ABSTRACT
Maintaining meaningful social connections boosts health in amazing ways. Even so, social isolation pervades disturbingly in contemporary society. Because of its harmful consequences, social isolation represents one of the most serious social problems of our time, ironically in an age when connecting with others seems easy. Nevertheless, leisure studies remains quiet on this matter. If our field aims to enhance its social relevance, I argue it needs to focus more attention on the issue of social isolation. With this in mind, the purpose of this contribution to the 40th anniversary issue of Leisure Sciences is to position social isolation as an important topic in our field and to offer directions for future research. To these ends, this manuscript looks back at what we know about leisure and its implications for social isolation and looks forward to relevant questions aimed at driving the next generation of impactful leisure research.
