Do you reckon in the age of smartphones and Snapchat that you could spend a week alone without any contact to the outside world?
Personally, I couldn’t. Even just this procrastination period between Christmas and New Year’s has sent me loopy.
One man had a go, however, and it was as hard as you can imagine.
Joe undertook a week alone to draw attention to the loneliness that the older community experience every single day.
Soon after the experiment Joe met neighbour Barry, 84, who has been suffering since his wife Christine died in 2015.
He said:
Loneliness is like grief; it’s suffocating. After my beloved wife Christine suddenly died, I felt only half alive. I felt paralysed by loneliness.
By talking more about it, we can break down the stigma that prevents many older people from being open about loneliness.
The human need for friendship and support does not go away with age; it actually increases. Whether we are 24 or 84, we all need connections that matter.
The experiment was sponsored by The Loneliness Project.
The organisation said:
And that’s why we’ve made this film. To show as many people as possible the impact of loneliness and isolation – but also how easy the solution can be.
And how we can all be part of that solution. Because loneliness is everyone’s business.
Nobody should be lonely in older age. We believe that loneliness is not inevitable. People of all ages need connections that matter.
They say there are 1.2 million chronically lonely older people living in the UK.
Isolation can have the same effects as obesity or high blood pressure, research says.
You can help out the cause by signing up to the campaign here.
