The article seems to confuse these too. "Lonely people have been found, for example, to focus more on internal thoughts, perhaps to compensate for their lack o

The article seems to confuse these too. "Lonely people have been found, for example, to focus more on internal thoughts, perhaps to compensate for their lack of actual social experiences." Well, for me, I daydream and live in my head a lot but I don't think I've ever really felt lonely in the last 10 years at least. So my brain probably looks like this but I would've responded to their survey with "not lonely". Maybe from their point of view I've been coping so long I don't even realise it? I think a better study would have segmented out people who have limited social contact but don't feel lonely. Post-apocalyptic movies with a small cast have a strange appeal to me, like it's the ideal small unit of society. We sort of got to experience that earlier this year in Sydney, with few cars on the road, no one walking around outside, and times when I didn't leave the house for days on end except to walk the dog. It was bliss. I had my dog and my wife and a few people on chat, and that's all I needed.