大家生活在一个过度拥挤的地球上，人口飞速增长，总数接近80亿人。尽管这样，很多人还是感到孤独或生活处境孤立。
How lonely are you? Sometimes living alone or being in a remote location with nobody around to talk to can give you the feeling of despair and isolation1. Its not a great feeling. Theres a common stereotype2 that its something that affects older people more, but research has found that loneliness is something that can affect us all, whatever our age.
Theres a familiar phrase that says its possible to be lonely in a crowd despite being surrounded by hundreds of people, you think you have nobody to talk to or to connect with and that nobody wants to listen to you anyway. Its probably not true, but loneliness is seen as a big problem for the mental health of the population wherever they live - so much so that the British government even has a minister for loneliness.
The BBC recently completed a survey about the TOPic and it found that people aged3 between 16 and 24 experience loneliness more often and more intensely than any other age group. Researchers from the University of Manchester who analysed the data, suggested feeling lonely may plague the young because its a time of identity change - figuring out your place in the world and of learning to regulate emotions.
Psychology4 lecturer and BBC presenter5 Claudia Hammond says that its tempting6 to conclude that something about modern life is putting young people at a higher risk of loneliness, but when we asked older people in our survey about the loneliest times in their lives, they also said it was when they were young.
The issue is certainly being talked about more. And in the UK, the Minister for Loneliness Tracey Crouch7 has said that the government now recognises loneliness as one of the biggest health challenges we face. She also said there needs to be a national conversation to end the stigma8 about admitting to feeling lonely.
The BBC Loneliness Experiment also found the type of culture you live in has implications for loneliness. People from cultures which tend to put a high value on independence, such as Northern Europe and the US, revealed they would be less likely to tell a colleague about their loneliness. But in cultures where extended family is often emphasised, such as in Southern Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, older women in particular were at lower risk of feeling lonely.
