View: There's a growing loneliness economy to tap
golden opportunity to capitalise on it? Globally, a new 'loneliness economy' is rapidly taking shape.
US surgeon general Vivek Murthy has been fighting loneliness for a while now. He's been at it at least since he published a 2017 piece, 'Work and the Loneliness Epidemic' (rb.gy/flwppa), in the Harvard Business Review, following it up in his 2020 book, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, and via his role in the recent reshaping of US policy to acknowledge social connection as 'a fundamental human need, as essential to survival as food, water, and shelter'.
So, it may have been inevitable that WHO would identify loneliness as a serious threat to world health.
What can be done to counteract rising loneliness? In early 2018, British prime minister Theresa May established the world's first ministry dedicated to addressing 'loneliness'. Not everyone was impressed, though.
CBS talk show host Stephen Colbert noted, 'They've defined the most ineffable human problem and come up with the most cold, bureaucratic solution.' The 'cold, bureaucratic solution', however, quickly spread elsewhere. Japan appointed its own loneliness minister in 2021, as suicide rates in that country had increased for the first time in 11 years.
Deemed the 'loneliness economy,' an expanding cohort of businesses is sensing the opportunity to provide attractive, marketed relationships as a means of reducing social isolation.
The promise of facilitated human contact has turned into a marketing opportunity goldmine, as evidenced by the proliferation of co-living and collaborative workspaces, not to mention thousands of dating sites. A number of services — such as providing rented companions, hugging apps, massive
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