Are the British Quiet Because They're Stoic or Because They're Lonely?
According to a recent survey conducted by the BBC, more than a quarter of British adults feel lonely at least some of the time.
The survey found that seven percent of all adults and 10 percent of adults over 65 expect to spend Christmas alone. "Loneliness is for life," a press release from the Campaign to End Loneliness responding to the survey's findings reads. "Not just for Christmas."
In October, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt cited a finding by the campaign that there were 800,000 chronically lonely people in England, which he described in a speech as a source of "national shame." Hunt focused on the 400,000 older British people who live apart from their families, in care homes. 46 percent of people aged 80 or over reported feeling lonely "some of the time or often," he said.
Opposition leaders said that Hunt was ignoring the fact that his administration's cuts to the health-care system were making it harder to care for older people, and that "there are already "over six million unpaid family carers in Britain today, one in five of whom provide more than 50 hours care a week for their loved ones."
But are older British people really more lonely than younger British people? Isn't England just as rainy and desolate and sad a place regardless of one's age? Indeed, while 33 percent of those surveyed by the BBC said that "they feel left behind by new ways of communicating," younger people (18 to 24-year olds) were just about as likely to feel lonely as older people (those over 65)—30 percent and 31 percent, respectively. Your tweets won't save you. Death comes for us all. Loneliness is for life, not just for Christmas.
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