The UK’s Minister of Loneliness

According to a 2018 CIGNA study, loneliness in America has reached “epidemic” levels. After surveying twenty thousand adults, researchers found that 46 percent felt alone either sometimes or always, 47 percent felt left out, and 27 percent rarely or never felt as though there were people who really understood them.

As a point of comparison, the percentage of Americans who reported feeling frequently lonely was between 11 and 20 percent in the 1970s and 1980s. Chronic loneliness not only results in physical and mental disorders, but it also increases the odds of early death. And it’s…