Loneliness

"Loneliness is a miserable, painful feeling that one wants to avoid with all one's might," writes psychologist Maike Luhmann. In her book Loneliness (S. Fischer 2026), she approaches the topic as a societal challenge and has spent years researching how loneliness develops and why it can affect anyone.

In conversation with Berthold Vogel (Soziologisches Forschungsinstitut Göttingen), she explores questions that concern many: Does digitalization make us lonelier? Who is particularly affected - people in cities or in rural areas? And what lies behind the much-discussed "loneliness of young men"?

The discussion also addresses ways out of loneliness - and why encounters like this matter.