As you say there are many, many kinds of secular social group activities that can provide in person human contact and communities that reduce loneliness and depression.
But uh, those are rapidly becoming more and more accessible to only the wealthier and wealthier who actually can afford the spare time or other costs to engage in such things.
Add to that the mass proliferation of online interactions, which quite often take place in an unhinged way, or are basically parasocial fantasizing and idealizing ‘lives’ that are either fake or only possible due to immense wealth…
…and add in climate change fears, economic immobility…
I would say you can make a much better case that capitalism consuming itself, the adversarial, debt-based consumerist culture proliferated by this, and governments largely going along with cannibalizing their constituents, cut by cut by cut, rather than meaningfully pushing, is making the vast majority of people more lonely and depressed.
As you say there are many, many kinds of secular social group activities that can provide in person human contact and communities that reduce loneliness and depression.
But uh, those are rapidly becoming more and more accessible to only the wealthier and wealthier who actually can afford the spare time or other costs to engage in such things.
Add to that the mass proliferation of online interactions, which quite often take place in an unhinged way, or are basically parasocial fantasizing and idealizing ‘lives’ that are either fake or only possible due to immense wealth…
…and add in climate change fears, economic immobility…
I would say you can make a much better case that capitalism consuming itself, the adversarial, debt-based consumerist culture proliferated by this, and governments largely going along with cannibalizing their constituents, cut by cut by cut, rather than meaningfully pushing, is making the vast majority of people more lonely and depressed.