State of the Nation report finds loneliness a serious issue for Tasmanians

The State of the Nation Report, published earlier this month, reported Tasmania as the loneliest state, with 37 per cent of Tasmanians reporting feeling lonely.

Organisational behaviour expert from the University of Tasmania Joey Crawford said given Tasmania's close communities and physical proximity to our neighbors, we "shouldn't be that lonely."

"We don't live in multi storey buildings where there's thousands of neighbors next door but for some reason, we seem to not be as connected as we could be," Dr Crawford said.

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"One of the indicators shows that rural communities tend to be less connected and experience more loneliness, and that might play into it because Tasmania is regional and remote."

He said the COVID pandemic affected everyone's ability to connect with each other.

"We kept using the words social distancing and I always found that phrase quite problematic, because we wanted to keep some physical space between each other but remain socially close," he said.

"But we didn't do that, we got a bit scared about the idea of getting too close physically with people and as a result, that probably created a barrier for us to actually connect socially as well."

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Despite having high reports of loneliness, Tasmania reported the lowest in terms of social isolation risk.

Many Australians also believed loneliness was a serious health issue at 89 per cent.

Dr Crawford said despite a strong digital connected presence, we lacked the same degree of genuine, deep meaningful connection.

"I think the connection substitution is perhaps happening, where we think we're connected because we've got 1000 Facebook friends or a million views on Tik Tok," Dr Crawford said.

He said part of the solution started with a single conversation.

"It sounds a bit cliche, but I really think that we have to reset some of our single conversations in in simple places," he said.

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"It might be about us going to the supermarket and saying to the person behind the counter, how's your day been? And trying to make a little bit of small talk as we learn to be comfortable engaging in more deep conversations when they arise later on."

Co-Chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Ending Loneliness Bridget Archer MP said she wasn't surprised to see Tasmania's findings.

"I think anecdotally we can see that [loneliness] expressed in things like poor mental health and other chronic health issues that are sometimes exacerbated by social isolation," Ms Archer said.

She said community groups like neighborhood houses and Men's Sheds were just a few initiatives working to address the problem.

"They're really directly designed if you like, to address that challenge of social isolation and loneliness and to create connections," she said.

"As governments I think we can look at it about how we build, create and facilitate community connectedness through supporting those community initiatives."

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