A History of Loneliness: How We Created the Silent Terror of Isolation
And why there’s still hope for a more connected future.
Loneliness is a deeply inherent human feeling. It developed as a survival instinct — like hunger — to signal us the importance of companionship.
And because our brain software hasn’t really changed for millennia, this feeling of loneliness is still the same as it was back then. But you know what’s strange? The terror of loneliness is a fairly new phenomenon. In fact, loneliness didn’t really emerge until the 18th century.
This begs a critical question: Why is loneliness such a modern problem?
One thing is clear. We must find the answers if we want to get modern loneliness under control. We must understand the history of loneliness.
The History Book of Loneliness
To make this a bit more fun, let’s imagine the history of loneliness as a 700-page book. Page one marks the beginning of the human species as we know it today (which was roughly 315,000 years ago). And page 700 marks the year 2022.
What would the pages tell us about loneliness?
