Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions

by Johann Hari

The primary cause of all this rising depression and anxiety is not in our heads. It is, I discovered, largely in the world, and the way we are living in it.

What if depression is, in fact, a form of grief—for our own lives not being as they should? What if it is a form of grief for the connections we have lost, yet still need?

It’s worth repeating. Being deeply lonely seemed to cause as much stress as being punched by a stranger.

It’s worth pausing on that: there are now more Americans who have no close friends than any other option.

To end loneliness, you need other people—plus something else. You also need, he explained to me, to feel you are sharing something with the other person, or the group, that is meaningful to both of you.

The comedian Marc Maron28 once wrote that “every status update is a just a variation on a single request: ‘Would someone please acknowledge me?’ ”

For thousands of years, philosophers2 had been suggesting that if you overvalue money and possessions, or if you think about life mainly in terms of how you look to other people, you will be unhappy

“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a sick society.”

I learned something I wouldn’t have thought was possible at the start. Even if you are in pain, you can almost always make someone else feel a little bit better.

He learned that the average American is exposed to up to five thousand advertising impressions a day—from billboards to logos on T-shirts to TV advertisements.