A survey conducted by the Faculty for Social Wellbeing revealed that 54.6% of people have a sense of loneliness. This was an 11% increase over a similar survey conducted in 2019.
That is a significant rise in this statistic, and represents more than half of the respondents. Malta is a small country, it’s not as though we are all living in a big city with millions of people. Yet, in the past communities used to be closer together. We used to know our neighbours, would attend local community activities… How many of the younger generations, those aged 35 and under, have had a conversation with their neighbours in the past month? How many attend local activities with people who live in their locality? We need to ask ourselves… are we losing our sense of community?
People change jobs more frequently today than they did in the past. Generally speaking, this is to find better wages, for better working conditions. But doesn’t this mean that it becomes harder to form real work friendships? Does this take its toll?
These are questions worth asking. But the survey revealed certain deeper problems.
10.5% of respondents do not feel positive about their life. 20.8% of the respondents experience a general sense of emptiness. 9.6% of respondents revealed that they do not feel that there are many people they can lean on when they face problems. 9.4% of participants find their circle of friends and acquaintances too limited, this percentage mainly comes from people who reported that they do not feel that they belong in their neighbourhood.
We need to find out what the root causes of this sense of loneliness are. Is technology a factor? Could it be impacting our ability to form close relationships?
Some could argue that the overall 11% increase could be due to Covid-19. However project leader Andrew Azzopardi said that blaming these statistics on Covid-19 would be a "minimalistic and shallow argument." But even if it was to blame, it goes to show that nothing has been done to address the post-Covid trauma, he continued. Azzopardi believes that the pandemic just exposed the reality of our lives which we did not want to show. He predicts that the statistics would not have been very different from 2019 to now without Covid-19.
Azzopardi listed a number of actions which we could take to help improve the situation. Among other things, he called for closer work with GPs who can indicate physical ailments that are possibly a result of loneliness, bringing to life a national policy and strategy on suicide ideation and prevention, writing up a loneliness national policy and strategy. But he goes further, suggesting that we contemplate a change in our economic model and evaluate our lifestyles and our drive for status, money and estate as if there is no tomorrow. He also proposes making drastic changes - for example by lowering the full-time hours of work and combatting the culture of part-time and seeing exponential growth in wages.
Could we be prioritising economic and material desires over our personal relationships? This is something worth pondering about.