Quick answer
The Surgeon General advisory's time-alone figures rose from 285 to 333 minutes a day. Separately, about one in two adults reported loneliness, and most people who often feel lonely do not call it a major problem.
The Office of the Surgeon General's 2023 advisory, "Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation," reports minutes spent alone and, in other passages, how many adults said they felt lonely. Those are different kinds of facts. One is a clock. The other is a person's report about a feeling. This article keeps them apart on purpose. It will not tell you that solitude is unhealthy.
The minute counts
Time alone in the advisory is 285 minutes a day in 2003, 309 minutes a day in 2019, and 333 minutes a day in 2020. By 2020 that was an increase of 24 hours a month compared with 2003. The advisory is describing a population trend in how American time-use looks, not diagnosing the person who reads in the evening.
You can be inside that trend and not be lonely. You can also be lonely in a crowded room and not add much to a time-alone average. The minutes do not ask how the time felt. They ask how much of the day was spent alone. Treating 333 minutes as a sickness would smuggle in a conclusion the clock does not contain. The advisory can show that time alone increased and still leave the meaning of a given hour to other measures.
In-person time with friends moved the other way in the same document, from 60 minutes a day in 2003 to 20 minutes a day in 2020. That friend-time drop is a third number, neither the solitude clock nor the loneliness survey. It is easy to blend all three into "people are disconnected." The blend hides the measurement. Minutes alone went up. Minutes with friends went down. A subjective loneliness report is a further question. The friend-time figures, and the role of colleagues and neighbors, are discussed in friends, colleagues, and neighbors as connection, not only romance.
The loneliness reports
In recent years, about one in two U.S. adults reported loneliness, and that was before COVID-19. That sentence is a survey-style report about a feeling, or about people saying they were lonely. It is not a conversion of the 333-minute figure into a head count. You cannot get "one in two" by dividing daily minutes alone by something in the time-use table. The advisory states it as its own finding.
Less than 20 percent of people who often or always feel lonely or isolated recognize it as a major problem. Read that beside the one-in-two line. A large share of adults reported loneliness. Among people who often or always feel lonely or isolated, most do not call that feeling a major problem. Both statements can stand. The second one is why a national advisory can describe something as serious while many of the people inside the statistic do not describe it that way themselves.
A 2022 study cited in the advisory found that only 39 percent of U.S. adults said they felt very connected to others. "Very connected" is another subjective report. It is not the inverse of minutes alone. Someone can spend a long stretch alone and still say they feel connected to people they will see tomorrow. Someone can spend little time alone and still not feel very connected. The advisory puts these reports in one document because they all bear on social connection. Putting them in one document is not the same as equating them.
Among people not reporting loneliness or isolation, nearly 90 percent have three or more confidants. In 2021, 49 percent of Americans reported three or fewer close friends, compared with 27 percent in 1990. Those are counts of people, closer to structure than to a mood, and still not the same thing as a time-alone diary. A small friendship list and a lonely feeling often travel together in conversation. The advisory gives you separate numbers so you do not have to pretend they were collected with the same question.
Health findings, tied to connection rather than to quiet hours
Loneliness is associated with greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. Lacking social connection can increase the risk for premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and even greater than the risk associated with obesity and physical inactivity. Loneliness and social isolation increase the risk for premature death by 26 percent and 29 percent respectively. A synthesis of 16 longitudinal studies found poor social relationships associated with a 29 percent increase in the risk of heart disease and a 32 percent increase in the risk of stroke.
Notice the subjects of those sentences. Loneliness. Lacking social connection. Social isolation. Poor social relationships. None of those phrases is "time alone," and none of them is solitude. The 26 percent figure is for loneliness. The 29 percent premature-death figure in that pair is for social isolation. They are not interchangeable with each other, and they are not a relabeling of the 285-to-333 minute series. Social isolation, in this advisory, is a risk category with its own percentage. This article will not define it as "anyone who spends five hours alone."
