Drugs, dropping out of the labor force, the inability to get married, the unwillingness to start a family — many of the pathologies of the working class and middle-aged in America are visible and large. They are public problems.

Some of the most concerning maladies, though, may be the small, private ones.

Of men with no college education, less than 1 out of 6 people report having read a book for pleasure in the past week, according to the American Perspectives Survey from the Survey Center on American Life. For comparison, 50% of college-educated women report having read for pleasure in the past week.

What are men doing instead? Well, 44% of men report having watched pornography within the past month. Among those between 30 and 50 years old, 57% have watched in the past month, and 42% have watched in the past week.

Put these numbers together, and you see a bunch of older millennials and middle-aged working-class men who don’t read but watch pornography. And the numbers suggest these are mostly lonely, unmarried men.

“Men who report having watched pornography” in the past 24 hours, the study authors found, “report the highest rates of loneliness. Six in 10 men who watched pornography in the past 24 hours say they have felt lonely or isolated at least once in the past week.”

The causality, no doubt, goes both ways. Pornography makes men sadder, lonelier, and less likely to be married. Being unmarried and lonely makes one sad and turn to pornography.

This makes the rising usage of pornography alarming, however you interpret the causality. It means we as a population are sadder and lonelier. And the reading numbers suggest that our increasingly isolating and alienating culture results in more quiet and healthy leisure.