It’s easier than ever to connect with people from across the world. So why are we so lonely?

Have you considered deleting Instagram or LinkedIn after one more scroll left you feeling worse about yourself and the state of the world? I find myself deleting and re-downloading (It’s for work! For work, I promise!) and then deleting all the apps over and over again.

Social media and what has followed (video sharing platforms with infinite scroll, generative AI to chat with) have been foundational in defining a new architecture and set of norms for how we connect, consume and interact. 

We are, in theory, living in an era of acceleration of connectedness and democratisation of access. It’s easier than ever to find and connect with people from across the world for different reasons. And still, somehow, we are lonelier.

Loneliness, a sense of isolation on a personal level, is widespread. As is polarisation, a sense of isolation from the collective. According to the World Health Organization, one in six people around the world are lonely. And the data for the UK is even starker: 41% of people said they felt lonely occasionally, some of the time, or all the time.

One 2025 poll found that 85% of people in the UK said Britain was a divided society, with more than 50% of people saying they didn’t believe that people with opposing views cared about people like them.

Across geography, generations and socioeconomic groups, too many of us are feeling like we’re on our own. Too many people don’t trust each other. No wonder we’re having a hard time. 

Read more:

• What’s behind the rising tide of loneliness? It’s complicated…
• Loneliness is nothing new – but modern life is making it worse
• How social media has changed our world

While it’s easier than ever to connect with someone online, it’s harder to sit around a table and gather with familiar faces. As the world was quietly being reshaped by these forces, the pandemic accelerated it. In what felt like an instant, we lost the habit and the places to come together. Meanwhile, our virtual infrastructure continued to offer a sense of connection while deepening fragmentation and the erosion of trust.

With so many people experiencing the same, maybe these problems are not a consequence of our individual failings. This is why I started looking at the problem at a collective scale, and I kept returning to the question of infrastructure. Not quite pipes and power lines and roads, though maybe those too. But the underlying organising systems and services that ensure resources, opportunity, money, information and people can travel and circulate within a society. 

Sociologists often measure this sense of belonging through the strength of our interpersonal relationships – what they call social capital. They have linked the strength of our social capital to the availability of public and communal spaces like libraries and bowling alleys. Places where people can connect – what they call social infrastructure. I wanted to widen the scope to make it a little more relevant in our online world, where group chats, Discord servers and team Slacks are just as important, if not more, than libraries and bingo halls.

Our infrastructure for belonging might not be working as it should, whether online or offline. That hasn’t just left us feeling disconnected from each other but has also contributed to the shrinking of horizons around us.

We are in a moment of big change societally, driven by massive technological shifts. These are the moments when we get to reimagine and write new ways of being. We can steward a shift that enables a more connected, abundant and possible future. Being lonely is costing us – we need better infrastructure for belonging.

The Infrastructure of Belonging: How We Unlock Economic Possibilityby Masuma Ahujais out on 22 October (Full Set, £10.99). You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

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