Loneliness: it’s on the rise across the country—but how can we better combat it in Harrisburg?
John Dattilo, a professor emeritus at Penn State University, has some ideas—and says finding ways to ward off lonely feelings can result in becoming healthier not just physically, but mentally and emotionally, too.
Dattilo has spent his academic career researching the relationship between leisure, meaningful activities and reduced loneliness and spoke to us about the best actions people can take to decrease loneliness and be healthier as a result.
Could you talk a little bit about what loneliness actually is? I know in some of your research, you’ve implied it was a discrepancy between desired and actual social relationships—is that right?
Yes, that is correct. Loneliness is a feeling and experience that people have that can happen across contexts. There are many people who spend time alone that aren’t lonely, and there are many people that spend time with other people that are lonely. It results from the lack of making connections with other human beings and living creatures.
How does care and assistance from friends, family, neighbors play into that?
Social support is extremely important with loneliness. Typically, the higher you have those kinds of connections, the more likely you are not to feel lonely and to be happy.
Isolation is the reduction of contact with other people. The more you have of that, the more likely you are to feel lonely, and that’s why people who are restricted to their homes, who don’t have a lot of friends, who don’t have family nearby, are much more prone to loneliness.
Is there a recommended dose, per se, of how much social interaction somebody might need?
I don’t know of that in particular, but I do know pretty much across the board, when people talk about healthy lives, and specifically healthy aging, that the component that comes up to the top is social engagement.
Could you explain why people who are more socially connected have better health outcomes overall and a lower risk of mortality?
Research that has occurred in the last 30 years or so really identifies the connections between positive feelings, positive affect and longevity, quality of life. As people engage socially, they typically report they have a positive social life and that then contributes to a person’s positive quality of life. That influences their health.
You research leisure. What are examples of good and bad activities for free time that might increase or decrease loneliness?
Our research is associated with people’s leisure. What I’m talking about is an experience that comes from being involved in meaningful activities that give us a sense of purpose, that allow us to be authentic, that allow us to express ourselves, to develop a sense of identity and to experience positive emotions that contribute to our development.
The positive emotions could be enjoyment. When we talk about enjoyment, the idea of enjoyment occurs when our skills match the challenge that we’re experiencing. If they don’t, if we have high skills and low challenge, we’re going to be bored. If we have low skills and high challenge, we’re going to be very frustrated and anxious.
But if our skills match the challenge, where it may be just slightly higher to push us, we have to be focused. As a result, we lose track of time. What we found in our research is there is a correlation between happiness, being involved in experiencing leisure—which is associated with the experience of flow—and lower reports of loneliness.
So, being connected to other people is not the only solution for loneliness?
That is an important thing to focus on. It’s logical, right? Social support is very important. Doing activities with friends and families is critical. But in addition, we found this during COVID—when people were able to experience flow, they felt less lonely.
So, when people are alone, they can reduce their sense of loneliness if they are engaged in activities that bring them joy.
What kinds of activities might trigger flow?
The activity, in and of itself, isn’t really that relevant. What is important is what that activity does for them.
Someone who enjoys reading and is a good reader—they can get lost in a book. They feel like they’ve connected to people in that book, and that is something that can result in positive emotions and happiness and also then be correlated with lower reports of loneliness. That’s just an example. Not all people will experience leisure when they read. If they’re distracted, as opposed to engaged, they’re not going to experience leisure.
It’s pretty common to use technology to de-stress. Do these kinds of activities end up working with or against people’s health?
It’s really how it’s used rather than the technology itself. With social media, using TikTok as an example, people often flip through those vignettes and they’re more amused rather than connected. Entertained for an hour, two hours, three hours, and then they’re done.
They’re not reflecting on their life. They just numb themselves. If something is detrimental to you, we don’t consider that leisure. That becomes something that’s detrimental to your health. Anything you use to numb yourself is going to be problematic because that takes you away from spending time in reflection—and if we contemplate and think about our lives, we’re much more likely than to use our lives in ways that bring us happiness and joy.
So, the key is crafting intentionality into your day?
Exactly. Some people enjoy being in nature, so if they go for a walk in a park, they are uplifted. If they do it with a person that they care about, like when I hike with my wife, it even empowers it even more. Doing an activity that you enjoy with other people, it just starts stacking the deck in your favor to be happy and then decrease loneliness.
If you engage in activities that are positive for you and others, and if you share those activities with other people, you’re much more likely to flourish. It goes beyond just being happy into sharing that happiness with other people.
This Q&A has been edited for clarity, length and style.
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