How does loneliness differ from physical isolation or solitude?
Physical isolation can contribute to feelings of loneliness, but people can be lonely in a marriage, family, or crowd. Loneliness is the pain you feel when your need for connection isn’t being met, and you can feel that anywhere—even when surrounded by friends or family. What matters is how you feel about it, your subjective response. The pain of being alone is termed loneliness, whereas the bliss of being alone is termed solitude. We and others have found that it is not the number of friends or contact that predicts loneliness, it is the quality of those relationships. Can people be surrounded by family and friends and have a very active social life and still be lonely? Yes, for instance, freshman when they arrive at college are sharing housing and are surrounded by hundreds of other students, yet on average their feelings of loneliness are heightened by the fact that they have severed their normal ties with friends and family, in many instances for the first time in their lives. Simi
