We need a Big Hairy Ambitious Goal

We desperately need a Big Hairy Ambitious Goal to aim for when it comes to reversing the trend of growing social isolation.

So long as that trend continues downward unabated, bad things are going to keep getting worse. More depression, more early mortality, more toxicity, more decline in healthy democracy. This is known.

So what is the number?

At what rate are people becoming socially disconnected right now?

The number of adults surveyed to have less than three close friends rose from 27% in 1990 to 49% in 2021. That's about 5,031 per day.

If we use that as our guide and make a ton of assumptions, we can say the average rate of decline in social connection is... 1.8 million adults per year??

I can't believe that's right. I sincerely hope someone can help me come up with a better (and hopefully less terrible) number than that.

Whatever it is - once we settle on a number, we can start to develop goals around it.

What would it look like to turn that around?

Would it be ridiculous to try to get that number to zero by November 2028?

I'd like to have that conversation. I'd like to discuss our best ideas for how to get there, and then I'd like to get to work on that.