Even as the world’s overall emotional health rebounded in 2023, Gallup’s inaugural measure of global loneliness shows over one in five people worldwide (23%) said they felt loneliness “a lot of the day yesterday.” Fewer people experience loneliness than most of the other negative emotions that the World Poll tracks -- which include physical pain, worry, sadness, stress and anger -- but if they do experience loneliness, it makes all of the others worse.
People who felt lonely were 36 percentage points more likely to experience sadness than those who said they did not feel lonely; they were also 31 and 30 points more likely to experience worry and stress, respectively, than their counterparts who did not feel a lot of loneliness.
While less than half of those who felt a lot of loneliness also said they felt anger (43%) or physical pain (46%), these percentages were still 26 and 20 points higher than the respective rates among those who did not feel lonely.
These findings underscore the serious physical and mental health effects that frequent feelings of loneliness can pose -- an issue that has recently received greater attention given the long-term rise in global unhappiness. Given this context, in 2023, Gallup added the question about loneliness to the broader list of negative emotions it measures through the World Pol.
Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/646718/people-worldwide-feel-lonely-lot.as…
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