Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

To a first order, how can we decrease percentage of people that are single should be the question.

I built a mobile app that allows you to get a morning wake up call from a real person. Part of my motivation here was to help add a little human interaction to what is a lonely experience for some people.

It's not perfect, but I've managed to make some friends on Bumble BFF, https://bumble.com/bff-us/ . If you are more of a one on one person and feel awkward in groups, this is the best thing i've found so far

The older people get the more disposable they are viewed as by society.

When you are younger, you belong in school. When you get older, you belong at work.

If you fall out of any of these social structures its extremely difficult to find your way back in.

I was already pretty disconnected from society and people in general when my divorce hit and now I am completely untethered from any kind of community. Living is miserable I hate my life and I do not want to exist like this anymore.

None of the solutions people provide are easy or functional. "Go meet people" is the most vague, unhelpful bullshit ever.

I think the reality is some people, no matter how intelligent, caring or otherwise full of empathy they may be are just "too far gone" for anyone to have the initiative or concern to care about us. The world is so corroded and socially poisoned that any kind of meaningful effort in this kind of thing is pointless. Anybody with time or money is busy making money.

You can't solve the epidemic because it is a byproduct of multiple irreparably broken systems. People will continue to fall through the cracks and it will get worse. I don't know what happens after that but we'll probably all be dead.

i always thought I had avoided this issue. then i moved to a new town. starting with zero friends in a new town, with very little in place as far as shows, groups, etc, it seems quite a bit harder than it was 20 years ago. meetup used to work but it has become a cesspool of zoom calls and pay meetings. i wish i knew a really good answer (and i dont drink so bars dont have the appeal. by the time i get off of work coffee shops are closed)

i love people and do not want to be alone.

People who live in London, how did you find a solution for this? I am interested in hearing what you tried. I am in my very early 30s. Single male. I didn't feel up in UK. Moved here I my 20s.

Are you talking about the US? If so, I heard this proposed on a podcast “Grey Area”. Mandatory two year draft for all, regardless of gender. It sounds crazy at first but it kind makes sense the more you think about it.

I dont know the solution but few things that are root cause:

- Internet and Social Media

- Neighborhoods no longer are walkable especially suburbs at least in America. Kids are not encouraged to go bike to their friends place anymore because of traffic risks.

- High Trust societies have degraded into "lets keep ot myself, I can't trust anyone these days". Decades ago, you could just walk into a neighbor's home and say hello. Now, you need an appointment just to talk to a neighbor or are too worried what they will think of you.

- No real friendships after school/colleges. This is a huge deal once you are out on your own in the real world. Work relationships are meh at best and with remote work nowadays, it has become even worse.

- Even if you join a club or activity, they are too "planned" and "robotic". For example, my kids take a dance class and they said they don't like it. I realized why. There is no break. They don't even get to spend like 30 mins with other kids socializing etc. There is a fixed schedule. You go, you dance, you leave.

But this is the world today. So I don't know how to fix it.

I am somewhat suspicious of this loneliness epidemic. 81% of Americans are somewhat satisfied or very satisfied with their personal life[0]. And my personal experience is that both close friends and general civil community is easy to find[1]. I wasn't trying at all so it can't be that there are any real constraints here.

0: https://news.gallup.com/poll/655493/new-low-satisfied-person...

1: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-10-09/Community

marijuana bars

Not online.

People, together, doing things, ideally having fun.

Spaces and activities that provide venues for communication, humor, authenticity, play, touch, collaboration.

We can encourage people to start families and stop telling them that it's the end of anything fun.

I wonder if there would be some way to create a hyper-local MMO. Let people meet each other from the comfort of their homes and bond over the shared activity of the MMO, and make it so the people you are likely to play with are also in your general geographic region. That way, it would be an easy way to meet people, bond with them, and potentially meet up IRL to take the friendship further.

I think this would be an awesome idea but the main challenge here would be game design and implementation. You'd need a lot of capital and some big ass game studio.

I mean this seriously: we need more cults.

Cults have been viciously slandered by mainstream information sources, often because lurid cult stories generate clicks and headlines. Of course some cults are abusive, just like some marriages are abusive. But we still think marriage is good in general.

