Hillary Clinton writes for the Atlantic Monthly this week: The Weaponization of Loneliness
https://www.theatlantic.com/id...amp;referral=FB_PAID
An excerpt:
The rate of young adults who report suffering from loneliness went up every single year from 1976 to 2019. From 2003 to 2020, the average time that young people spent in person with friends declined by nearly 70 percent. Then the pandemic turbocharged our isolation.
According to the surgeon general, when people are disconnected from friends, family, and communities, their lifetime risk of heart disease, dementia, depression, and stroke skyrockets. Shockingly, prolonged loneliness is as bad, or worse, for our health as being obese or smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Researchers also say that loneliness can generate anger, resentment, and even paranoia. It diminishes civic engagement and social cohesion, and increases political polarization and animosity. Unless we address this crisis, Murthy warned, “we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country.”
. . .
Murthy followed his report on loneliness with a second advisory just 20 days later, warning that heavy social-media use among teenagers is driving a dangerous increase in depression and other mental-health challenges. From 2001 to 2021, the suicide rate among people in their early 20s surged by more than 60 percent. For 10-to-14-year-olds, it tripled. These are numbers that should shake us to our core.
I'd read a substantial amount of the article before I realized its author is Hilary Clinton. The importance of the message IMHO is monumental. Couple that with the fact that it is being delivered by such a voice -
The article is in Atlantic Monthly: The Weaponization of Loneliness (theatlantic.com) Hillary Rodham Clinton https://www.theatlantic.com/id...ess-epidemic/674921/
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