Noreena Hertz, who is a renowned economist and author of The Lonely Century (one of WIRED’s picks for the best books of 2020) explores why this is the lonely century, how we got here and what each of us can do to help reduce loneliness for ourselves and our communities.

"With one in five adults, saying that they felt lonely often or all of the time, with one in five millennials saying that they didn't have a single friend at all and with 40% of office workers, saying that they felt lonely at work" Hertz felt compelled to explore this loneliness phenomenon. 

"As I started looking at this data I realised that we were really, in the midst of a global loneliness crisis, a crisis that was affecting our health or wealth and the state of our democracy."