{"id":491,"date":"2008-12-01T20:40:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T20:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2008\/12\/is-britain-really-lonelier-than-ever.html"},"modified":"2008-12-01T20:40:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-01T20:40:00","slug":"is-britain-really-lonelier-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2008\/12\/is-britain-really-lonelier-than-ever.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Britain really lonelier than ever?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>There\u2019s a new report out today, commissioned by the BBC, documenting the social changes in the UK over the last 40 years. According to the headline on BBC News, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/uk\/7755641.stm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Life in UK \u2018has become lonelier\u2019<\/a>. Apparently the major cause is mobility \u2013 people commute further, and relocate more easily. Cue the commentators announcing the slow destruction of our society. Mark Easton asks <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/blogs\/thereporters\/markeaston\/2008\/12\/are_we_watching_britains_commu.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Are we watching Britain\u2019s communities dying?<\/a> Well, are we? That rather depends on what the numbers are, and how you interpret them.<\/p>\n<p>The report itself, from the Social And Spatial Inequalities group at the University of Sheffield, can be downloaded from the BBC News website. Here\u2019s how they measure \u2018loneliness\u2019 (p23):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>numbers of non-married adults multiplied by a weight of 0.18<\/li>\n<li>number of 1-person households multiplied by a weight 0.50<\/li>\n<li>number of people who have moved to their current address within the last year multiplied by 0.38<\/li>\n<li>number of people renting privately multiplied by 0.80<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In other words, they use an old fashioned idea of loneliness \u2013 if you\u2019re not married, and especially if you live on your own, then you\u2019re lonely. Now of course these things have both increased in the last 40 years, but that\u2019s not quite the same as saying that people are necessarily lonelier. Perhaps fewer people get married, and more people live alone, because these days you can do both these things and still be connected. Society has changed.<\/p>\n<p>And they use the number of people who have relocated as a measure of loneliness! Then they claim that a major cause of loneliness is relocation. It\u2019s circular logic.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the dumbest quote from the BBC news report:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One key factor in reducing the sense of belonging in a community is having a large student population. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well of course it is, using their definition! Students tend to be not married, to have moved recently, and to live in rented accommodation! But in reality, students are among the least lonely segments of society.<\/p>\n<p>So in fact all this report has revealed is that society has changed, not that people are more lonely. They haven\u2019t for example, <span style=\"font-style: italic\">asked<\/span> people if they are more lonely. Now, some would argue that marriage and living with someone else is still important in reducing loneliness. And other evidence (not in this report) suggests that traditional social ties (belong to formal groups, like church associations) is on the decrease.<\/p>\n<p>But some sociologists are challenging the idea that even this means that we are getting lonelier, according to a feature in New York Magazine last month: <a href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/news\/features\/52450\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Alone Together<\/a>. The article \u2013 well worth reading throughout \u2013 makes the case that a few strong ties are being replaced by a multitude of weak ones (social acquaintances rather than deep friendships). So in fact the nature of society is changing, which means the relationships we form are changing.<\/p>\n<p>So what sociologists are measuring as a decline in \u2018social capital\u2019 is, in fact an artefact. Sure, the things that traditionally defined societal relationships are on the decrease. But it\u2019s not that loneliness is increasing. It\u2019s more that the places and ways in which people seek friendships are changing.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a new report out today, commissioned by the BBC, documenting the social changes in the UK over the last 40 years. According to the headline on BBC News, Life in UK \u2018has become lonelier\u2019. Apparently the major cause is mobility \u2013 people commute further, and relocate more easily. Cue the commentators announcing the slow [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is Britain really lonelier than ever?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There&#039;s a new report out today, commissioned by the BBC, documenting the social changes in the UK over the last 40 years. According to the headline on BBC\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2008\/12\/is-britain-really-lonelier-than-ever.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Britain really lonelier than ever?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There&#039;s a new report out today, commissioned by the BBC, documenting the social changes in the UK over the last 40 years. 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