If you think all cults are bad, you're implicitly against all religion, since every mainstream religion was once a cult. Being anti-cult is also profoundly un-American. America was built by cultists. Freedom of religion is literally the first principle stated in the Bill of Rights.

A cult is really just a professionally managed social environment. If you trust professionals like lawyers, doctors, or teachers with their respective duties, there's no reason in principle you shouldn't trust a cult leader to manage your social environment for you. Of course you should vet them, ask about their reputation, etc.

> You have to be the one who creates things to do.

This. Isn't it fascinating that for all the different ways we have to reach people (almost immediately, anywhere in the world, at virtually no cost) and all the different social entertainment options, people feel unable to perform an action that is so simple? An action that their ancestors going back all the way to the hominids has done at massively greater costs to them?

What is it that makes people feel this powerless?

People are suffering from PCNS. Here is a great documentary about it https://youtu.be/9kqgF5O354E?si=5UMifCZuk_sP71m0

Destroy social media.

Fund free places to hang out.

I think this is fine? I’m pretty quiet in my real life but I do talk about here.

The answer is social media. But social is per se difficult like in real life.

Well, let's start by confronting and acknowledging the very strong case that we -- "we" here being the tech world in general, and the audience of this site -- bear a heavy burden of responsibility for it.

It could be argued that it was all inevitable given the development of the Internet: development of social media, the movement online of commerce and other activities that used to heavily involve "incidental" socialization, etc. And maybe it was. But "we" are still the ones who built it. So are "we" really the right ones to solve it, through the same old silicon valley playbook?

The usual thought process of trying to push local "community groups," hobby-based organizations etc is not bad, but I think it misses an important piece of the puzzle, which is that we've started a kind of death spiral, a positive feedback loop suppressing IRL interaction. People started to move online because it was easier, and more immediate than "IRL." But as more people, and a greater fraction of our social interaction moves online, "IRL" in turn becomes even more featureless. There are fewer community groups, fewer friends at the bar or the movies, fewer people open to spontaneous interaction. This, then, drives even more of culture online.

What use is trying to get "back out into the real world," when everyone else has left it too, while you were gone?

Shared stressors are what bring people together. Communities form when a group of people all have the same problem. Go around egging peoples homes in your neighbourhood, and keep doing it. By the time your neighbours finally catch you they will all have gotten to know and appreciate one another better. They will have formed a communtiy identity.

I think old-school chat rooms might be a solution to this.

Affordable third places[0] where people can impromptu join and serendipitously meet friendly faces repeatedly. All of my strong friendships were from exactly this at either skateparks, college dorm common area, or run clubs. Churches had this figured out for millenia

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

loneliness is not really transmissible like an epidemic. If two lonely people get together, they aren’t lonely anymore.

I think the big solution consists of many small solutions. One problem I identified is that social media platforms (1) decimated local live music events coverage in mid-sized cities and (2) placed live music events into the same "filter bubble" algorithm as everything else, making it difficult for people to discover what is going on nearby.

I started https://musiclocal.org, a 501(c)(3), as a curated live music events platform for my local area (and hopefully others). We list all the live music events in the area, and we optimize the software for usability, performance, SEO, etc. The goal is to make discovering local live music events as easy as doom-scrolling. We have had an outstanding reception in the area we serve. We are not self-sustaining yet, but I am optimistic about our chances. As a non-profit, we do not do any of the dark-pattern garbage that has become omnipresent in social media and other consumer software. We just do the right thing as best we can.

Here is some more background (from our "Issues" page):

At MusicLocal, we focus on the root challenges facing local music communities to address endemic issues of negative social media practices, isolation and community polarization, and economic concentration and monopolization. Specifically:

• We believe convenient, comprehensive live music event listings are critical to reversing the decline in local music journalism. • We believe ethically designed, steward-curated live music event listings provide a vital alternative to addictive social media platforms. • We believe that making live music more visible and accessible encourages in-person interaction, strengthening communities and alleviating loneliness and social isolation. • We believe that local live music listings are a critical component of strong local economies, helping to lessen the negative economic consequences of big tech and music industry monopolies.

