WASHINGTON — The Senate floor is typically the setting for speeches on foreign policy or spending battles or the occasional vote. But on a summer Thursday last year, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut went to the floor to discuss a rarer topic for the room.
“I’m here to talk about loneliness,” Murphy said.
Murphy had been grappling with why Americans felt so divided at a time when technology has humans more connected than ever. His focus on the U.S. “epidemic of loneliness” led him down a path with many questions, few answers — and now, a Republican ally in the fight.
“How can we feel lonelier in a world where connection to other human beings now requires only a click of a button? How can we feel isolated when linkage to the outside world is delivered via nonstop handheld stimulus?” Murphy asked in a piece he wrote for The Bulwark in December 2022.
Those questions led Murphy to Utah Gov. …