Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks painting is a quintessentially American image, that currently hangs in The Art Institute of Chicago. You’ve likely seen this picture many times, but like everything in plain sight, it has probably become invisible to you. Looking through the window from the street beyond, we see three people in a diner late at night. None of them quite face each other. Each person is in their own world, aglow in the pallid light of the near-empty diner. What I and so many others find compelling about this painting is that it makes loneliness visible and palpable. It is a loneliness grounded in place, made concrete in the imposing physicality of the empty street and the diner. It is also loneliness shared; the subjects of the painting are alone together.
Today, many of us are alone together. Two years ago, the World Health Organization, in an effort led by then Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, declared loneliness a “global health concern.” A staggering one-half of Americans reported feeling lonely in the Surgeon General’s study. Loneliness doesn’t just feel bad; the study describes that the effect of isolation is “similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.”
We know loneliness is a problem, many of us have experienced it, but it is hard to address, because it is hard to see; or, if it is not difficult to see, it is difficult to look at. The blues, another quintessential American form, said it best: “nobody knows you when you’re down and out.”
Nighthawks not only highlights the problem but reveals the solution as well: the importance of the third place. This term refers to an accessible place outside the first place (the home), and the second place (the workplace), where people meet and socialize. Some examples are coffeeshops, porches or stoops, parks, barbershops, and yes, diners. It is a place of mixing, for people of different backgrounds, incomes, and livelihoods, grounded in the community it serves. The third place has been critical to our world and our social structure. It is a place where we meet with our friends to laugh, drink coffee, linger over a meal, play cards, discuss our hardships, and our triumphs.
It is where we meet new people too: where we find love, discuss our differences, and find common ground. Third places are vital to the formation of weak ties, those casual social relationships you have with your neighbors, baristas, coworkers, and other people in your community. These bonds give you a sense of belonging, of being known, and are vital for feelings of happiness and purpose. We know how important socializing is for our health, but maybe we have downplayed the significance of the places where we meet.
The pandemic and the related expansion of virtual tools like Zoom and Amazon eroded the third place. Local businesses were forced to close, to get rid of seating, or change their business model to window service. Third places have had to change with their clientele.
It’s much more possible, and common now, to completely avoid human contact in daily life. You can order your dinner or groceries through DoorDash or Instacart; if you live in many cities, you can take a driverless taxi instead of a car service (or the increasingly quaint taxi); if your sink is leaking, you can consult YouTube and Amazon instead of your handy neighbor; and if you’re feeling lonely, you can scroll on your social app of choice, maybe even talk to an AI chatbot.
The first, second, and third place have collapsed into each other. Many of us work from home, or at a local café. Even in the park or at the stoop, outdoor places theoretically unscathed by the pandemic, feel quieter to me. I sometimes get the feeling we’ve forgotten how to socialize. We’re loud in theaters, and quiet on the street. How easy it’s become to ignore each other with headphones and laptops, and how hard it has gotten to resist algorithms tuned to grab our attention.
The highest rates of loneliness are among young people, those whose lives are most intertwined with new technologies. We are just starting to understand the health effects of this reality. As someone who came of age while these online platforms reached maturity, it is impossible not to notice their increasing grip on my cohort. The internet has largely displaced the physical third place, and in 2025, “the apps” are a poor substitute for these vital places.
The early internet fit the bill of the third place, with people mixing socially, bonding over shared interests, and forming weak ties; but today, algorithms and short form content largely show us strangers. We spend much less time directly contacting other people and building relationships. Our very human appetite for social interaction is being artificially satiated by the empty calories of parasocial relationships.
Loneliness, and the loss of third places are not just problems of the young, however. Isolation is especially pressing for older adults, who are prone not only to loneliness, but to its devastating health impacts. In a recent study, Dr. Steven Cole of the UCLA School of Medicine described, “Loneliness acts as a fertilizer for other diseases. The biology of loneliness can accelerate the buildup of plaque in arteries, help cancer cells grow and spread, and promote inflammation in the brain leading to Alzheimer’s disease.”
When I read this, I think of my own grandparents. When I called my grandfather last month, he told me something that scared me. The Dairy Queen in his small Oregon town would no longer be serving breakfast. You may think I was overreacting – let me explain. For years my grandfather has gathered with a group of similar-aged men for coffee at the DQ nearly every morning. There he orders a $2 coffee and sometimes biscuits and gravy and talks with the young guys (the 70 year olds) and other “old guys” (the 95 year olds) about everything from pollen to politics. If you saw these men together, you’d understand why I think the term “silent generation” is a misnomer.
My grandfather cares at home for my grandmother, and the DQ has been a vital point of social contact. He will turn ninety this fall, and I know how important this little ritual is for his health and sanity.
These things feel so out of our control – that particular Dairy Queen was one of the last holdouts offering breakfast, and now because of a seemingly minor decision of somebody at DQ HQ, my grandfather’s town is going to be so much the poorer. It can seem like so many of these concerning trends, moving us away from each other, from our shared spaces, are beyond us.
The issue of loneliness is colossal, but we can make small choices, and choose to support our local third places – I’m sure we can all think of one we love. We can revive older models of etiquette, choosing to engage with the people around us, and ignore our technology. Ditch the headphones sometimes if you need to work in a coffee shop. Ask someone what they’re reading. Eat out, together, instead of ordering in. It can be as simple as saying hello to people you pass on the street. Remember a time when you felt alone, and reach out to someone in your life who may be in that rut.
I’m pleased to announce that when I visited my grandparents in early May, the “old guys” had, somewhat miraculously, found a new spot to meet. My grandfather now orders (off the secret menu) what he calls the “grampa special” – egg, sausage, biscuits and gravy with two strips of bacon. This new cafe may not open as early as the DQ, my grandpa grumbled, but when they did flip around the sign there was a line out the door. We sat at a booth separate from the men, and talked about the news of the morning – the new pope. “And he’s an American!” the couple in the booth behind us chimed in. We learned they were traveling from Seattle down the coast; the man grew up in the neighborhood adjacent to where I live in Chicago, close to the coffee shop where I now sit writing this article.
Written by: Seth Husney