---

"Technology has a purpose, and that purpose is to do good and to share" --Steve Wozniak

This is an individual problem and an individual's responsibility to solve, imo (Although I do think it's interesting to consider whether a project, company, or initiative could help make this easier to solve for millions.)

Regardless, there are four steps worth taking as an individual: (1) go out, (2) make friends, (3) turn friends into community, and (4) maintain community.

If you're feeling lonely, you're probably failing at one step along this chain.

1. Going out. I don't have a lot of tips here. Except to go to things that actually facilitate interacting with strangers. Don't just go to a bar or go work from a cafe. Go to a meet and greet, an event for strangers to mingle, etc. Or, if you're having trouble motivating yourself to go out, then that's something inside yourself to work on. I find that a shakeup to your life routine (e.g. moving cities, going on a vacation) can provide a good window to change your habits, where you'll start doing things you don't normally do in your home city.

2. Making friends. This one is simple but hard for some. Basically: be personable, smile, engage in conversation, ask questions, be interested, avoid being threatening or clingy, dress and stylish normal-ish unless you really don't want to, etc. Then talk to people at these events, and if seems like you'd like hanging with them and have things in common, ask to exchange numbers.

3. Turn friends into community. IMO this is where you go from the basics into the advanced, and where the most benefits lie. However, most people stop after #2, even though this step is easier than steps #1 or #2, and is extremely rewarding. Community is an in-person social network. The number of connections between people in a community determines the strength and stickiness of that community. Thus it's very important that you introduce your friends to other friends. For example, instead of going on a coffee date with a friend once every month or two, invite 2 or 3 friends to dinner. This has numerous benefits. All of your friends will meet each other, and suddenly they'll know who you're talking about when you mention other people. Also, conversation is easier when there are more people. Also, you'll find events and hangs happen more often, because (a) more people are able to initiate them, and (b) there's more reason to go. People are more motivated to go and less motivated to cancel when there's an event that allows them to see multiple friends at once.

4. Maintain community. People move away. People have silly fights and disagreements and stop talking to each other. People get into relationships and disappear. People get sick, or old, or antisocial, and disappear. Shit happens. So you have to keep doing steps #2 and #3, at least occasionally, forever. You don't necessarily need to do step #1 as much, since the people in your community will naturally bring friends and whatnot to your events. But you still need to get to know these people, exchange numbers, and invite them to future events.

I like to hang around at my local skate park.

I'm not very good on a skateboard, better on a BMX. In any case the vibes are usually good.

Sometimes you think people aren't even noticing you, till you finally land the trick you're working on and a total stranger yells 'whoo!'

Obviously, someone has to create a nice big corp which would make us nice LLM friends and family members, yes, yes, yes!

Being happy with yourself and being OK that you're not advancing anymore (you're just happy and don't have anything to pursue), or raising a family. The only two ways.

Ban advertising based business models.

"Who don't feel that they can join any local groups"

There's your problem. Fix that.

If there aren't any local groups then help create one. If there are, go along, meet some people, see what works for you, join a different one if you didn't like the first one, keep going until you've found your people.

If you feel like you can't go to a group then create a support group for people who feel like they can't go to groups. Or go online and find the virtual space for people like you and then travel to see those people (or invite them to see you).

But there is no fix for you having to socialise if you're lonely. You're going to have to find a way in.

I would suggest for the crowd here: tech meetups, even online ones and communities will connect you to people with your interests.

Another thing that you'll likely find in your area is a chess club.

Maybe you won't love the chess itself, but it's an excuse to hang out with people.

Another one is volunteering work. Elderly, dogs, etc, many communities need help.

In my village I have started a "clean up" program where average citizens take few bags a picker and we clean areas of our village.

Most of people are "this is the job of the garbage collectors, the mayor should do it", so what? It also costs money, and nobody will do as carefully as the people living there.

Even if 95% of my village won't care few will and we make an impact and socialize, etc and more start taking part of it.

