## Metadata - Author: [[Adam Mastroianni]] - Full Title:: There Is No Epidemic of Loneliness, but There Is an Epidemic of Scurvy - Category:: #🎙️Podcasts - URL:: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2260661/episodes/19808918-there-is-no-epidemic-of-loneliness-but-there-is-an-epidemic-of-scurvy.mp3 - Read date:: [[2026-09-20]] ## Highlights > We do get lonely. We just don't get lonely enough. Compared to, say, our food stats, our social stats are rather anemic. When people starve, they'll become obsessed with food. They'll fantasize about opening restaurants and going hog wild at an all-you-can-eat buffet, and these desires will only increase until the person either eats or dies. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2ytzp21mvpfks6kzhdaps0r)) > When someone starves socially, however, they don't develop an overwhelming desire to go to a rave. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2ytzs1sxzz0wwa9pyk41w5w)) > we know that you can't get your social nourishment from intimates alone. If complete social isolation is like smoking unfiltered cigarettes, then only talking to the folks in your household is like vaping. It's better, but not good for you. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2ytw6abe3rxjj8ncb0yt9mb)) > we know that although people are unreasonably negative about their social interactions, we can at least partially counteract this bias. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2ytx461edchxnzzy4hprbpp)) > Over and over again, studies find that people think their past conversations went worse than they actually did and that future conversations will go worse than they actually do. But when you just make people talk to each other, they end up having a nice time and feeling more confident about their conversational abilities. That suggests the best prescription for an inadequate social stat is a bit of brute force. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2ytxanq547nmgn5bea26mn4)) > Just as you must sometimes drink even when you're not thirsty, you must sometimes hang out even when you're not lonely. As Kurt Vonnegut put it in a commencement address in 1978, quote, "I recommend that everybody here join all sorts of organizations no matter how ridiculous, simply to get more people in his or her life. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2ytxggbawgaqbsmrn162bmw))