Article by Stella Lau, UC Berkely Education Dept.

“…man cannot live without attachment to some object which transcends and survives him…he is too little…we have no other object than ourselves we cannot avoid the thought that our efforts will finally end in nothingness, since we ourselves disappear” (Durkheim 210).
- Emile Durkheim

Sociologist Emile Durkheim (April 15, [...]

Relationships improve your odds of survival by 50 percent

A new Brigham Young University study adds our social relationships to the “short list” of factors that predict a person’s odds of living or dying.

In the journal PLoS Medicine, BYU professors Julianne Holt-Lunstad and Timothy Smith report that social connections – friends, family, neighbors [...]

From the The BBC World Service – May 16, 2010 
Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8569799.stm

There has been a sharp increase in helpline calls about loneliness

The number of UK children calling the national helpline Childline because they feel lonely has risen sharply.

From April 2008 to March 2009, 5,525 children called the helpline due to loneliness, sadness or isolation, [...]

June 25, 2010

From: Fresh Air & WHYY- NPR  
Link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128086851

Dan Gottlieb hosts a mental-health call-in radio show on WHYY. In 1979, was in a near-fatal car accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down.  

Family therapist and call-in radio host Dan Gottlieb has helped many people [...]

Article by: Rhonda Rich -Athens Banner Herald, Feb. 25, 2007 
There’s a lot of loneliness out there. Too many people caught on the periphery of goodwill in a society where we feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and shepherd the orphans. What about the others? Those who aren’t hungry, homeless or orphaned? They are simply [...]