Author: Rafał Sakowski
How polarization and emotional manipulation are tearing social bonds apart in Poland and Europe
Last year, two studies struck me deeply. Read together, they form a bleak but very practical warning signal about our social resilience. The first is the WHO report on loneliness, which includes a figure that is hard to ignore: loneliness is associated with approximately 871,000 deaths per year. The second is the report by the PZU Foundation and infuture.institute, “Can Poles Dream?”, which shows the inner conflict of young people: they often experience loneliness and digital isolation, and at the same time relationships are the foundation of their most important dreams (20.9% of responses), while in the 18–24 age group “love and relationships” appear among the top dreams (19.1%).
These two images are not contradictory. They fit together like a negative and a positive. Young people long for closeness—and at the same time fear loneliness. And that makes them a particularly sensitive target in an era when emotions are currency and polarization is often a strategy.
This is the moment when we should call things by their name: loneliness is not only a public health problem. It is also a driver of cognitive warfare.
A war that does not need your consent
Cognitive warfare does not have to convince us of one single “truth.” It is enough to shatter our shared language. To turn debate into a boxing ring. To make us stop believing that conversation makes sense and that relationships are safe.
This mechanism can be seen clearly in high-profile international cases. After the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal1 in the United Kingdom, before authorities were able to present a coherent account of events, the internet was already flooded with dozens of alternative versions. Not so that one would win—but so that none would. NATO describes the goal of such actions very directly: to sow doubt, multiply contradictory narratives, polarize opinion, radicalize groups, and fragment society.
This happens through emotional “hooks”: outrage, fear, humiliation, anger. Platforms reward content that raises the pulse. And when emotions become the fuel of debate, conversation stops being conversation. We begin to avoid topics, meetings, and people “from the other side.” First out of caution. Then out of habit. Finally—out of resignation.
And this is where loneliness enters the stage not as a side effect, but as a predictable outcome.
The data are not just “sad.” They are alarming.
A few figures worth keeping in mind, because they describe the scale of the fracture:
- EU: 13% of respondents felt lonely “most of the time” or “all the time” in the last 4 weeks (EU-LS 2022).
- Poland: 8% of adults experience loneliness “very often” or “always” (up from 4% in 2017); among pupils and students it is 17%.
- EU: The European Commission indicates that foreign information manipulation can polarize societies by “setting communities against each other.”
These are frightening numbers—at least to me. Because they speak about more than mood. They speak about the erosion of social infrastructure: trust, dialogue, and willingness to cooperate. And without that, even the best institutions are hollow inside.
The boundary shifts quietly
In the background, a quiet normalization is taking place: the language of contempt enters everyday life, the threshold for aggression drops, and distrust grows. And the less trust we have, the less risk we take in relationships—and the easier it becomes to slip into “preventive” loneliness: withdrawing before someone hurts you. Before someone mocks you. Before a class chat, a workplace thread, or a family table turns into a field court.
This is not only political conflict. These are micro-fractures: in class chats, in family kitchens, at work. First comes self-censorship (“better not say anything”), then distance (“better not show up”). Over time, more than discussion breaks—the bond itself breaks.
Young people pay a double price here. They are deeply immersed in platforms, and at the same time they are still building their identities and support networks. At a stage of development with high susceptibility to influence. Influence over which we have no control, because it is often spread by accounts where we do not even know whether there is a real person, a bot, or someone with a very specific agenda to set us against one another.
Loneliness lowers social resilience. And in this way, the circle closes.
Loneliness fuels polarization. Polarization fuels loneliness.
A disconnected person is more likely to seek “shortcut belonging”—groups that offer a simple diagnosis and an enemy. This is how tribalism is born: not a community based on cooperation, but an identity built on conflict. Tribes are convenient because they reduce uncertainty. But they are also costly: they consume bridges. And without bridges, only echoes remain—where you hear only your own side.
This is a feedback loop: the more tribal we are, the lonelier we become; the lonelier we are, the more vulnerable we are to tribes. That is why loneliness must be treated as an issue of social security, not as a “private sadness.”
What should we do? Don’t moralize. Build relationship infrastructure.
At PASMO, we want to act together with others by promoting initiatives that respond to this mechanism:
- Emotional hygiene in information — Before you share, name the emotion the content triggers in you. Fear? Contempt? Triumph? Only then check the source. Emotion is a warning signal, not evidence.
- Safe formats for conversation — Moderated meetings and “third places” where disagreement is possible without humiliation. Without this, every conflict ends in flight or aggression.
- Media education as loneliness prevention — Information skills and relationship skills: how to recognize manipulation and how to talk despite differences without breaking bonds.
- Bridges instead of tribes — Projects of joint action (volunteering, neighborhood initiatives, culture) where we “do something together” before we start labeling one another again.
Last year, when we were still working as the team of the City Culture Institute – City of Weaves, during pilot “Culture and Health” programs, we observed an interesting “side effect” of the creative activities we organized. In entry surveys, motivation to participate had almost nothing to do with building relationships: people came for “something for themselves,” for breathing space, rhythm, meaning. But in the final surveys, almost always the same phrases appeared: “I made new connections,” “I have an informal support group.”
It was a success we did not plan as the main goal—and yet it turned out to be perhaps the most valuable effect of the entire program. We made some people more resilient.
In PASMO’s work, we want to connect. Because we know that only together are we strong enough to deal with problems that have no single culprit and no single cure. In Poland, we have an incredible ability to act together in moments of crisis. The problem is that now we are facing a crisis that is not visible at first glance—because it plays out in relationships, in language, in trust. In things that do not appear in economic statistics, but that ultimately decide everything.
That is why we will speak about it out loud.
At the end, I have a request for you: reach out today to someone you haven’t spoken to in a long time. One message can sometimes be the beginning of rebuilding a bridge.
If you want to build local resilience—join PASMO’s activities.
Read full WHO report (in english)>>
Read full report by PZU Foundation and infuture.institute (in polish)>>
- Sergei Viktorovich Skripal (Russian: Сергей Викторович Скрипаль, born 23 June 1951) is a former Russian military intelligence officer who acted as a double agent for the United Kingdom’s intelligence services during the 1990s and early 2000s. On 4 March 2018, he and his daughter Yulia, a Russian citizen who was visiting him from Moscow, were poisoned with a Russian-developed Novichok nerve agent. ↩︎
