One in Five Feels Lonely: What the Bochum Symposium designed2belong Means for Companies

Loneliness is a cost factor, a health risk – and a topic for companies. Impressions from the designed2belong symposium of the Sagittarius Akademie in Bochum and thoughts on the role of AI.

By Martin Salwiczek · 2026-06-14

Loneliness has long ceased to be a fringe socio-political issue. It is a cost factor, a health risk, and an indicator of what is missing in many companies and organizations: genuine connection. On June 6, 2026, Mathias and Christian Hallerbach from the Sagittarius Akademie and HaBuS Verlag in Bochum hosted a symposium that focused precisely on this topic: designed2belong, Shaping Connection. For us, the event was also an opportunity to pursue a question that concerns us anyway: What role does Artificial Intelligence play when it comes to loneliness?

designed2belong to create a space for exchange about social connection, loneliness, and social cohesion. Bochum's Mayor Jeßel opened the event, sending a clear political signal: loneliness is not an issue that should be handled solely in self-help groups. She recalled what Bochum had lost when the mines, the steel mills, and finally Opel disappeared: not just jobs, but the social structures that these places had carried with them. People who came together every day. Shifts that held neighborhoods together. These spaces, Jeßel said, are still missing today.

Angela Siebold, who moderated the thematic part of the day, highlighted the dimension of the problem: Current surveys indicate a loneliness burden of around 14 percent for North Rhine-Westphalia. Loneliness by no means primarily affects older people; among young adults, the figures rose to almost 47 percent at times during and after the pandemic. One of the guiding ideas that ran through the entire event was the question of the role of companies in this context: not only as employers, but as socio-cultural spaces where people spend a significant part of their lives and where connection can develop.

## What Loneliness Means and Why It Eludes Political Help

The scientific framework was set by Prof. Georg Juckel, Chief Physician at LWL-Klinik Bochum, who has been dealing with the topic for about ten years. Juckel first distinguished between being alone and loneliness: being alone can be valuable, productive, and regenerating. Loneliness, on the other hand, is the subjective feeling of not being sufficiently connected. Not a measurable state, but an inner experience. This is precisely what makes it so difficult to grasp and address politically.

Loneliness follows a vicious cycle, which Juckel vividly described: it leads to withdrawal, withdrawal intensifies the feeling of not belonging, until eventually there are hardly any points of connection left. The health consequences are well documented. In its physical effects, loneliness is comparable to smoking a pack of cigarettes daily. It burdens the immune system, increases the risk of depression and suicidal behavior, and demonstrably leads to a shortened life expectancy.

It is particularly noteworthy that loneliness is not yet a recognized diagnosis in Germany. This has concrete consequences: systematic promotion and structural support can hardly be placed on a solid legal basis. A structural paradox that repeatedly emerged throughout the day: precisely the initiatives and people who work closest to the truly lonely operate in a field that is severely restricted by bureaucratic requirements and at the same time receives little structural support. Juckel advocated for creating incentives, such as tax breaks for people who actively engage in their neighborhood. He reported that the political response to this has so far been reserved.

In the panel discussion, moderated by Angela Siebold, the many faces of the topic were revealed. Birte Hackstedt from the Self-Help Contact Point Bochum describes in her daily work people who are initially barely able to keep an appointment or start a conversation. For them, the path out of loneliness often begins long before any placement in employment or social context. Tim Kramer from Vereint Bochum represents a different approach: low-threshold meeting formats that have no prerequisites and bring people into contact easily. Jacqueline Lange from youngcaritas Germany contributed the perspective of young people: loneliness among adolescents is often overlooked because it manifests differently than in adults, but it is real and growing. Jessica Lüning from G-Data contributed the corporate perspective and confirmed what ran through the entire day: loneliness does not end at the factory gate. It affects people's entire everyday lives, and employers share responsibility for how people are welcomed, perceived, and integrated. Matthias Köllmann from the VBW Foundation added the neighborhood dimension: connection often arises in the living environment just as it does in the workplace, if the right spaces are created for it.

In many conversations on the sidelines of the event, a question arose that was only touched upon at the panel, but has been preoccupying me for a long time: What is Artificial Intelligence doing to loneliness? A current study by DAK-Gesundheit and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf shows: Up to ten percent of children and adolescents turn to AI chatbots to distract themselves from negative feelings, alleviate loneliness, or discuss confidential matters. Among adolescents with depressive symptoms, this proportion rises to almost a third. A study by the American RAND Institute comes to a similar conclusion: every eighth young person and young adult between 12 and 21 uses AI chatbots for mental support.

This has something understandable about it. An AI does not judge, does not cause shame, and is available at any time. For people without access to real support, this can be a first point of contact. At the same time, the question arises as to what it means when these systems become increasingly human-like, not only in text interaction but also in robotics. What happens to the ability for genuine encounters when social needs are increasingly met by systems that know no reciprocity?

We have already described this area of tension in our Review of the Career Information Day at Bochum Prison where inmates expressed the desire to have an AI they could really talk to. The fundamental question is the same here as there: not whether AI is used, but with what awareness and in what framework.

What particularly occupied me on this day is the structural parallel between two seemingly unconnected fields. The social actors who combat loneliness operate in an environment that leaves too little room for maneuver and offers too little support. Those who still want to help effectively find informal ways. We know the same mechanism from German companies in dealing with AI: where regulation and a lack of orientation slow down adoption, independent solutions emerge beyond official structures, a phenomenon that researchers describe as Shadow AI In both cases, the real challenge is the same: to find the right balance between necessary regulation and the space for effective action.

The symposium itself showed me in an exemplary way what the day was about. Some partners and freelance employees of SOLANIUS were present, people with whom we had previously worked almost exclusively digitally. The face-to-face encounter had a different quality from the first minute on, something immediate that no video call could have generated.

In-person encounters resonate and leave images in the mind, they create memories that stick and strengthen shared experiences afterwards. A gesture, an affirming nod, a brief moment of direct eye contact during a conversation: these are things that create social connection and that no camera can fully transmit. I am convinced that artificial intelligence, however far it may develop, cannot replace exactly that. Not because the technology is not powerful enough. But because we as humans depend on this type of encounter. We are social beings. We need each other.

For us, this day was a confirmation of a conviction that we have shared with Mathias and Christian for a long time: further training that is truly effective arises from doing things together and from genuine conversation. Face-to-face formats are not a matter of tradition for us, but a conscious decision for people to come together, with all that happens then and that no digital format can fully replace.

Companies are socio-cultural spaces. Someone who is unemployed and finds employment again usually doesn't find their suitable job through a job portal. They find it through real encounters, through conversations, through people who invite them or recommend them. What sustains work is rarely just the content of the job, but the environment: the people with whom one shares something.

The message I take away from this day is simple and concrete: look, listen, and don't look away when someone in your own circle falls behind. And not only look for spaces for encounters, but actively shape them.

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Artificial intelligence assisted in the creation of this post – for example, with research, text optimization, and formulation assistance. The idea, structure, and argumentation are by Martin.