The more time you spend alone, the more likely you are to be lonely, right?
Seems obvious. But it isn’t always true, according to a new study. For instance, it found that although, in general, those who spend the most time alone are the loneliest, that isn’t the case for young people; their time alone has little impact on how lonely they feel. What’s more, people who spend the least time alone tend to be slightly lonelier than those between the extremes.
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But age made a significant difference. Study participants over the age of 40 generally were more likely to feel lonely when they spent more time alone. For younger participants, the correlation between being alone and loneliness was “very small,” says Matthias Mehl, a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona and one of the study’s authors.