| The modern workday is fuelling an epidemic of isolation |
| More meetings, faceless chats, and fewer work friends are fuelling an epidemic of isolation among US workers, writes Te-Ping Chen for the Wall Street Journal, noting that rates of loneliness in the US continued to rise last year even as the pandemic subsided. The situation is increasing staff turnover and worker absences, and making it a business issue for more employers, executives and researchers say. Health insurance company Cigna estimates that loneliness is costing US companies $154n a year in absenteeism alone. Julie Rice, co-founder of fitness chain SoulCycle, says that her work schedule, which was once packed with coffees and in-person meetups, is now an avalanche of Zooms. “Even people I’m meeting with here in New York, we’ll just Zoom,” she says. Sarah Wright, an associate professor at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury who studies worker loneliness, observes: “We used to think loneliness has to be overcome by developing meaningful relationships and having that degree of intimacy . . . More and more, though, we’re seeing it’s these day-to-day weak ties and frequency of [interactions] with people that matters.” |
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