Two trends are colliding in social culture: people are choosing in record numbers to live alone, and loneliness is skyrocketing to epidemic proportions.

Are they related? And what are their roots and remedies?

Veteran investigative journalist Daniel de Visé penned another insightful article for The Hill earlier this month. It was titled, “A Record Share of Americans Is Living Alone.”

He wrote, “Scholars say living alone is not a trend so much as a transformation: Across much of the world, large numbers of people are living alone for the first time in recorded history.”

“It’s just a stunning social change,” said Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at New York University and author of the book “Going Solo.” “I came to see it as the biggest demographic change in the last century that we failed to recognize and take seriously.”

De Visé added, “The U.S. Census shows that “solitaries” made up 8 percent of all households in 1940. The share of solo households doubled to 18 percent in 1970 and more than tripled, to an estimated 29 percent, by 2022.”

And living alone is not just an American trend. The transformation is even greater overseas.

According to De Visé and United Nations data, solitaries make up 39 percent of households in Denmark, 45 percent in Finland, 42 percent in Germany, 38 percent in the Netherlands, 39 percent in Norway and 40 percent in Sweden.

De Visé pondered the reason for the rises, starting with the rise of women in the workforce.

He also added, “The solo-living movement intersects with several other societal trends. Americans are marrying later, if at all. The nation is aging. The national birthrate is falling. People are living longer….”

But I think there’s also one more very significant factor driving the increase in solo-living: skyrocketing distrust of others.

In 2019, Pew Research (PR) revealed that the decline of trust is also at a record breaking high.

PR reported, “Trust is an essential elixir for public life and neighborly relations, and when Americans think about trust these days, they worry. Two-thirds of adults think other Americans have little or no confidence in the federal government.

Majorities believe the public’s confidence … in each other is shrinking, and most believe a shortage of trust in government and in other citizens makes it harder to solve some of the nation’s key problems.”

Pew Research added, “some see fading trust as a sign of cultural sickness and national decline. Some also tie it to what they perceive to be increased loneliness and excessive individualism. About half of Americans (49%) link the decline in interpersonal trust to a belief that people are not as reliable as they used to be. Many ascribe shrinking trust to a political culture they believe is broken and spawns suspicion, even cynicism, about the ability of others to distinguish fact from fiction.” (Emphasis mine)

The fact is: If distrust is the grid or glass through which people see and function in their world, we can expect retreat and isolation to be their endgame, unless they fight the trends.

To clarify, obviously millions are single, content and happy. I’m not arguing against singlehood. One is a whole number for sure.

However, could there be a connection between the growing trends of living alone, distrust and loneliness? Absolutely. Consider the simultaneous massive uptick in loneliness.

Whether single or together with someone, most people have struggled with some loneliness, at least at some point in their lives. But for a hundred million Americans, and two billion people around the world, the situation is often much more dire.

The BBC launched the Loneliness Experiment on Valentine’s Day 2018 “a staggering 55,000 people from around the world [from 237 different countries, islands and territories] completed the survey, making it the largest study of loneliness yet.”

The results? Lonely people around the world ranged from 1 in 3 to 4 in 10, with younger adults (ages 16-24) being the loneliest.

In America, however, loneliness seems to be going viral.

In 2019, NPR reported that “more than three in five Americans are lonely, with more and more people reporting feeling like they are left out, poorly understood and lacking companionship,” according to a national survey.

NPR reported that “Social media use was tied to loneliness as well, with 73% of very heavy social media users considered lonely, as compared with 52% of light users.” (One more proof digital connectedness drives one deeper in despair, not out of it. And we call it “social media”?)

Therefore, it’s no surprise “feelings of isolation were prevalent across generations. Gen Z – people who were 18 to 22 years old when surveyed – had the highest average loneliness…”

Both the domestic and global polls about loneliness above were taken before the COVID lockdowns, so you can imagine how the past few years have intensified loneliness. They have increased in every category, some having doubled as this chart below reflects for those 50-80 years old:

In just the past decade, as digital platforms and media explode in use, we’ve spent less and less time with others in real contact and connectiveness.

According to the Washington Post and a Census Bureau’s American Time Use Survey, the amount of time the average American spent with friends was 6.5 hours per week, between 2010 and 2013. Then, in 2014, time spent with friends began to decline. By 2019, the average American was spending only four hours per week with friends (a sharp, 37 percent decline from five years before). Social media, political polarization, and new technologies all played a role in the drop. COVID lockdowns deepened this trend. And by 2021, the average American spent only two hours and 45 minutes a week with close friends (a 58 percent decline relative to 2010-2013).

I’m sure it’s no surprise to most of my readers that even “famous” people suffer from loneliness. Truth is, the percentage might even be higher for us who are deemed so. We think all that “people attention” satisfies their loneliness, but it can actually deepen the chasm as well.

