Americans are the loneliest, most isolated people

[wickerwoman]

63. I think it works both ways though.

Ancient Greece was extremely mountanous and you had lots of little communities that were effectively cut off from each other. And yet Greek culture isn't particularly lonely or isolationist - if anything the opposite. Those communities were more tight knit because they were cut off from the surrounding world. I think you find the same thing in small town America or at least you did until the last forty years or so.

And America has a number of internal cultures which are at least as different from each other European countries.

I actually think it's the decline of religion that is fueling a lot of this. I don't mean that it's all negative (I'm an atheist) but for generations the primary non-work, non-family social support network for just about everyone was their religious community.

People live in much more diverse communities now and that's a good thing but one consequence is that they don't have the expectation any more that they are all going to get together once a week to socialise, provide support for older or disabled community members, find like-minded mates, etc.

America has always been spread out geographically. It's only recently that this trend towards increasingly loneliness is being observed.