Culture – Loneliness.

I’ve been talking to lots of people recently and one thing keeps coming up in conversations.

Loneliness.

It almost seems like an epidemic, it’s really sad. I have always taken time out to talk to people and generally in a shop it only tended to be older people that wanted to talk, wanted someone to be interested in them and I got a lot from it too, people are amazing and if allowed to tell their stories there’s a lot to learn. The shutting down of shops and banks where everything has moved to online means the older generations are losing much of their human contact from their traditional sources and don’t trust the new online way the world is going.

However, recently I have noticed that younger people want to talk too, they are lonely and have few people in their peer groups to talk to, I find this incredibly sad, people seem to be having more and more trouble connecting with people and find it easier to talk t complete strangers.

People are detaching from social situations and then finding that they are becoming socially awkward. I don’t know why this is happening, maybe it’s because younger generations have got so used to talking to a screen that human interaction is awkward.

I don’t have any answers and this is just an observation but please if someone wants to talk, let them. You can stop this becoming a serious epidemic of loneliness by just taking a few minutes to listen to someone. You might even find yourself some new friends and you might learn something whilst helping someone come out of their shell.

Don’t underestimate a kind word and a few moments of your time.

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