A Cure for Disconnection

In the world of Peanuts, Charlie Brown once visited Lucy's psychiatry booth and asked, "Can you cure loneliness?"

"For a nickel, I can cure anything," Lucy said.

"Can you cure deep-down, black, bottom-of-the-well, no-hope, end-of-the-world, what's-the-use loneliness?" he asked.

"For the same nickel?!" she balked.

It's been 17 years since Robert Putnam's best-selling book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community sounded the alarm about societal changes driving new levels of isolation and alienation; by now, most of us know that loneliness isn't a problem to be laughed off. Researchers warn that we are in the midst of a loneliness epidemic, and they aren't being metaphorical when they speak of loneliness as a disease.

Read more here.