I think people in general need to stop letting differences rip them apart from each other. I've seen countless friendships crumble over stupid things like politics. (I'm not saying politics is stupid overall, but I do think it's stupid to let it affect a relationship, except in extreme situations). I'm not talking about the Neo-Nazi who openly expresses hatred towards other races, or the extreme other end who insists that anything other than full throated and vocal activism makes you a bad person. Those people are toxic and should be avoided. IME that's like 1% of the population if not less.

Social media has (IMHO) exacerbated this by allowing us to selectively surround ourselves with people we know we'll agree with. It's a nice reprieve sometimes, but it's so, so unhealthy beyond short-term.

Also talking to people in-person is very important. The less you do it, the harder it is, but it's worth doing. The natural humanizing effect of conversing with a person in meat-space does wonders for increasing understanding. Don't talk about topics you disagree on, focus on agreements and common interests. A good friend of mine is a trans-woman married to a woman. She decided to get into target shooting and approached others in good faith, and she said something like (not a direct quote): "I was worried they would be assholes, but it turns out they're just nerds like me, they just love to kit out their rigs".

Another friend of mine fell into the right-wing youtube rabbit-hole and "infiltrated" an Antifa group. He's a good guy overall, but got a very clouded exposure to "the other side." After he was done, he said something like (not a direct quote) "I was actually really surprised at how accepting, respectful, and intellectual most of them were. We wouldn't agree on politics, but they were a lot more interested in real analysis and dealing in facts than I ever would have thought, and we ended up having some good conversations."

Yes there are going to be assholes out there, but give people a chance before jumping to conclusions. You might be surprised! Don't jump in the deep end all at once, and be mindful of personal danger and comfort-level, but don't be so afraid to reach out to humans (in-person) and try to connect, even if you think on the surface there's no way you could get along.

This comment will get buried in the sea of individual responses here since I am too late. But for the dumpster divers, here is my contribution!

1. People have obscenely high standards for social interaction. If this person is not an outlier (in a good way) with their behaviors, it's just not going to happen. Most people have a very low tolerance for new people in their life. This has always existed to some degree but people today much prefer to listen to endless content from their favorite streamers, comedians, etc. and form parasocial relationships.

2. The environment for interacting with people has much higher stakes. Think about all the people who get recorded and posted on TikTok every single day. These are people doing it where you can see it - not just the Meta glasses people who remove the recording light. You can act like being a weirdo has no consequences but everyone has this extremely powerful device that can broadcast whatever you do to billions of people immediately - and you can suffer real consequences from this. Every crashout you have in any kind of crowd will be posted for eternity so that the world can see.

3. There is less and less benefit to having social networks/friends. Your friends aren't going to help you get a job, buy you a house, or meet your spouse. Meeting a spouse through friends is increasingly rare as online dating is dominating. As much as everyone complains, it is the major way people meet their spouse in major cities. People assume this is because friend networks are getting smaller but it's not due to that. It's because standards for interaction within friend groups has changed and standards for partners has changed. Unless you are prolific top 1% social maximizer, you are not going to run into anywhere near enough eligible people in your social network to meet your maximized match. We expect to completely maximize and find the best possible fit for our spouse now. Compromise of any kind is considered worse than dying alone. Cost of housing has exploded, jobs have become very hard to keep/find, and this turns everything into a transaction. Living with friends and kicking them out when they can't make rent is a tough but very real situation. People are more transactional because the economy dictates its necessities. Your family is the only thing that will bail you out - your friends can't overlook you skipping $2000/month in rent for 6 months.

There is more but anyway - loneliness epidemic is not going to get solved. It will continue to get worse until some kind of revolution which would require a complete reworking of our entire economy. I would accept this as the new normal and try to figure out how you can optimize your own individual experience in spite of all these things that are working against you. It is not worth trying to fight it on a systemic scale because there are simply too many components and the core cause is one our entire economy is based around. (A good investment is inherently counter to affordability)

Housing in my city has been expensive for years, and the knock-on effect is that most people I know live so far apart we barely see each other anymore.

When you stack a two hour trip each way on top of the rising cost of doing anything at all, on top of already crushing housing and living costs, you end up with a perfect storm where staying home becomes the default. Not because people don’t want to socialise, but because the effort and expense make it impractical.

