But it's been growing for decades.

但幾十年來，它一直在增長。

Loneliness is the sense that I am less connected to other people than I want to be.

孤獨是一種感覺，即我與其他人的聯繫比我想要的要少。

It's a very subjective experience and that makes it different too from isolation.

這是一種非常主觀的體驗，也不同於與世隔絕。

So I can deliberately isolate myself and feel great about that.

我可以故意與世隔絕，而且感覺很好。

But only you can tell if you're lonely.

但只有你自己才能知道自己是否孤獨。

And the fact is you can be lonely in a crowd, you can be lonely in a marriage.

事實上，在人群中你會感到孤獨，在婚姻中你也會感到孤獨。

You can also be very content and not lonely alone on a mountain top.

獨自一人在山頂，你也可以很滿足，不孤單。

Starting in the 1950s and going all the way through to today, we know that people have been less and less invested in other people.

從 1950 年代開始一直到今天，我們知道人們對他人的投資越來越少。

In some studies, as many as 60% of people will say that they feel lonely much of the time.

在一些研究中，多達 60% 的人會說，他們經常感到孤獨。

And the lowest estimates are 30 to 40% of people say they feel lonely.

而最低估計也有 30% 到 40% 的人說他們感到孤獨。

Young adults aged 16 to 24 are the loneliest age group.

16 至 24 歲的年輕人是最孤獨的年齡組。

And then again, among older adults, there is an increase in loneliness, particularly as people lose friends, lose partners.

同樣，在老年人中，孤獨感也在增加，尤其是當人們失去朋友、失去伴侶時。

But loneliness is pervasive across the world, across all age groups, all income groups, all demographics.

但是，孤獨感在全世界普遍存在，跨越所有年齡段、所有收入群體、所有人口結構，

There are so many factors that are responsible for this loneliness epidemic.

造成這種孤獨感流行的因素太多了。

They did not just begin with the digital revolution.

它們並非始於數位革命。

Loneliness was on the rise as we know at least from the 1950s.

至少從 1950 年代起，我們就知道孤獨感在增加。

In part because of social dislocation, we've become a much more mobile society where the networks of family and friends get disrupted as people move for jobs and other kinds of opportunities like education.

部分原因是社會錯位，我們已經成為一個流動性更強的社會，隨著人們為了工作和教育等其他機會而搬家，家人和朋友的網絡受到干擾。

All of that is good on the one hand, but that it tears us away from the fabric of belonging that many of us are born into and spend much of our lives creating.

一方面，這些都是好的，但它讓我們脫離了我們許多人與生俱來並花費大量生命創造的歸屬感。

Then there is the world of screens.

然後是螢幕的世界。

So when television came into the American home, there was a decline in investing in our communities.

當電視進入美國家庭時，對社群的投資就減少了。

People went out less, they joined clubs less often, they went to houses of worship less often, they invited people over less often.

人們外出的次數少了，參加俱樂部的次數少了，去教堂的次數少了，邀請別人來家裡做客的次數也少了。

All of that seems to contribute to our increasing disconnection and our increasing levels of loneliness.

這些似乎都導致我們越來越疏遠，越來越孤獨。

That was made worse as the digital revolution gave us more and more screens to look at and software that was designed specifically to grab our attention, hold our attention and therefore keep it away from the people we care about.

隨著數位革命為我們提供了越來越多的螢幕和專門為吸引我們的注意力而設計的軟體，這種情況變得更糟，從而使其遠離我們關心的人。

We know that people with strong social bonds are much less likely to die in any given year than people without strong social bonds.

我們知道，與沒有牢固社會聯繫的人相比，具有牢固社會聯繫的人在任何一年中死亡的可能性都要小得多。

There's good work by Julianne Holt Lundstedt, who is a researcher who studies loneliness, and what she finds is that loneliness is as dangerous to our health as smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day.

研究孤獨感的研究員 Julianne Holt Lundstedt 做了很好的研究，她發現孤獨感對我們的健康的危害就像每天吸半包煙一樣。

We think that stress is one of the main causes of physical health breakdown that comes from loneliness.

我們認為，壓力是孤獨導致身體健康崩潰的主要原因之一。

But there are probably other causes as well.

但也可能有其他原因。

And in addition, the research shows that people who are lonely in late life have more rapid brain decline.

此外，研究還表明，晚年孤獨的人大腦衰退得更快。

So we know that this same process of increased stress or decreased stress affects how our brains age.

我們知道，壓力的增減同樣會影響我們大腦的衰老。

And many other studies show that the single choice we can make, that's most likely to keep us on a good path of well-being is to invest in our relationships with other people.

許多其他研究表明，我們可以做出的最有可能讓我們走上幸福之路的唯一選擇就是投資於我們與他人的關係。

It's not just our closest relationships that make us feel connected, it's all kinds of relationships.

讓我們感到連結的不僅是我們最親密的關係，還有所有類型的關係。

It's the person who delivers the mail, it's the cashier who checks us out at the grocery store.

像是送信的人，是在雜貨店為我們結賬的收銀員。

It's all these casual encounters.

這些不經意的相遇。

All of these ways of making it a little bit more personal do a lot to make other people feel like they belong and they make us feel more like we belong.

這些讓它變得更私人一點的方式，都能讓其他人有歸屬感，也讓我們更有歸屬感。

Many people who are lonely feel that others don't want to be with them.

很多孤獨的人都覺得別人不願意和他們在一起。

And what we know is that lonely people can sometimes give off the message that they don't want to be approached because they're afraid of others, they're afraid of the world.

我們知道，孤獨的人有時會發出這樣的訊息：他們不想被人接近，因為他們害怕別人，他們害怕這個世界。

And so it may be that lonely people can learn more about making gestures and giving off signals that say, "I would like to connect," even when they're a little bit afraid to do so.

因此，孤獨的人可能可以更多地了解如何做出手勢和發出「我想聯繫」的信號，即使他們有點害怕這樣做。

And so they've actually developed forms of cognitive behavior therapy where people are taught these social skills and taught how to revise their assumptions about not being wanted by other people.

因此，他們實際上發展了多種形式的認知行為療法，向人們傳授這些社交技能，並教導他們如何修正自己不被別人需要的假設。

My recommendation, if you're feeling lonely and a little bit afraid is find a setting, find an activity around other people where you are comfortable and see what develops.

我的建議是，如果你感到孤獨並且有點害怕，那就找一個環境，​​找一個讓你感到舒服的周圍有其他人的活動，看看會發生什麼。

You belong, you matter, you're connected.

你有歸屬感，你很重要，你有連結。