One in three Americans over 45 is “chronically lonely,” reports Judith Shulevitz in The New Republic. That’s up from one in five 10 years ago.

I have anecdotal evidence to back that up. Just last week I visited an 86-year-old friend in a Baldwin County assisted living facility. She virtually fell over herself (easy to do at her age) thanking me for stopping to see her. “I’m lonely here,” she said. “It’s not that people are unkind. It’s that we who live here are barely able to get out of their rooms and the staff is too busy to sit and visit with us. Hardly anyone knows I’m here.” My friend’s family live thousands of miles away.

Middle-aged people have also spoken to me of their loneliness, and the suicide rate among Americans aged 35 to 64 is up nearly 30 percent from 1999, from 13.7 to 17.6 suicides per 100,000.

What’s going on and what can we do about it?

One cause of loneliness is modern medicine that enables us to live longer. Longer life is not necessarily better life, as my 86-year-old friend is discovering. Is it really a blessing to live so long that your medical, mental or financial limitations cut you off from those you love?

I think the main cause of Americans’ loneliness, however, is our prosperity.

A few years ago I spent a semester in Nigeria living among the people there. By American standards, Nigerians are very poor. Many live in small houses with porous walls, dirt floors and no windowpanes, just a yard or so from their neighbors’ houses. They overhear conversations not meant for their ears. That diminishes privacy, but it means they know their neighbors and their neighbors know them. Nigerians have a strong sense of communal loyalty. Their average life expectancy is lower than Americans’ (52 years in Nigeria, 79 years in the U.S.), but Nigerians do not die lonely.

I’m glad I don’t live in Nigeria, but I would like the sense of community I found there. Or at least I say I do. Apparently I like my privacy more, because like most Americans, my behavior creates privacy, not community. I drive my car with the windows rolled up to keep the air conditioning in. I communicate by e-mail or texting rather than talk to people. I sit alone on my back porch after supper, not on my front porch where I might see my neighbors.

Except I wouldn’t see my neighbors from my front porch, because people don’t walk the sidewalks as they once did and there isn’t even a sidewalk in front of my house.

America’s prosperity also enables us to move around, which adds to loneliness. Time was when most people stayed in the community where they grew up. Communal bonds were strong. But now Americans have the money to relocate, and we do.

When I was a youngster, all four grandparents lived within shouting distance of my front porch. But when I retired two years ago from my job in Cincinnati (to which we had relocated from St. Louis, to which we had relocated from Daphne, to which we had relocated from Philadelphia), my wife and I relocated again, returning to Alabama, 750 miles away.

Our three sons and their families live in Illinois, Maryland and Rhode Island. We talk on the phone. My wife and I visit them when we can. We know they love us. But it’s a far cry from being able to walk next door for a hug.

Is there anything we can do about this? I’m not suggesting that we reverse history, return to a simpler and kinder era. History doesn’t move backward. But there are things each of us can do to diminish our loneliness and that of others:

* Visit or call a friend or relative you haven’t seen lately.

* Befriend one new person, perhaps a shut-in.

* Choose something of yours — a book, a piece of jewelry, a photograph — and send it to someone who might like to know you were thinking of them.

* Pray for people, then jot them a note to share your prayers with them.

Those are little things. Maybe we can’t reverse history, but little things make a difference.

Richard H. Schmidt is a retired Episcopal priest, editor and author who lives in Fairhope. He can be reached at courier@gulfcoastnewspapers.com.