5.4 Conclusion
You may be thinking, so which way of conceptualizing loneliness is “correct”? As I mentioned at the start of this case study, that is not the goal here. The process of figuring out a useful cut-off point is a long and tedious one that requires researchers to engage with each other31. Rather, the goal here has been to highlight that decisions like cut-off points may seem small, but are critical in the way we interpret and talk about social phenomena. In this case study, these cut-off points essentially define who is considered lonely. If these cut-off points are vastly different, we may not be even talking about the same people when we talk about “lonely persons”. This means that when comparing or drawing conclusions from the findings of different studies, it is crucial that we understand the decisions that produced the numbers.
And indeed, Singapore social science can perhaps use more of this.↩︎