Capitalism Is Making You Lonely https://janataweekly.org/capitalism-is-making-you-lonely/ Colette Shade September 5, 2021
In a 2019 poll, 22 percent of millennials reported that they had “no friends.” The World Health Organization has found that loneliness affected 20-34 percent of older people in places ranging from Europe to India to Latin America.
While excessive social media use can be harmful, moderate use can help people stay connected – especially during unique times like the COVID-19 lockdowns. And there is a bigger impediment to intimacy, anyway: capitalism.
In a capitalist system, many people don’t have time to see family and maintain existing friendships — let alone create and nurture new ones. It is difficult to make time to see people when you are, for example, working multiple jobs (often with irregular shift times), commuting, caring for children and family members, and doing basic tasks like cooking, going to the grocery store, and doing laundry, sometimes all at once. Social time often necessarily gets bumped to the bottom of the to-do list.
If we want to have a less lonely society, we need to put human needs — and human relationships — at the center. Under the existing system, that won’t happen.