A good friend recently told me he’s having trouble finding community. He lives in a dense, hip, Seattle neighborhood. There’s no shortage of people nearby. There are plenty of things to do. And yet, surrounded by people that could be part of his community, he’s lonely.
And he’s not alone.
There’s an epidemic of loneliness in the modern world. 24% of young American adults (18-29 years old) report being “frequently” or “always” lonely. And for people aged 30-44, it’s even worse: 29%.1
This is a big problem and not only because loneliness makes you unhappy. It also makes you unhealthy: “It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, … and premature death.”2
What’s Causing the Loneliness Epidemic?
My friend actually hit the nail on the head when he expressed his unmet need for community.
Researchers have identified “social support” and “meaningful daily interactions” as the strongest predictors of reduced loneliness.3 In other words, having community.
Meanwhile, “U.S. participation in community organizations — from faith groups to recreational leagues — has declined in recent decades.”4 This aligns with the finding that religious people tend to be happier, not because of their faith, but because their place of worship provides community.5 Being agnostic or atheist doesn’t make you unhappy, but not having community does.
And it’s not just an American problem. All over the developed world, people are experiencing greater loneliness.4 Modern life simply makes it hard to feel a sense of community.
Most of the people we see on a daily basis are complete strangers, which discourages us from interacting with them. Why invest time and energy getting to know someone or helping someone whom you’ll never meet again? Why risk trusting total strangers? So even though we’re surrounded by other people, many of us feel isolated and alone.
What About Online Community?
There is one feature of the modern world that, theoretically, can make it easier to find community: telecommunications.
Nearly everyone you know is accessible, all day, every day, via text or phone call. You can Facetime with your relatives on the other side of the country. During COVID, we had virtual birthday parties over Zoom. Every imaginable subculture has a Reddit page or a Discord channel where you can connect with people who share your passion, your identity, or even your disease.
This is absolutely a good thing. But good isn’t the same as best. You can find community online, but it probably won’t be as satisfying as community you find in the real world.
If you’re an LGBTQ youth growing up in an intolerant small town in Mississippi, finding community online might be your only option, and it’s a good thing you have that option. It’ll keep you afloat until you can move away and experience community in-person.
A lot of this comes down to human nature. Up until the 1990s (for 99.99% of human history) the only way to experience community was in person, so we’re biologically programmed to expect face-to-face interactions. Hearing each other’s voices. Interacting with the same physical objects. Eye contact. Laughter. Touch.
So, despite the availability of community in the digital world, we still need to find community in the physical world.
The Modern World vs. Human Nature
Your ancestors lived in tribes. You would have interacted with the same people, day after day, year after year. You worked on communal projects. You had shared stories. You were embedded in one another’s lives.
More recently, most people lived in villages or tight-knit city neighborhoods, and community came almost as naturally. You had neighbors you knew well and could count on.
Now, many people live anonymously. They don’t know most of their neighbors. Or people move so often that it can feel pointless to try and get to know their neighbors. When they need a pet sitter, they have to hire someone from Rover. When they go out of town, their houseplants die.
The ability to work from home only compounds this problem.
While there are many benefits to working from home, those who do often lose a valuable source of community. I used to work in an office with a bunch of great people, and I miss interacting with them every day.
The way people lived in the past made things like “social support” and “meaningful daily interactions” automatic. The modern world doesn’t.
But the isolation people experience in big cities and the suburbs isn’t inevitable. It just means we have to work harder to find and create community. Let’s look at how to do that.
Community Comes from Consistency
Over the last six months, I’ve found community in an odd place: 24-Hour Fitness. If you’ve never been to one, 24-Hour Fitness is a chain of big, generic gyms where it would be very easy to stay anonymous.
I already exercise at home every day, so I joined for the hot tub. About five days a week, I go to the hot tub around 9pm. And, it turns out, I’m not the only one. There are quite a few people following the same routine, and many of them have become “hot tub friends.”
We chat while we’re soaking, and because we see each other several times a week, we’ve gradually gotten to know each other. And I’ve become surprisingly attached to my hot tub community.
Consistency Creates Connection
Years ago, when I lived in Seattle, I regularly attended a Friday night board game meetup at Blue Highway Games. When I first started going, I felt like an outsider. I didn’t know anyone. I was unsure if I fit in. But I kept coming, gradually got to know the regulars, and was welcomed into their community. Several of them even became good friends.
The point is you won’t feel a sense of community the first few times you participate in one. But if you consistently engage with the same people, you’ll naturally become bonded to them.
Community Requires Commitment
In the hunter-gatherer world, you didn’t get to pick your tribe. To be exiled from the tribe meant death, so you were committed to it from birth. That’s why loneliness feels so bad.
