At 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, the grid of video tiles on my screen begins to fill. A woman in Los Angeles holds up her coffee mug to say good morning. A man in New York waves from his kitchen table, already laughing at something a fellow participant said before the program even began. Someone unmutes to report that it is snowing where she lives.
For the next hour, they will discuss a short story together. For several of them, it will be the longest conversation they have all day.
I design and deliver free virtual programs for older adults at Mather, an Evanston, Illinois-based nonprofit. This work is also personal. I am a solo ager, and I grew up in a small rural town in Whiteside County, Illinois, where my older relatives still live, far from the nearest senior center. When I look at that grid of faces, I see the people our field has the hardest time reaching.
What the Newest Data Tell Us
Loneliness among older adults is not fading. In December 2025, AARP reported that 40% of U.S. adults ages 45 and older are lonely, up from 35% in both 2010 and 2018. Adults ages 45 to 59 were loneliest at 46%, compared with 35% of those 60 and older.
That midlife finding should worry us. Today’s lonely 55-year-olds are the clients, residents, and program participants we will serve in the next decade.
Today’s lonely 55-year-olds are the clients, residents, and program participants we will serve in the next decade.
The full AARP findings also show who carries the heaviest load. Men now report more loneliness than women, 42% versus 37%. Among adults with household incomes under $25,000, 63% are lonely. LGBTQ+ adults are also more likely to feel lonely, and lonely respondents spend an average of 7.3 hours alone each day.
The University of Michigan’s National Poll on Healthy Aging, published in JAMA, found loneliness among adults 50 to 80 peaked at 41% in 2020 and settled near 33% in 2024. Rates remain far higher among people in fair or poor physical or mental health.
Globally, the WHO Commission on Social Connection estimates that loneliness affects 1 in 6 people and is linked to about 871,000 deaths a year, roughly 100 every hour.
The people most likely to be lonely are often the least able to walk into a senior center. Poor health, limited mobility, low income, caregiving duties, rural distance, and a lack of transportation all stand between them and a room full of peers.
Technology alone does not close that gap. AARP found that 57% of adults 45 and older rely on technology to stay connected, yet 24% of lonely adults say it leads to fewer close friendships. And 23% of lonely adults are interested in AI companions, compared with 15% overall.
That last number tells me people are hungry for someone to talk to. The real gap is not access to a screen. It is access to other people through that screen: a facilitator who learns your name, and a group that notices when you miss a week.
How We Can Help
Mather built its virtual programming to meet older adults where they are, at no cost. In 2025, more than 46,000 older adults took part in 53,524 hours of free virtual programs, from yoga and screenwriting to painting with pets. Participants joined from across the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Across virtual and in-person offerings, Mather delivered 130,697 program hours through 189 unique programs. Topics are shaped by research from Mather Institute, which has inspired newer offerings on the history of tea, Chinese calligraphy, and map making.
Several design choices help us reach people who would otherwise be left out:
- Every program is free. Cost is never the reason someone stays home alone.
- Materials arrive at the door. In 2025, Mather delivered 21,923 Do-It-Together Art and Grow-It-Together Hydroponic Garden kits, so participants could create alongside one another from home.
- Groups recur. Weekly meetups give people a reason to come back and a chance to become regulars.
The real gap is not access to a screen. It is access to other people through that screen: a facilitator who learns your name, and a group that notices when you miss a week.
For aging-services professionals, a few lessons stand out.
Treat virtual as a front door, not a fallback. For homebound, rural and caregiving older adults, it may be the only door they can open.
Remove every barrier you can. Fees, logins and paperwork quietly screen out the people who need connection most. Mailed materials and a simple way to join can matter as much as the program itself.
Build for belonging, not just attendance. Hours and headcounts show reach. Our next step as a field is to measure whether people feel less alone, using validated tools such as the UCLA Loneliness Scale.
Partner widely. No single organization can solve this. Mather collaborates with more than 70 Chicagoland organizations and continues to add more.
The WHO has called on communities to treat social connection as a public health priority. Every morning, that grid of video tiles reminds me what this looks like in practice: one familiar face, one friendly voice, one person who is no longer alone.
Michael Pessman, MA, is a gerontologist and Virtual Program Assistant in Community Initiatives at Mather in Evanston, Illinois, where he designs and delivers virtual programming for older adults. He is the founder and publisher of Ager Nation, a free weekly aging-news newsletter, a Fellow of The Op-Ed Project and a member of the American Society on Aging.
Photo credit: Shutterstock/Sergii Gnatiuk
