ban cars.

people aren't lonely in walkable cities.

have kids

my social life got pretty busy once i had multiple kids in school and having to go to various events etc, and i have formed genuine friendships with many of the other parents

my “soulless suburb” has a much stronger sense of community than any big city neighborhood i ever lived in

For me, the answer was smoking. I made a ton of friends that way. Always went out to a pool hall, a bar, or a nice patio so I could smoke. It was great. You can’t smoke in your rental so you gotta get out and find places to smoke. Few states you can do it in anymore though. I moved to a state with a smoking ban and quit smoking, no point to it. Don’t get out as much nowadays.

We can encourage people to start families and stop telling them that it's the end of anything fun.

Step one might be to stop calling it the loneliness epidemic. Loneliness is an emotion, isolation is a condition, and we might even expect that if people felt lonely more often they would try harder to be social and actually be less isolated. This is also a network effect: my reaction to my loneliness affects someone else's loneliness if I go talk to them (or not).

Is that "epidemic" really a thing? Has it been statically and scientifically observed?

Get off social media.. Learn to talk to people.. Making friends requires practise just exercise.

To a first order, how can we decrease percentage of people that are single should be the question.

1. Dont live in the suburbs. 2. Make an effort to see friends every week. 3. Log off.

Destroy social media.

Fund free places to hang out.