The business of loneliness

Loneliness, a problem we have created as a society, and now further accentuated by COVID-19, has become a business opportunity.

From the complete report of The Guardian written by Mathias Rosenzweig "Boyfriends for rent, robots, camming: how the business of loneliness is booming"I discover the growing business that loneliness in our society is creating.The COVID-19 is now further accentuated by the COVID-19.

And let's face it, we are getting older in the first world. And the aging of the population leads (not as a causality in reality, but as a reality in practice) to loneliness. But it is no longer only the elderly who feel, and are, lonely. The 2020 pandemic has brought the feeling of loneliness into the homes of 20-somethings, 30-somethings and 40-somethings. That is, from the baby boomersto the zoomersthrough the generation X and the millennialall seem to be potential customers of the new technological and service offerings aimed at alleviating the anguish of feeling lonely.

Over the past 50 years, the loneliness rate has only increased in the U.S, doubling in size. Closer to home in the UK, back in 2018, a UK government report warned that 200,000 elderly people said they hadn't spoken to friends or family in a month, which is coupled with a warning that the 75% from physicians The country's primary care physicians report seeing between one and five patients in solitary confinement per day.

And loneliness kills, as much as tobacco. Being alone affects health like smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Private initiative has seen a market niche in this situation.The Japanese, world leaders in lasting longer than a stone at the bottom of a river, are the ones setting up the most service and technology companies seeking to benefit from the loneliness of their fellow citizens. Today, more than a quarter of their citizens are 65 or older, a proportion that is expected to rise to 40% by 2050.

From companies that sell insurance to landlords, offering to take care of tenants who die in their properties and even pay the missing months of rent, to Japanese people who decide to marry the virtual idol Hatsune Miku 2,400 plus a monthly fee, which entitles them to have a "black sphere" containing the virtual creation.

Hatsune Miku

In the robot chapter we found Unemploymenta kind of harp seal that is supposed to provide the same benefits as therapeutic animals. Equipped with various types of sensors, it can sense people and its environment, mimics the sounds of real seal pups and is even programmed to sleep during the night and be active during the day.

Stop Robot

Like animals used in pet therapy, Paro can help relieve depression and anxiety, but never needs to be fed and does not die.

Dr. Takanori Shibata, creator of the Paro robot

From Israel, the company Intuit Robotics has launched, in test phase, ElliQa robot that has as claim "your companion for happier aging". Its design is not as cuddly as Paro, but more similar to a table lamp with a white head that lights up when interacting with its owner, reminding him to drink water, take his medications, encouraging him to do physical exercise and for cognitive stimulation.

ElliQ Robot

But returning to Japan, where the feeling of loneliness is a scourge, we found from cell phone cases with hyper-realistic hands attached to give users the feeling that someone is holding their hand. Or the dakimakurapopular pillows designed to "embrace" an anime character, or the (unbelievably horrendous) chair covers that mimic a hug.

In terms of services, Japan has created the "home delivery service".rents a sister". A Glovo big sister version. And in the country of Nintendo, they have a serious problem with the hikikomori, young people who react to the social pressure of their environment with complete isolation. which leads them to lock themselves in their bedrooms or some other room in their parents' house for extended periods of time, often years. We are talking about between 600,000 and one million hikikomori in Japan. Families are turning to women with no medical training who, for more than €200 per session, visit the hikikomori every week and help them get out of their dormitories and back into society.

If we turn our heads a little bit and look at China, what is really successful there is the business of the Bride and Groom for Rent (who wants an older sister when you can have a boyfriend). And once again we find social pressure as a trigger. On this occasion, young Chinese girls are pressured by their families to find a partner, and the companies offering these services are responsible for convincing their clients' parents that they are not alone. In Japan, there are also services provided by surrogate husbands/parents, as that of Yuichi Ishii. In the end, everything is nothing more than a deception, towards oneself or towards others, which hides a loneliness that one does not want to face with real solutions.

If COVID has brought us anything, it is the imposition of new physical barriers to being with people. So entrepreneurs have emerged to alleviate this need for interaction. And if you take away the physical part, what's left, the virtual one? Contact apps where people put themselves in front of the video camera to tell or listen (depending on where the money comes from and where it goes) the day to day life of the other person, have exploded. On the other hand, the English Onlyfans has increased its customers thanks to COVID and its orientation towards the "adult" public.

But the final reflection on the issue of loneliness is not about the search for patches and ephemeral solutions, such as those we have seen here. And the fact is that, as stated in the article by The GuardianThe feeling of loneliness is a mechanism of our brain to indicate that we are lacking something.

Just as feeling thirsty is an indication of dehydration, loneliness is a warning that we need to resume personal contact, human connection, experience empathy.

In short, it's not about avoiding the feeling of loneliness, it's about preventing it from appearing. If your mom is lonely, don't buy her an Alexa speaker to ask things like "how hot it is outside"to camouflage the fact that it has something with whom to interact, go visit her. If your grandfather is alone, don't buy him an extra large cushion so he has something to hug, go see him and hug him yourself.

Loneliness, a problem we have created as a societyhas become a business opportunity. And given the contributions that this incipient industry has made so far to solve it, instead of helping, it could play a great role in its perpetuation.

This is a problem that will increase exponentially year after year. A problem whose real solution does not lie in technology, but in humans themselves. Technology should help to detect problems, to find mechanisms to solve them and to facilitate their resolution. But in the end, when what a human is asking for is human-quality contact, there is little the machine can do there, beyond looking for other humans.

Cover image by Matthew Henry at Unsplash

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