• Like exercise, social activity promotes wellness, confidence and joy. It wards off social isolation, which can lead to loneliness and depression.
  
  
• A 2007 Cornell University study, Social Isolation: Strategies for Connecting and Engaging Older People, notes that about 30 percent of elders over 65 in America live alone, adding that "Baby Boomers are projected to experience greater social isolation given their lower rates of marriage, high levels of divorce, and fewer children." Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging, March 2007

Must Have Play's playgrounds for elders deliberately encourage social interaction:

• safe, attractive and peaceful gardens, with shelters, conversational seating nooks, and wide walking paths
  
  
• activity equipment designed for face-to-face usage
  
  
• games like chess, cards, bocce, and ping-pong
  
  
• spaces for yoga or tai chi
  
  
• acoustic performance spaces for both observing and performing