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Comment by alexashka | Hacker News Reader

It's more of a journalist epidemic - they keep reaching for straw-men to justify their existence.

Talking about loneliness is slightly more interesting than what dress celebrity X wore at event Y. It's just bullshit - at least the dress talk doesn't pretend otherwise, for the most part.

We're living in the greatest time ever. I understand that when you make no money and you're writing articles, it may seem like there is a loneliness epidemic. There isn't - we're doing better than ever. More people are having first world problems than ever. It's great to have those, just talk to someone with a little perspective that you respect for it to rub off on you and go on about your day :)

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> We're living in the greatest time ever. I understand that when you make no money and you're writing articles, it may seem like there is a loneliness epidemic. There isn't - we're doing better than ever.

I don't understand how you can claim that with a straight face. Did you read the article?

14% of the UK population say they experience loneliness "often" or "always". 46% of a 20,000 people study in the US reported "sometimes" or "often".

Hundreds of thousands of people in Japan can be classified as hikikomori, living a lifestyle of extreme social isolation. There are similar numbers in most industrialized nations.

Downplaying or ignoring these facts is a terrible disservice to mental health, just as we did for decades with depression. This is indeed a global epidemic and I applaud the UK for introducing health programs to tackle it.

On the contrary, many of the people I've met who most definitely do not have first world problems -- people living in Africa, Southeast Asia, and other destitute parts of the world -- often seem to lead genuinely happier lives than the stressed out existence that is the norm in the US.

Being able to have a cheeseburger delivered on demand does not make up for systematic loneliness and dehumanization. The more I travel, the more perspective I get, the more I think that things have gone deeply wrong here.

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