The American Heart Association, 2022, is quoted in the advisory: social isolation and loneliness are common, yet underrecognized, determinants of cardiovascular health and brain health. "Underrecognized" fits the other finding, that less than 20 percent of people who often or always feel lonely or isolated call it a major problem. Common, and still not named as major by most of the people who feel it often. The heart and brain claim is about isolation and loneliness as determinants. It is not a claim that a quiet afternoon injures a heart.
Social isolation among older adults is estimated at $6.7 billion in excess Medicare spending a year. The advisory attributes $154 billion a year in U.S. stress-related absenteeism to loneliness. Those are cost figures attached to isolation and to loneliness, again not to the mere existence of time by yourself. They are large enough that the advisory treats the problem as public, which is a different statement from "your solitary morning is a medical error."
What you can notice without condemning solitude
The advisory's suggestions for individuals include minimizing distraction, including not checking the phone during meals and important conversations, spending time with friends away from social media, looking for warning signs such as more time alone or limited interactions with friends, and seeking opportunities to help other people. "More time alone" appears there as a warning sign to notice, next to limited interactions with friends. A warning sign is a prompt to look at connection. It is not a finding that solitude itself is a disease. You can notice that your alone time has jumped, the way the national figures jumped from 285 minutes toward 333, and then ask the subjective question the minutes cannot answer: do you feel lonely, and do you have people you can actually reach?
Technology sits in the same document as both a strain and a help. Social media more than two hours a day was associated, in one U.S. study the advisory cites, with about double the odds of increased perceived social isolation compared with under 30 minutes a day. Frequent phone use during in-person time with family and friends increased distraction, reduced conversation quality, and lowered self-reported enjoyment. Technology can also help people stay in touch, including people with disabilities and people seeking community, and online support groups can carry information, advice, and emotional support. Perceived social isolation is the outcome in the social-media comparison. That is a feeling of isolation, closer to the subjective side of this article than to the raw minute count of time alone.
Adults across the globe rate social relationships, particularly family and close friends, as the most important source of meaning, purpose, and motivation. That rating is about relationships, not about filling every hour with company. You can value those relationships and still spend a portion of the day alone without turning the portion into a verdict.
This is population education from an advisory, not a diagnosis of your week. If loneliness is showing up with depression, anxiety, or other health worries you want checked, talk with a clinician. Do not decide you are ill because a national time-use table moved, and do not decide you are fine only because you have not called the feeling a major problem. Less than 20 percent of people who often feel lonely do call it major. The size of that gap is why an outside conversation can be useful even when you are unsure the problem "counts."
Write two numbers that are actually about you, and keep them in different columns. About how many minutes today were you alone? Separately, would you say you feel lonely often, sometimes, or not at all? What do you see when those answers refuse to match?
The advisory itself
Office of the Surgeon General. (2023). Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf
American Heart Association (2022), as quoted in that advisory: social isolation and loneliness are common, yet underrecognized, determinants of cardiovascular health and brain health.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What happened to time spent alone?
- The alone-time series runs 285, then 309, then 333 daily minutes across 2003, 2019, and 2020. The advisory calls that an added 24 hours a month by 2020 versus 2003. The series is not a loneliness score.
- How common was the feeling, and did people call it major?
- About half of U.S. adults said they were lonely in the years covered, before COVID-19. Among people who feel lonely or isolated often or always, fewer than one fifth recognize that as a major problem.
- Does the advisory call solitude unhealthy?
- It does not. The illness and early-death risks it cites attach to loneliness, to social isolation, to lacking connection, and to poor relationships. Hours by yourself are a different measurement.
- Which health risks are actually named?
- The advisory ties loneliness to heart disease, stroke, dementia, anxiety, depressed mood, and dying sooner. Lacking connection is set beside a smoking level of up to 15 cigarettes each day, and beside a risk that outruns obesity and inactivity. Early death is listed as 26 percent higher with loneliness and 29 percent higher with social isolation. A pool of 16 longitudinal studies links weak social ties to more heart disease (29 percent) and more stroke (32 percent).
- When should you talk with a clinician?
- If loneliness is paired with depression, anxiety, or health worries you want examined, see a licensed clinician. Do not treat the national minute table as a personal diagnosis, and do not wait for the feeling to seem major before you ask.