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Thousands of listeners have already secured their network data. Join them at ExpressVPN.com slash men. On Monday, Politico ran a long interview with Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Murthy is apparently, quote, worried about our sad social lives. According to Politico, Americans are burned out, disconnected, isolated, and starved for time. Maybe it's post-pandemic blues. Maybe it's our smartphone addiction.

Whatever the cause. It's serious enough that Murthy has issued a formal advisory to the nation

calling for action to address this epidemic. So what are Murthy's solutions? Well, he's hosting

events around the country trying to put people in proximity to one another and speaking about

the power of friendship. At these events, according to Politico,

quote, people dressed as dancing unicorns handed out prescriptions for five minutes of social

connection. Quantity, endless, refills daily. That's a thing that you are paying for. Murthy then

encouraged people to spend 45 seconds writing a text to a loved one. Murthy asks people to engage in what he calls the connection exercise.

He says that such exercises can be supplemented by investments in social infrastructure,

which is where policymakers come in.

Or alternatively, it's precisely where policymakers and government should butt out.

See, there is a reason for our loneliness

epidemic. And that's a real thing, the loneliness epidemic. People are lonely, they are disconnected,

they are atomized. And sure, all of that has to do with smartphones and the internet and the

increasing atomization of our lives as we hunker down with our screens and wreck our necks. But

screens are just a tool to be used for good or ill.

The real problem is that our social institutions have been summarily destroyed over the course

of decades largely by government. Those social institutions used to begin with and center around

church. Historically, churches performed three interwoven functions. First, they provided

common orientation around a higher goal,

complete with rules and regulations that required skin in the game in order to be accepted into the

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