Socialising regularly helps people to live longer.
Old people who socialise a lot live longer
Experts have found that older people who socialise on a daily, weekly or monthly basis had a significantly better chance of a long life than those who socialised the least or not at all.
A team from Sichuan University West China Hospital studied data over a five-year period from more than 28,000 people and found that death rates were far higher among elderly individuals who never socialised.
However, the effects appeared to diminish after the initial five-year period.
The study authors said: "This study found that frequent participation in social activity was associated with prolonged overall survival time.
"From baseline (start of study) to five years of follow-up, the more frequent the social activity, the more prolonged the survival time.
"However, after five years of follow-up, there was a threshold effect regarding the association between social activity frequency and overall survival time, and only participating in social activity almost every day could significantly extend the overall survival time."