This has been a prolem where I live for years and I've actively watched it become worse over time as people have been forced to move further and further apart, and further and further away from the active areas of the city in order to be able to afford to keep a roof over their head.

AI (chat) companies now have enough data to recommend h2h (human to human) but they are not building this.

They could literally find people who are working on he same things and recommend them for networking etc.

But that would take you off platform. Off attention.

Who wants to build this. Others must be thinking the same thing?

I have 2 answers to this, depending on how you define "loneliness epidemic"

Genuine loneliness, like what you described, can only really be solved by touching grass. Figure out your hobbies, or find one if you don't have any.

My answer to what a lot of people call "the male loneliness epidemic" as a woman is to say it doesn't exist, you need to figure out how to be attractive. We aren't throwing ourselves on shitty men, and most of the men that complain are complaining because they feel entitled to us and thus put no effort into being attractive. The quickest way to be attractive is have empathy and not be a douche. Listen to peoples needs, and don't feel entitled to our attention

Idk, probably some kind of app.

Alcohol.

Universal Basic Tokens allowance?

I was going to post this somewhere else, but I think this story fits.

An old guy approached me and said "put the music on my phone mann".

Alright.

My response: "Search on YouTube"

He keeps insisting on ME doing it for him.

3 steps

First his data was off. For presumably a while he's had his data off ( it's metro PCs so it's prepaid anyway) and I guess he was relying on WiFi.

Ok.

One click to fix that in the Android tile menu.

His Bluetooth was off too.

Turn that on. Turn on his headphones. Luckily it was already paired.

Finally I had to open YouTube and find music for him.

3 or 4 steps.

Now he's happily listening to music.

But beyond that, he got to introduce himself to me, and I guess the next time he accidentally turns off his data he can ask for help again.

I also like to help people.

Old people are awesome when it comes to this. They'll just ask someone to help them out, that's how you build community.

Don't know how to change your oil ? Cool Billy's a car guy he can help you out. Having trouble with your water pressure, maybe Sarah's a plumber and she can help.

Of course if something serious you're still going to be expected to pay these people, but if it's something quick they'll help you free of charge. Maybe you'll bake them a cake for their kids birthday.

I recall when I was young a neighbor basically gave my mom a car. It was an absolute piece of crap, and out of the goodness of his heart he would come and fix it every now and then.

I didn't realize it as a kid, but if you're passionate about cars and you get the emotional satisfaction of both helping a neighbor and seeing how long you can keep that old car running, that's its own reward.

How many of you would love for a non technical neighbor to say their computer is slow. I recall someone on HN even offering to send out a free laptop to someone in need.

Traditionally communities would have a blacksmith or a baker. That's what that person did and they had a status tied to it.

In modern economic systems what exactly we do is so abstracted away from anything meaningful we lack this connection.

On a very fundamental level people need to feel needed.

TLDR: Help others.

Volunteer

stop inventing and endorsing divisive ideas

Church.

Learn to use smartphones as tools, not as all consuming attention sinks.

Make as many third places as you can. People need to get out to do other things than work, and these should be low cost activities. If you introduce subscriptions and then ramp up prices, then you are the scum of the world.

together

Telos

In the USA, the loneliness epidemic is compounded by isolation. A large portion of our society has moved into suburban communities that are largely impersonal. There is very little in the way of in-person community outside of churches or political movements that only certain kinds of people want to be involved with.

With the Internet giving us the ability to interact with our chosen niche with little effort, we are willing to accept this still-impersonal alternative to our stagnant communities.

I have found that, as a city-dweller, I benefit from separating myself from social media and going out into the world looking for more personal connections, but this is somewhat of a privilege afforded to those people who live in more densely populated areas. Even then, my distance from social media can sometimes be a handicap when you interact with people who are still reliant on it to coordinate everything.

For most people, the social opportunities that existed in the 70's through the 90's simply doesn't exist anymore. If you aren't using social media, you're practically being anti-social, but there is something inherently anti-social about social media to begin with, so you're screwed if you do and screwed if you don't.

Not with technology.