The real culprit, IMO, is the automobile. By allowing people travel further, the frequency your life overlaps with other individuals' decreases exponentially. Relationships with strangers are much easier to start with familiarity. I'd like cities to be planned foremost with walkability in mind.
It takes a lot less work to meet up with friends when everything is a 20 minute drive vs. when everything is a 2 hour walk to bus to once-per-2.5-hours train to bus to walk. In the Bay Area, seeing friends who don’t live in my neighborhood is a special occasion. In car-oriented Midwestern sprawl, it was almost every week. Being in cars together, trading rides, etc. also created a pleasant, low-pressure space for conversation. The audience of one’s fellow train/bus passengers changes that dynamic a lot. I don’t think it’s as drastic a difference as you say. There are tradeoffs all around.
I would have thought that we've lived in a car-centric culture for generations now, though. How would cars explain why loneliness and isolation have risen just recently?
The report doesn't say loneliness is rising recently. It says technology use is rising and then measures individuals' loneliness, following up with a survey on technology use and a self reported ~"Do you think technology is contributing to loneliness?".
I think for a large part the Internet is replacing television. Is there a suggestion that those spending over two hours/day online (correlating more in the report with loneliness) are being affected by the medium or content or they're just using PC rather than TV?
I'd wager that car use is also up significantly too. Better roads, better cars, more two-car families (28% of US households have more cars than people), kids not walking to school...
