What European Countries Value Personal Connections the Most?

Where are you reading and/or hearing loneliness is on the rise?

The French value personal connections.
I would venture to say all Europeans do.

A study from 2021 answers your question.

MarkK, thats a pretty wild paper. I wonder how the US would stack up? Not good i would think. I went from a life where you get up, get in a car, drive in isolation to a shop, then return the same. Now I live is a situation where I get up and walk down the stree to the shop and say hello to my neighbors doing the same and wave through the window to the shop owners I know. And I live in one of the loneliest countries in that report. Maybe it was a lighter shade of green before I moved here?

A wonderful young lady I once met in Central America told me to alwasy ask the name of whomever you are interacting with, and then thank them by name. In doing that you will have friends where every you go and never be alone. To do this was and is against my nature, but I force through it and it has proven to be true.

Markk thanks very much for finding and posting that study. I really like reading that sort of social research.

Around 9% of Europeans report to be frequently lonely. About every
10th citizen in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Belgium
and Greece feels lonely. The lowest percentage of lonely people are
found in the Netherlands and Denmark with just 3%, Finland with 4% and
Germany, Ireland and Sweden with 5%.

Compared to feeling lonely, many more Europeans (20.8%) are socially
isolated. Country variations for this measure are much higher than for
subjective loneliness. More than 40% of Hungarians and Greeks do not
meet more often than once a month socially. In Lithuania, Estonia and
Poland the figure approaches 35%. In contrast, social isolation is the
lowest in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden with around 8% of
individuals being socially isolated. It is important to keep in mind
that these figures may be underestimated, given the negative social
stigma associated with loneliness.

Loneliness and social isolation have a clear regional pattern (Figure
2). The lowest levels of loneliness are found in Northern Europe,
followed by Western Europe (with the exception of France). In
contrast, Eastern Europe has the highest share of lonely people,
followed by Southern Europe. Western and Southern Europe are the
regions with the lowest, whereas Eastern Europe records the highest
proportion of socially isolated individuals. More variability is
observed in Southern Europe, with Portugal displaying very low levels
of social isolation (9%) whilst the opposite is found in Greece (43%).

Interesting that the Northern Europe, and particularly the Netherlands and north of the Netherlands, has quite a lot less reported loneliness and less social isolation than the south.

Hank, I love these too, but to a large degree because they make me question perceptions.

Loneliness is a state of being and has to be partially cultural. So you have to adjust for cultural norms. An American and a Bulgarian under identical circumstances may find themselves in completely different states of loneliness. Or how a culture where you are in constant contact with others but rarely with "friends" compares to a culture where you see friends more often but have little daily contact with others? I only scanned the article on the metro, but will read it carefully later. Interested if that is addressed or if every culture is held to the same norm.

Loneliness is a state of being and has to be partially cultural. So
you have to adjust for cultural norms.

Absolutely Mister E! The study says as much, quotes other studies that propose elevated reports of loneliness in Southern Europe might be partially explained by cultural expectations:

Although the regional patterns described above are undoubtedly partly
explained by differences in individual circumstances across EU member
states, they are equally shaped by a broader socio-cultural country
context. In Southern and Eastern European countries family ties are
strong and filial norms, such as co-residing of elderly parents with
their adult children, used to be more prevalent than in Western or
Northern Europe (Reher, 1998, Dykstra, 2009, De Jong Gierveld and
Tesch-R¨omer, 2012). Expectations of social connectedness and hence
potential dissatisfaction could therefore be higher in the former than
in the latter group of countries (Sundstr¨om et al., 2009).

Still though reported social isolation, which is more objective (how many times a month do you interact socially with others?) is roughly double in Italy and triple or quadruple in Eastern Europe than the Netherlands for instance. So pretty clearly cultural expectation and associated variance in threshold for perception of loneliness only goes so far in accounting for the difference. More isolated people likely correlates pretty faithfully with lonely people regardless of cultural differences in perception.

Just talking is all.

Like I pointed out, in the US I saw friends for something social maybe 3 times a month, and had limited daily contact with people outside of work. Here I live in a pedestrian urban environment and can not walk out my door without interaction. And I wasn't unique in either situation. But I should shut up till I read it carefully 🤣

Oh not calling you out! Just pointing out that your off the cuff thinking accords with the research. SO you must be pretty bright ;)

Also, what you just just wrote makes me realize there is some looseness in the term social interaction, and that there are probably varying cultural standards. I chat with my local butcher about once a week, about meat and also a bit of this and that. As we sort out what I want etc. Tonight I'm making a fire in my backyard after dinner drinking beers with 3 buddies/neighborhood dads. Both social interactions but different I think? Or maybe not so much depending ....

Personally I m usually very wary about trying to attach some sort of characteristic such as this to national identities. For one I would want to know what is the definition for personal connections, social interactions, and loneliness. But also what built in bias is there for introversion vs extroversion?

All too often there is a default to extroversion and that it is the norm and that there is something wrong with introversion. That introverts are clearly lonely or lack social connection.

Where would someone such as myself fit in where at work I make personal connections with our visitors, then afterwards I am happy and comfortable with solitude?

I'd say that if you don't feel lonely, then you don't feel lonely. But the survey is of people reporting that they feel lonely. They're most likely being truthful.

I also think it's helpful to understand that on average means on average, and then in all countries surveyed the clear majority of people don't feel lonely. So you can't in generalize from the data to any given individual anywhere. The information is true, but it doesn't have reliable predictive value.

Hank, I'm convinced. I'm lonely ...... unless I am all alone hip deep in a cold mountain river with a Mayfly at the end of a 5x tippet.

I really love alone time outside in nature too E. Nothing else quite has the same feeling for me :)

One thing people have noted here in Germany is that Germans are VERY slow to open up and invite you into their lives; it takes a long time--years or even decades--before you are on the permanent invite list for social gatherings. But friendships are firm, unconditional, and forever. This means that you might still celebrate the birthdays of childhood friends every year back in your hometown, for example, even if you don't see each other beyond the gang's birthdays.

So to strangers, Germans seem cold and impersonal, but we deeply value friendship and connection.

Hank, I've got a guide for 3 days on 3 rivers about 100km west of Sarajevo in mid-May. Same guide price for 2 as for 1 (which is about 1/3 the cost on a good river in the US). It's a return trip and it's heaven.