Loneliness and time alone in everyday life: A descriptive-exploratory study of subjective and objective social isolation

Abstract

Loneliness—the subjective experience of social isolation—is a common experience that can become an enduring feature of everyday life. How does feeling lonely relate to spending time alone? In this descriptive-exploratory study, we used the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR), a naturalistic observation tool that samples sounds from participants’ daily lives, to assess time spent alone as an index of social isolation. We combined data from three samples (N = 426) to examine the association between subjective and objectively-assessed isolation, and whether the association varies as a function of gender, marital status, and age. The constructs are weakly but significantly correlated, and spending more than 75% of time alone was associated with much higher loneliness scores, especially among older adults.