Even before a global pandemic introduced us to terms like "social distancing," the fabric of community was unraveling. The cause, Noreena Hertz argues here, is loneliness, caused by technology but also the radical reorganization of the workplace, the mass migration to cities, and decades of policies that have placed self-interest above the collective good. Offering solutions, Hertz travels from a "how to read a face" class at an Ivy League university to a Japanese nursing home where residents are knitting bonnets for their robot caregivers.