Here’s a short list of some famous people who have been honest about their loneliness:

According to a 2017 article in Rolling Stone magazine, tech entrepreneur and multibillionaire Elon Musk has it all – except love and connection. Musk started four billion-dollar companies – PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City, and then recently acquired a fifth in Twitter. However, after his third divorce and his breakup with his actress girlfriend, Musk confessed that he had no one with whom to share his luxurious lifestyle. The second richest man in the world, now worth $176 billion, said, “Going to sleep alone kills me.” He hesitated, shook his head, faltered, then continued. “It’s not like I don’t know what that feels like: Being in a big empty house, and no footsteps echoing through the hallways, no one over there … How do you make yourself happy in a situation like that?” He then added, “When I was a child, there was one thing I said: ‘I never want to be alone.’” And then he whispered again, “I never want to be alone.”

I agree. Who does?

All the above examples of famous people are one more proof that riches, popularity and worldly success can’t satisfy an aching or lonely heart. And if you think some futuristic Artificial Intelligence (AI) will provide the answer, think again.

In fact, overexposure to wrong remedies for loneliness can multiply its intensity, be physically crippling and even deadly.

From the U.S. National Library of Medicine, an article in the The Indian Journal of Psychiatry, “Loneliness: A disease?” concluded: “Loneliness is not necessarily about being alone. Instead, ‘it is the perception of being alone and isolated that matters most’ and is ‘a state of mind’. ‘Inability to find meaning in one’s life’, ‘Feeling of negative and unpleasant’ and ‘A subjective, negative feeling related to the deficient social relations’ ‘A feeling of disconnectedness or isolation.’ etc., are the other ways to define loneliness.

“Loneliness may be pathognomonic of depression in old age. It is reported to be more dangerous than smoking[[1]; high degree of loneliness precipitates suicidal ideation and para-suicide,[2] Alzheimer’s disease, and other dementia[3,4] and adversely affects the immune and cardio-vascular system.[5] It is a generally accepted opinion that loneliness results in a decline of well-being and has an adverse effect on physical health, possibly through immunologic impairment or neuro-endocrine changes.[6] Loneliness is thus, among the latent causes of hospitalization and of placement in nursing homes.[7]

“[To] date loneliness is being treated as a symptom of mental health problems; however, for elderly (aged 60 years and above), loneliness has become a disease in itself. There are epidemiological, phenomenological, and etiological reasons to say that.” (For more, I’ve written extensively about the dangers of loneliness in my C-Force health & fitness column.)

So, what then is the real remedy or cure for the disease and epidemic of being lonely?

There’s no doubt that most of us have tried to fill the loneliness hole in our hearts with the worldly stuff of this life, and that includes me. For too many years, I bit the hook of the Hollywood lifestyle. It gave flickers of temporary highs and happiness but no permanent remedy to the longings of the soul.

I’ve learned that loneliness doesn’t have to be detrimental. In the end, maybe it’s nothing more than a road sign intent on leading us to a larger picture about ourselves and others. In that respect, it’s like homesickness. It can drive us to a destination.

One thing is certain: If there’s one purpose for life that is universally crystal clear, it is that we were created for community. We might think we are islands, self-sufficient strongholds, but isolation can slowly kill us, literally. We might live alone, but we shouldn’t be alone.

And we were forewarned. I don’t think it’s coincidental that Jesus predicted 2000 years ago in the end of End Times: “Because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of most will grow cold.” That’s exactly where we are.

So, maybe John Lennon and Paul McCartney were right, as their mega-popular song goes, “All You Need is Love.” Or maybe to learn to love again — trust again.

Love is the cure for loneliness and lots of other ailments. It is the pot of gold at the end of the loneliness rainbow.

My wife, Gena, and I believe the two primary relationships that can fill our loneliness cup are with God and others (and we include our beloved pet family members here, too). Both are critical, you shouldn’t have one without the other. The former empowers us for the latter, which is why our relationship with God should be our greatest priority. We properly love others because He first loved us.

Our dear friend and bestselling prolific author, Randy Alcorn, explained it perfectly when being interviewed about his book, “Happiness“: “God is primary; all other forms of happiness – relationships, created things, and material pleasures – are secondary. If we don’t consciously see God as their source, these secondary things intended for enjoyment can master us…. When we invite God into our happiness, we become aware of how He invites us into His.”

And, no matter how bad others might have broken or even shattered your trust, please don’t ever forget what Rick Warren, author of the New York Times bestseller, “Purpose Driven Life,” said: “God hates loneliness, and community is God’s answer to loneliness. When we walk alongside other people, we find a community where we learn how to love [or love again].”

This article was originally published by the WND News Center.

This post originally appeared on WND News Center.