'Wellness' culture is empty without service to others

The self-help and 'wellness' industries are booming. Yet the effects don't match the money spent.

- Jemima Kelly

We are living in a self-service world. At the supermarket (if you still physically go to one), you can use an automated checkout and not have to bother asking the person at the till how their day is going.

If you need cheering up, don't worry about calling a friend; just open your favourite social media platform and let the algorithm lull you into numbness. If you need relationship advice - actually, scrap that, you don't, because now you're in a relationship with an artificial intelligence chatbot and, unlike the yoomans, they don't cause you any drama. Idyllic, isn't it?

Well, maybe not. While we have been so busy making everything so convenient and becoming so self-sufficient, we seem to have also made ourselves lonely and miserable.

The World Health Organization estimates that 4.4 per cent of the global population suffers from an "anxiety disorder" and that loneliness is linked to around 100 deaths per hour.

At the same time, the self-help and wellness industries are booming. According to Grand View Research, a market research company, the global "self-improvement industry" has grown to about US$50 billion (S$64.2 billion) and will swell to more than US$67 billion in 2030.