David Lazer in The Washington Post: The Loneliest Americans Aren’t Reconnecting
The COVID States Project has been probing American behavior (and attitudes) during the pandemic since March 2020. In 12 survey waves, an array of researchers — from Northeastern, Northwestern, Harvard and Rutgers — have polled some 185,200 Americans about subjects ranging from social distancing practices to attitudes toward vaccines and judgments about state politicians’ leadership. The consortium’s 55th report, issued this month, looked at social isolation — something many of us have experienced over the past year and a half. The focus was on the most isolated people: those who said they had one or zero people to turn to for help in various kinds of crises. One of the more striking findings, as David Lazer, a professor of political science and computer science at Northeastern, explained in a recent interview, is that even as vaccines have arrived and society has opened up, some measures of loneliness have not abated. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.