WHO sounds the alarm bells: Loneliness makes many people sick

One in six people worldwide is affected by loneliness, which, along with social isolation, can lead to physical illness, contributing to 871,000 deaths worldwide annually, a World Health Organization (WHO) commission has said.

Loneliness increases the risk of strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, depression, anxiety and suicide, the WHO said.

Lonely teenagers are 22% more likely to achieve lower grades than their peers, while lonely adults face greater challenges in finding or keeping a job.

The impact is not only individual but also societal, with billions in costs to healthcare systems and losses in employment.

The commission's co-chair, Vivek Murthy, defines loneliness as "a painful, subjective feeling that many of us experience when the relationships that we need do not match the relationships that we have. And social isolation, by contrast, is an objective state of having few relationships or interactions."

One in three older people and one in four adolescents are estimated to be socially isolated, according to the report.

Causes include illness, poor education, low income, a lack of opportunities for social interaction, living alone and the use of digital technologies.

Murthy noted that humans have communicated for millennia not only through words but also through facial expressions, body language, tone of voice and silence.

These forms of communication are lost when people rely solely on mobile phones and social media.