A new Gallup poll has revealed that American men are the loneliest people.
To conduct their poll, researchers collected data from 2023 to 2024 — and discovered that US Gen Z and millennial men are the loneliest (25%) compared to only 18% of American women in the same age group.
That means that one in four American men under 35 feel more isolated than their peers in other countries — including France, Canada, Ireland and Spain.
Although this group seems to be the loneliest, that isn’t to say this same demographic in other countries aren’t also feeling secluded — and for similar reasons.
The Gallup study and Fortune Well reported that one in five young men in places like Turkey, France, Ireland and Canada are reportedly feeling just as alone.
This common feeling of isolation “is the coming to a head of a set of forces that have been in existence in boys’ and mens’ lives for generations,” psychologist Michael Reichert, founding director of the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “How to Raise a Boy: The Power of Connection to Build Good Men” told Fortune Well.
And what exactly is causing today’s generation of young men to feel so secluded from the outside world?
According to experts, it’s from a variety of things.
Justin Yong, a New York City psychotherapist, told Fortune that men are disconnecting from the rest of the world thanks to toxic digital occupiers like gaming and porn that “give this short term dopamine hit and relief that replaces real intimacy and acts as a barrier to being vulnerable to how they might be feeling.”
Another ongoing issue among young men is “societal norms around what it means to be a man,” Yong told the outlet.
“The problem, of course, is that when they became less authentic, they alienated themselves from even their important relationships, feeling that they had to hide a part of themselves because the world didn’t want that from them… Beginning at age 4,” Recihert said.
The startling thing about this loneliness epidemic is that it’s extremely dangerous to men’s health.
The World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that the feeling of being isolated and alone is as threatening to one’s health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day is.
“[Loneliness] transcends borders and is becoming a global public health concern affecting every facet of health, wellbeing and development,” African Union Youth Envoy Chido Mpemba told The Guardian.
Experts like US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy believe strongly in addressing this ongoing issue as seriously as other health concerns.
“Given the profound health and societal consequences of loneliness and isolation, we have an obligation to make the same investments in rebuilding the social fabric of society that we have made in addressing other global health concerns, such as tobacco use, obesity, and the addiction crisis,” Murthy said in a statement.
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