For most of history since the dawn of civilization, people stayed local. They lived in a small farming village. They didn’t have the means to travel or move locales, so they were committed to their community. Our lives are better in countless many ways now, but they did have that on us.
The lesson here is not to join a farming commune or an Amazonian tribe. The lesson is that to find community in the modern world, you have to commit to a community. Pick a group – a club, a team, a volunteer organization – and stick with it.
Quit Dabbling
The modern world gives you too many options, so it discourages commitment.
Searching endlessly for the “right” community is like endlessly dating in search of the perfect partner. As unromantic as it is to say, at some point you have to decide what is good enough and then commit to building a relationship.
Likewise, you can’t develop a passion for something with just a few tries. Committing to a hobby causes passion to emerge.
So it’s less important what the community is based around – dancing, board games, karaoke, ultimate frisbee – and more important how often you participate. Odds are, if you do something regularly for a few months, you’ll develop a passion for it and you’ll start to feel like part of the community that does it.
Love 2.0: Your Broader Community
So far, we’ve mostly been focused on finding a tight-knit community, but there’s also value in feeling connected to your looser, broader community.
We’re accustomed to thinking of love as being limited to those we’re close with: friends, family, and romantic partners. But, according to Barbara Fredrickson, that’s just Love 1.0, and we’re not limited to only that type of love.
Love 2.0 is a “micro-moment of warmth and connection” you share with a stranger you pass on the street, a clerk at the grocery store, or anyone else you have the opportunity to briefly interact with.6 Part of the reason people feel lonely and isolated in the modern world is because of a lack of Love 2.0.
If you lived in a small town or a hunter-gatherer tribe, you’d naturally interact with the same people on a regular basis, so it would be weird to keep your head down, avoid eye contact, and go about your day without speaking to the people you see. But in a modern city, that’s exactly what most people do.
We think it’s weird to make eye contact, smile at people, or say hello. But actually, it’s our isolationist behavior that’s weird and unnatural. Humans are supposed to be social with each other.
So part of finding community in the modern world is creating more Love 2.0 moments in your daily life. Say hi to people in the elevator. Briefly chat with your neighbors when you happen to cross paths. Learn the names of the cashiers at your grocery store. Strike up conversations at the bus stop.
It’s understandable to think that the strangers you see just want to be left alone (or left to interact with their digital devices). You’re probably thinking that you’d rather not talk to strangers. But researchers have shown that when people do talk to strangers on the bus or the train, despite their trepidations, they feel happier.7
Creating Community in the Modern World
Because going through modern life anonymously is the norm, it’s up to people who know better – people like you – to lead the way.
You don’t have to become a bubbly social butterfly. You just have to look up and engage with your fellow humans the way people have been interacting for millennia.
It’s an uphill battle, but so was every positive social movement that ever succeeded. The loneliness epidemic is new. It came about in just the last few decades. And we can solve it even faster if we try.
1Ross, Elizabeth M. “What is Causing Our Epidemic of Loneliness and How Can We Fix It?” Harvard Graduate School of Education. October 25, 2024.
2Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the United States. “Our Epidemic of Loneliness.”
3Bruce, L. D., Wu, J. S., Lustig, S. L., Russell, D. W., & Nemecek, D. A. (2019). “Loneliness in the United States: A 2018 National Panel Survey of Demographic, Structural, Cognitive, and Behavioral Characteristics.” American journal of health promotion: AJHP, 33(8), 1123–1133. https://doi.org/10.1177/0890117119856551
4Juana Summers, Vincent Acovino, and Christopher Intagliata. “America has a loneliness epidemic. Here are 6 steps to address it.” All Things Considered. May 2, 2023.
5“Religion’s Relationship to Happiness, Civic Engagement and Health Around the World.” Pew Research Center. January 31, 2019.
6Fredrickson, Barbara L., Ph.D. Love 2.0: Creating Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection. Plume, 2013. Video Book Summary.
7Walton, Alice. G. “Talk to a Stranger: It’ll Make You Happier.” CBR – Behavioral Science. December 02, 2014.
Chris Loper has been writing about self-improvement and helping busy adults with habit formation since 2017.
He also writes an education blog for parents and students for Northwest Educational Services.
Along with Greg Smith, Chris is the cocreator of Parenting for Academic Success, a series of transformative classes that create empowered parents, confident students, and harmonious families.
His most recent endeavor combines his academic and habit-formation expertise to help students thrive in college. Visit SmartCollegeHabits.com to learn more.
In 2021, Chris published a humorous memoir titled Wood Floats and Other Brilliant Observations, a book that blends crazy stories with practical life lessons.
He lives in Issaquah, WA where he is the owner of South Cove Tutoring.