FINANCIAL TIMES: Young people are hanging out less — it may be harming their mental health

Jan. 26, 2025

What do the loneliness epidemic, falling rates of adolescent drinking and dating, and worsening mental health among teenagers and young adults have in common?

For starters, two of them are disputed to some degree. The paucity of solid historical data on loneliness has led some to question whether there has been any rise at all, let alone an epidemic. And on young adult mental health, some argue that a significant portion of the observed increase in problems is simply picking up cases that would previously have gone undiagnosed, while others point to misleading statistics.

Sceptics are not wrong to raise doubts, and there has almost certainly been a degree of overstatement. But as time passes and both data and testimony mount, there is growing acknowledgment that the absence of concrete causal evidence does not constitute evidence of absence. Indeed there is an increasing sense that these phenomena may not only be real, but all part of the same wider shift: plummeting in-person socialising among young people.

Until recently, the evidence on loneliness was weak at best, but surveys that previously showed it declining among US high school seniors now show steep climbs. In the UK and Europe, new data published in 2024 shows a marked rise in loneliness among people in their twenties. This mirrors patterns in socialising, or rather the lack thereof. As the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson wrote last week, we are increasingly living in the antisocial century. Far from being a US-specific trend, this is sweeping the western world. The share of young people on either side of the Atlantic who regularly meet up socially with friends, family or colleagues has dropped sharply. In Europe, the share who don’t even socialise once a week has risen from one in ten to one in four.

GO FURTHER: https://www.ft.com/content/23053544-fede-4c0d-8cda-174e9bdce348