LONELINESS AND HOSPITALITY
are three times more likely to order in than their parents. Food delivery apps are now on average in the top 40 most downloaded apps in major markets. A report by USB investment
bank titled Is the Kitchen Dead? echoed many others and made a bullish case for increased global online food ordering sales. Te study predicted delivery sales could rise by an annual average of more than 20% to $365bn worldwide by 2030, from $35bn. Cooking and sharing a meal at home is now old school. So, if fewer people share meals and enjoy the magic eating together around a table, can hospitality survive? Some deem technology in
the foodservice industry to have made matters worse. Some even say it is the major culprit, even though its use has eased the operator’s pain resulting from unavailable labor and increased food costs. Te dominant use of preorder, prepay, pickup, and delivery, they say, has apparently cost us our hospitality mojo. Technology, at least in the hospitality industry, has subliminally encouraged, or at least supported, loneliness – and aloneness. US surgeon general Vivek
Murthy placed a spotlight on America’s problem with loneliness when he declared the issue an epidemic in the spring of 2023. He asserted that loneliness is far more than “just a bad feeling” and represents a major public health risk for both individuals and society. Murthy also pointed out that, although many
people grew lonelier during the Covid pandemic, about half of American adults had already reported experiences of loneliness even before the outbreak. Te surgeon general went on to establish a working definition of loneliness that at least established a basis for communication and conversation: “Loneliness is a state of mind: a subjective distressing experience that results from perceived isolation or inadequate meaningful connections, where inadequate refers to the discrepancy or unmet need between an individual’s preferred and actual experience”
A MOST IMPORTANT SOCIAL FACT
Tat many, and particularly Gen Z and Millennials, prefer to be by themselves while dining is an unspoken and fierce dynamic. How has this come to be? Yes, these technologies saved the day during Covid, but why have we continued to perpetuate them now? Hospitality, traditionally associated with in-person dining and service, is devolving significantly with the rise of these alternative services. Tough technology and hospitality seem to be diametrically opposed, hospitality is still the most powerful loneliness cure. Te health implications
of loneliness have become clearer over time. According to the research of Julianne Holt-Lunstad, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, and colleagues, the heightened
“Technology and hospitality seem to be diametrically opposed, but hospitality remains the most powerful loneliness cure”
risk of mortality from loneliness equals that of smoking 15 cigarettes a day, or being an alcoholic, and exceeds the health risks associated with obesity. 87.9% of adolescents and adults reported difficulty with work, home, or social activities due to their depression symptoms; 31.2% reported extreme difficulty in performing these activities. A survey by Harvard
Graduate School of Education’s Making Caring Common (MCC), after interviewing thousands of Americans across the nation, confirmed that loneliness is prolific and inclusive: it leaves no one out. People between 30 and 44 years of age were the loneliest group – 29% of people in this age range said they were “frequently” or “always” lonely. Correlate that with the simultaneous and troublesome fact that 18- to 24-year-olds, are, other studies have shown, lonelier than at any time in our history. In an article in Te Atlantic,
journalist Derek Tompson suggests that “self-imposed solitude might just be the most important social fact of the 21st century in America”. He quotes
Steve Salis, a Washington DC restaurateur, who emphasizes that “people feel uncomfortable in the world today. Tey have decided that their home is their sanctuary and that it is not easy to get them to leave.” One speculation is that Covid relieved the pressure felt by many to ‘belong’. Without the pressure of interacting and performing among others, the anxiety around failing vanished. Tis sentiment may still be driving the tendency to seek aloneness. Many do not want to go back to work or seek people out because they well remember the pain of failing or feeling alienated in those situations. Home is safer.
REDEFINING HOSPITALITY?
One must then ask: what is the cure? No vaccine has been developed to cure loneliness. Even though there has been a simultaneous 50% rise in the use of antidepression medication in the US in the past decade, the epidemic persists. Particularly startling is the amount of these medications administered to young people.
Te statistics are staggering.
Healthline.com reports antidepressant prescriptions for young adults and teens increased by nearly 64% from 2020 onward. It further shows antidepressant use was escalating even before the pandemic. Clearly, Covid didn’t help, but it was not a singular driving force (although in the first year of the pandemic, the global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by a
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