Can Artificial Intelligence Provide Intimacy?

MIT professor Dr. Sherry Turkle tells the following story:

Years ago I spoke with a 16-year-old girl who was considering the idea of having a computer ...

Lonely Man Asks Pornographer for 'You Are Loved' Video

An episode on the podcast "The Butterfly Effect" tells the story about a couple named Dan and Rhiannon who run a company that provides what's ...

Loneliness Is an Epidemic with Physical Impact

Researchers created a banal scenario: a group of people would play a frivolous game of catch, tossing the ball to one another to pass the time, trying ...

Friends Make Us Feel Like We Matter

It's no news flash that friends make us happy, but Meliksah Demir, Ph.D., a professor at Northern Arizona University, has drilled down to reveal exactly ...

US Surgeon General Says Loneliness Is Health Care Crisis

From 2014 to 2017 Vice Admiral Vivek H. Murthy served as the 19th Surgeon General of the United States. From this vantage point he identified one of the ...

Are We Alone in the Dark?

In his book, “I'd Like You More If You Were More Like Me,” John Ortberg writes about our need to meaningfully connect with others:

In 2015, ...

Companionship Makes Us Feel like We Matter

It's no news flash that friends make us happy, but Meliksah Demir, Ph.D., a professor at Northern Arizona University, has drilled down to reveal exactly ...

When We Are Connected to Each Other We Thrive

In his book Being Mortal, Medical Doctor Atul Gawande describes the story of Bill Thomas, a man who in the 1990s started working as the medical director ...

Japanese Company Rents Instant Family and Friends

A Japanese business called "Family Romance" has actors for hire, ready and willing to be anything from your baby to your grandparent. "In ...

Belgian Hotel Rents Fish to Lonely Guests

Traveling by yourself isn't always the most fun: You might start to miss home, your family, your friends. A hotel in Belgium has come up with an idea ...