made a first attempt to get a pilot project up and running within the European Parliament.
In Brussels, there is literally a lot of politics involved. If I may believe Judith, there is also a lot of the secret to strengthening campaigns: listening to feedback talking, negotiating and trying to convince of the usefulness. Even if you have supporters, you are not there yet because projects are assessed (A/B/C/D) and only the best (A) usually go ahead. COVID was both a threat and an unexpected help, because we suddenly had to deal with lockdown, isolation and also loneliness. Now the research has been done and the results have been presented.
