Social Isolation in America

Abstract

We offer a new measure for social isolation for contemporary society, where opportunities for making connections with others have become ubiquitous. We develop this measure after reviewing previous research on social isolation that we segment into two perspectives. On the one side, isolation has been studied as a negative outcome of processes related to modernization; on the other side, isolation has been studied as a structural position potentially capable of delivering positive returns. Although academic interest in isolation is long-standing, recent years have seen an explosion of research on the topic. We explore the connection between this explosion and new social media and highlight a division within the literature between researchers who see new social media as creating more feelings of isolation and others who think that the jury is still out. In the final section of the article, we offer our novel conceptual framework for studying isolation.