Indicator
Loneliness and social interaction
Published
4 March 2024
Last updated
4 June 2025
Time to read
About 1 min
About 1 min
People who meet family and friends more frequently are less likely to often feel lonely
This chart explores the relationship between how frequently people meet their family and friends and whether they often feel lonely.
- The proportion of people who often feel lonely decreases the more frequently they come into contact with family or friends.
- People who meet their family members and friends less than once per month are more than twice as likely to often feel lonely (28.5%) as people who meet them more than once per week (11.8%).
- People who meet their family and friends just once per month are more likely to often feel lonely (18.3%) than people who meet them once per week (13.9%).
- People are classified as often feeling lonely via both direct and indirect reports of loneliness.
- The direct measure asks people 'How often do you feel lonely?' Response options are 'Often', 'Some of the time' and 'Hardly ever or never'. People responding 'Often' are classified as often feeling lonely.
- The indirect measure is established from three individual questions: 'How often do you feel isolated from others?'; 'How often do you feel left out?'; and 'How often do you feel you lack companionship?' Response options for all three questions are scored as 3 ('Often'), 2 ('Some of the time') or 1 ('Hardly ever or never'). If the sum of all three scores is greater than 7, the respondent is classified as often feeling lonely.
- The direct and indirect measures of loneliness are combined, so that people are classified as often feeling lonely if they respond as such in either the direct measure, the indirect measure, or both.
Source: Health Foundation analysis of Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Community Life Survey, England, 2023/24
