Research shows loneliness costs the Australian economy $2.7 billion per year or $1565 per person. The World Health Organisation has also declared loneliness to be a global health concern. And it’s estimated loneliness has an equivalent health impact on the body to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Before the pandemic older Australians were found to be the loneliest in the nation. But now the data now shows this has shifted and younger Australians are the feeling the effects of being alone and isolated. Technology has allowed us to be more connected than before, but has all this left us lonelier than ever? Guests: Andrew Dempster, Principal Director & Leader of the National Mental Health Advisory Business, KPMG Roger Wilkins, Professorial Fellow at Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, and Co-Director of the HILDA Survey Liesel Sharabi, from the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University. Lixia Qu, Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies.