A study at Harvard University has revealed that since the 2000s, adults, teens, and seniors have all experienced a decrease in friendships. The rise of social media, lack of accessible third spaces, and digital age of “connection” have all contributed to a cultural shift towards loneliness. This affects kids at school, adults in the workplace, and seniors who lack family connections.
Since COVID-19, our world has become digitalized. Instead of going to meetings filled with people sitting shoulder to shoulder, most information is communicated via Zoom for convenience. Instead of going to someone’s house for tutoring, many people watch YouTube for free. Instead of flying to see family, seniors FaceTime their grandkids. The digitalization of connection has changed everything.
At Osos, many kids find it hard to break through social barriers and make friends since the rise of social media has taken place. It’s difficult enough to make new friends when everyone has established friendships, but social media worsens these conditions.
Junior Chris Gurule, a transfer student to Osos, says, “I feel like it’s difficult to make friends because this school is involved in a lot of cliques and people are already enclosed in their own friendships. People are desensitized to whether they make friends or not. It took me a really long time to make friends.”
Social media forces people to present a version of themself that is polished, perfect, and distant. By not revealing vulnerabilities, our brain rewires itself to stay detached. Without an outside connection, our brains, specifically the amygdala, feel more threatened when rejected from friendship, triggering the physical pain indicator and preventing us from seeking connection again. The cycle of loneliness is endless.
Although it’s hard to make friends with new people, it’s important for our brains. Most Americans stay in their own homes instead of venturing outside, and screentime has only risen as a result. Pew research reveals that the number of people affiliated with religion has decreased from 26 percent to 17 percent, and the participation in community organizations, such as a sports league or volunteering, has also decreased by 10 percent. Americans are spending less time in the community and more time alone.
Forty percent of American teens say they have online-only friendships and are reported to only spend 40 minutes a day on average with their friends outside of school, contrasting with the 140 minutes from over 20 years ago. In contrast, screen time has increased for teens to nine hours per day on average, whereas it was seven hours a day 10 years ago.
Sophomore Roma Balbus said, “I think online friends are really different from friends you hang out with in real life because the conversation feels more real and you can have more opportunities to do more activities and go to a theme park or arcade, but with online friends, the most you can do virtually is play video games.”
In the workplace, many people are less involved in their coworkers’ lives. Teens are worried about going to work because they don’t know how to connect with older generations.
Gurule continues, “I’m worried about making friends in the workplace because there’s a huge age gap that divides a lot of older people from younger people in their humor and how they connect.”
Whether it’s at work or school, connection is difficult. Although it can be challenging, community connections are important and should be a priority, not impossible to fit in. Work, both academic and professional, has become the defining trait of the American identity instead of an addition to it. Students strive for good grades to get into good colleges, and adults strive for promotions to provide financially for themselves and their families. Because of this intense pressure, time set aside for friends becomes neglected.
Balbas says, “School work, especially with honors or advanced classes, can give you a lot of workload and consume the day, preventing us from hanging out with our friends and having fun. Hard work comes with exhaustion and tires you out of friendship opportunities.”
Third spaces, such as coffee shops, parks, and community centers, have made natural connections difficult to come by and cost money. Places to relax outside of home or work/school are important, but because of the individualistic nature of American society, free time has become a luxury that, most of the time, is expensive.
Economic issues such as higher gas prices, less financial aid for college students, and expensive healthcare have all added to Americans needing to pour their time into work alone to survive. It’s almost impossible to make time to be with new people, and it’s uncomfortable and hard to be vulnerable for someone you don’t trust yet.
But that’s the point. Taking risks is what makes us feel alive. Being rejected, uncomfortable, and risky fires our brains. Rejection spurs innovation and ultimately growth. By allowing ourselves to be subject to systems of loneliness, we are allowing the focus to stay on going through the motions instead of actually living.
Don’t spend hours scrolling through a life you want to live when you could spend those same hours doing something you love with someone you love. Even if the connection is uncomfortable, it’s better than stagnation. Reach out to the person you’ve been thinking about. Life only happens for a short amount of time, so spend it living the way that gives you and the people around you joy.