I'm not necessarily doubting that there's a pattern. I'm much more interested in why that pattern exists. There's an implication that if social isolation is killing us then social networking will save us. But what is it about social networking that saves us?

One of the reasons that I question studies like this is that it has the same flavor of studies that say that poor people die younger. OK, but what can be done about it? The poor people don't want to be poor and the rich people aren't going to be doing much.

It's the same way with social isolation. Most of the socially isolated don't choose that. I went to Reddit to search on what other people had to say about this article. It was referenced in 8 different subs. It got almost no response, I think because there's not much to say. One of the only responses was from someone in r/foreveralone who said something along the lines of 'good, we'll die earlier and have to suffer less.'

It's possible that a good portion of the suffering that people experience from social isolation is the social stigma and social approbation which articles like this one exacerbate. It's also possible that the early deaths come from lack of resources of the socially isolated. Since the studies don't really give an answer, the usefulness is dubious.

The socially isolated can face more stigma. The socially networked can fear social isolation.

But that's not really news. The Catholic church knew that when its biggest punishment is excommunication.

Buddhist monks may be the exception to some rules, but that might be because the cultural stigma against their social isolation isn't as strong.