Why are so many people lonely despite being surrounded by people? Psychiatrist explains

You can live with roommates, spend most of your day talking to colleagues and have a calendar packed with plans, yet still feel deeply alone. In India’s increasingly busy cities, loneliness is not always about having nobody around. Sometimes, it is about not having anyone who truly knows how you are doing.

Dr Amit Malik, Founder and CEO, Amaha, says this is a pattern clinical teams in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi are hearing with increasing familiarity. As he puts it, people often say: “I am surrounded by people, and I still feel completely alone.” The distinction matters. The World Health Organization also separates loneliness from social isolation, describing loneliness as the distress that comes when the connections a person has do not match the connections they want or need.

Being around people is not the same as feeling connected

Modern city life can make it surprisingly easy to have plenty of social contact without developing meaningful relationships.

Dr Malik points to a gap between social contact and social connection. Cities can put people around us all day, but that does not necessarily mean we have relationships in which someone notices when something about us has changed.

Work is one part of the problem. Long working hours can eat into the time that once belonged to friendships, while commuting can take away whatever is left of the evening. By the time people get home, much of their remaining attention may go towards their phones rather than the person sitting nearby.

Why moving to a new city can make loneliness worse

Migration is another factor that has a particular relevance in India.

People move to cities for education, jobs and opportunities, often leaving behind the informal networks they grew up with. Dr Malik points to the small, everyday interactions that come naturally in such networks: “A cousin two streets away. Somebody who drops in without calling first. A friend from school who never left.”

In a new city, these relationships have to be created from scratch. More importantly, they need to be maintained deliberately, often at a time when work and other responsibilities have already left people with little energy.

There is another aspect to this that can easily go unnoticed. Unplanned interactions can help people notice when something is wrong. If the only people you meet are those you have consciously made plans with, a difficult period can sometimes pass without anyone noticing.

Can social media make loneliness harder to recognise?

Being constantly connected online does not necessarily mean feeling understood offline.

Dr Malik is cautious about drawing sweeping conclusions here, noting that the evidence around digital connectivity is not as settled as public discussion sometimes suggests. While technology clearly makes it easier to stay in touch, the quality of that contact is a different question.

As he puts it, “Being easy to reach and being genuinely known are not the same thing.”

That difference can be particularly important in a city where people may have hundreds of online connections but few relationships in which they feel comfortable being vulnerable.

Loneliness can look different at different stages of life

Loneliness does not have one universal appearance. Among younger professionals, Dr Malik says it often exists alongside constant comparison, fuelled by daily exposure to other people’s carefully curated lives. It may also appear alongside anxiety rather than as an isolated concern. For women managing both professional responsibilities and much of the work at home, loneliness can look very different. They may be surrounded by people who depend on them while still feeling that nobody really sees them.

Dr Malik describes it as “being needed by a great many people while feeling seen by almost none of them.” Older city residents can experience another form of loneliness. As children move away and neighbourhood relationships gradually become less informal, isolation can develop slowly and may be easier to overlook.

When does loneliness become a mental health concern?

Feeling lonely does not automatically mean that someone has a mental health condition. Loneliness after moving to a new city, ending a relationship or starting a new job can be a normal part of adjustment and may pass with time. What deserves more attention is loneliness that continues for months, particularly when it comes with changes in sleep, appetite or concentration. Withdrawal can also be concerning when it follows changes in mood or thinking rather than simply a change in circumstances. Prolonged loneliness can also have wider implications for mental health. Dr Malik notes that sustained loneliness is associated with depression and anxiety, while withdrawal and low mood can reinforce each other. Isolation can also make existing mental health conditions harder to manage and may affect whether someone remains engaged with treatment.

The WHO similarly recognises loneliness and social isolation as significant public health concerns, linking social disconnection with poorer mental and physical health outcomes.

The answer may be simpler than we think

It can be tempting to look for a big solution to loneliness, particularly in cities where life itself feels increasingly disconnected. But Dr Malik does not believe the answer necessarily lies in another platform or a new piece of infrastructure. Instead, he points towards something much more ordinary: protecting the everyday interactions that cities can gradually erode. That could mean making room for the relationships that do not require a calendar invitation, checking in on someone who has been unusually quiet or simply noticing when a person who is normally present starts withdrawing.

Families may sometimes dismiss prolonged withdrawal as a phase or assume that someone has simply become more private. Dr Malik argues that asking about it earlier and treating it as something worth discussing can help bridge the gap between when a person begins struggling and when anyone actually steps in.

Because sometimes the loneliest person in the room is not the one sitting alone. It is the one surrounded by people who never notice that something has changed.

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Loneliness is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, says WHO; Sadhguru offers a fix