Its mostly social anxiety. Which makes sense. Children have progressively been raised more and more on screens and devices. Teenagers rely more and more on technology to solve problems. Adults do too. No one has to interact anymore, which means many people no longer know how. Cue the anxiety.

In previous generations, you had to interact with others to get anything done at all. Kids had to play with kids, parents had to talk to the postman, the milkman, the newspaper boy, the telephone operator, the neighbors, you name it. It was a necessity for a functional life, so people did it.

It's so interesting to see the tech community all angsty about the loneliness epidemic.

20 years ago, the Pope warned of the coming "epidemic of loneliness" that the tech industry would bring us, and the tech industry laughed at him. They said he was just an old man who didn't understand and that technology would bring us together in unity and happiness.

And yet, here we are 20 years later, and hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't submit an article to HN about loneliness.

I think people approach it wrong. The framing of solving our loneliness is kind of transactional in a way. Good relationships are not transactional. You got to work on yourself to be curious about others. If it’s genuine, people will reciprocate and relationships develop. You also won’t care as much about putting yourself out there, because the act of getting to know someone is what you like. Greatest thing that ever happened for my social life was hearing Ted Lasso quote “Be curious, not judgemental”.

Start a community or join one. I have a friend that started a social community where they host discussion groups, sharing circles, art marking, picnics, field trips, cooking club, etc. The whole focus is on creating connection. I myself run an experimental games meetup where our small niche share what were working on each month. I also have a book club each week with some friends (although we chat more about life than books). I think 2026 is the year of community. Make an intentional effort. Show up in the same space repeatedly.

Friendship is hard and requires a lot of energy, and it will not always pay off. You're going to get burned, ghosted, and bailed on. It's far too easy to push the hermit-mode button, and doomscroll your life away.

Social capital requires *active* participation. If you're willing to invest, put yourself out there. Be the person that kicks off the things that are interesting to you. You'll find that people are interested in things you thought were niche. As a mentor once told me: life is a body-contact sport; get out there.

I wonder if there would be some way to create a hyper-local MMO. Let people meet each other from the comfort of their homes and bond over the shared activity of the MMO, and make it so the people you are likely to play with are also in your general geographic region. That way, it would be an easy way to meet people, bond with them, and potentially meet up IRL to take the friendship further.

I think this would be an awesome idea but the main challenge here would be game design and implementation. You'd need a lot of capital and some big ass game studio.

LifeKit did an episode on this recently. https://www.npr.org/2026/01/06/nx-s1-5667582/how-to-build-a-...

Some things I do: I organize a monthly brunch for friends. I try and grow it, invite people I've recently met.

If someone asks me to do something, I try and do it. Get invited to poker night, I'm there. Asked to play Fantasy Football, yep! Even though I don't watch football and have never played.

Working on a basketball app to bring people together. Basketball was invented out of grief, by James Naismith who lost his grandfather, mother, father, and family home to a fire within 4 months. He was tasked with helping to have rambunctious youth learn the principles of teamwork and sharing and slowing down and thus created the game. It truly brings people together and I hope everyone gets a chance to experience the magic that is pickup basketball. It got me out of a deep hole after the pandemic after my mom had passed and I gained 30 lbs.

Pick an activity that is accessible that catches your fancy. Even better if you already have an activity, just spend more time doing it and with people you enjoy hanging out with. At a minimum you'll start feeling less lonely and over time hopefully you'll start forming relationships outside the activity

I am a recent convert to pickleball and highly recommend it because it relatively easy to start with but also the wide range of people who participate in the sport - college kids to retirees

A couple of years ago I tried to create a platform to connect people to local communities. The twist was that each community had members that worked as buddies to help welcome and guide new members. I got 10s+ communities and members but since there was no business model associated and I needed to work, I couldn't kept it up. The website was https://tribalo.app.

From the few numbers I got, I figure out it help. Maybe one day I don't need to work and can focus on it again.