Young people are spending less and less – maybe it’s affecting their mental health.
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What do the epidemic of loneliness, declining rates of teenage drinking and dating, and worsening mental health among teenagers and young adults all have in common?
For starters, the two argue to some extent. The lack of hard historical data on loneliness has led some to question whether there is any increase, let alone an epidemic. and on adult mental health, Some argue A large proportion of the observed number of problems is the raising of previously undiagnosed cases, while others Misleading statistics.
Skeptics are not wrong to raise doubts, and there are certainly some exaggerated claims. But as time goes by and both data and Testimony Mountain, he said growing recognition Absence of factual evidence is not evidence of absence. Indeed, there is a growing sense that these phenomena may not only be real, but that they may all be part of the same broader shift: physical communication is becoming less common among them. Young people.
Until recently, there was evidence of loneliness Poor at bestBut previous studies show that it is declining among American high school seniors Now show the steep slopes. In the UK and Europe, new data published in 2024 shows a sharp rise in loneliness among people in their twenties. This reveals patterns in social interaction, or rather the lack thereof. As The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson wrote last week, we’re living it. Anti-social century. Far from being an American-specific trend, it is sweeping the West. The proportion of young people on both sides of the Atlantic who regularly socialize with friends, family or colleagues has fallen significantly. In Europe, the proportion who do not socialize even once a week has risen from one in ten to four.
People in their teens and twenties now have as much fun as someone 10 years older than them once did. Not so much that 30 is the new 20, and 20 is the new 30. Less fun and less partying means less sex and less drinking. Both are developments welcomed by the public health community, but they hide a darker side.
Trends in time spent alone parallel trends in mental health. Mental stress levels They are increasing among young people, but not among middle-aged or older people. Wealth of Public health Studies have shown that the two are not just coincidental but causally connected. Time spent alone is strongly related. Low life satisfaction And in fact High mortality.
Some of the most important evidence comes in the form of detailed time-use records from the US and UK, which show significant increases in time spent alone among teenagers and young adults over the past decade, but no change in older age groups. Most importantly, this diary data captures how people feel in their daily lives as they do different things with (or without) different people.
A clear and consistent finding More time spent alone is associated with lower life satisfaction, and people report lower levels of happiness when doing the same task alone compared to a friend. Using the levels of happiness and meaning Americans attach to various activities in these records, I find that the decline in young people’s life satisfaction between 2010 and 2023 can be largely explained by changes in the way they spend their time.
The most obvious culprit in time and age congestion is the proliferation of smartphones and attention-grabbing social media that have started to drive the short-form video era into overdrive. Of the dozens of activities reviewed by US Time Use Data, solitary hours spent playing games, scrolling through social media and watching videos were the least significant.
The fact that these ratings are spent hours on end by teenagers and adults glued to their devices underscores the tragedy of this story: the sufferers are somehow aware of what’s wrong but seemingly powerless to prevent it.
It’s a story of the youth of the last decade turning away from their most rewarding pursuits and replacing them – consciously or otherwise – with pale imitations. Like the proverbial frog in a pot of water, the damage done at any given time is too subtle to cut out easily, but we can begin to reach a fire that has been simmering for years inside us.
john.burn-murdoch@ft.com, @jburnmurdoch
