The Loneliness Pandemic
A neglected crisis among young adults in America — Part 2
In Part 1 of this series we reviewed the adverse health effects that loneliness wreaks, covered national statistics on loneliness, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and then discussed risk factors for loneliness among young adults. While data on the state of loneliness in America paints a grim picture, research offers methods of tackling this crisis on individual, interpersonal, community, organizational, and structural levels.
In creating solutions for loneliness, we must — as individuals and as a whole — develop and nurture relationships that feed the soul. Supportive relationships help us to cope during tough times and to grow in the absence of tough times.¹ Moreover, deep, meaningful relationships provide an avenue for young adults to learn, develop, play, discover, and thrive.¹
The evidence-based strategies that follow offer ways to reduce loneliness for yourself and others, to support the young adults around you, and to help shape a new era of what might be coined “social un-distancing.” Strategies are divided by everyday actions that the average American can take, more concerted efforts that public service workers (e.g., policy makers, researchers, health care providers, etc.) can implement, and strategies that would be most successful as a joint effort between members of the general public and public service workers.
Individual behavior change
- Volunteer.² Volunteering, especially for 2+ hours per week, has been demonstrated to enhance emotional health and improve social self-efficacy, thereby alleviating loneliness.³ ⁴
- Integrate “flow” activities into a daily routine. When a person engages in a flow activity, nothing else seems to matter.⁵ These activities might include reading, drawing, or dancing.² ⁵
- Participate in activities that promote a sense of meaning, contribute to personal growth, and heighten social connectedness.² ⁵ For example, joining a meaningful group that contributes to social identification, like a sports team or book club, has been shown to reduce perceived isolation.⁶
- Develop coping skills. Health-conducive coping skills may include reflection and acceptance of lonely feelings, self-development and understanding, reestablishing or repairing one’s social support network, and drawing strength from religious or spiritual beliefs.⁷ Addressing and correcting maladaptive social cognition, or inaccurate beliefs about one’s social relationships or abilities, has been shown to be the most effective coping intervention for loneliness.⁷ ⁸
- Attend psychological counseling⁹ to build emotional resiliency, hone social skills, learn emotional regulation, repair non-secure attachment styles, and more.
- Use adjunctive pharmacological treatments⁹ in necessary cases under the supervision of a psychiatrist.
Relationship strengthening
- Make an effort to check in on your social connections that might be lonely, even those whom you are not as close to or have not seen in a while.¹⁰
- Converse with the young adults around you. About half of lonely young adults report that “no one in the past few weeks had ‘taken more than just a few minutes’ to ask how they are doing in a way that made them feel like the person ‘genuinely cared.’”¹¹ Anyone in proximity to young adults, including family, peers, educators, and coworkers, should not underestimate the impact that a few minutes of caring dialogue can make.
- Invest in a multiplicity of relationships. Intimate relationships (e.g., best friends, close family members, romantic partners) and broad, diverse social networks (e.g., community members, colleagues, school friends) are both crucial contributors to combatting loneliness.² ¹² In addition to building relationships organically, young adults can use technology to facilitate the development of a strong social support network. For example, apps like Bumble offer features to connect individuals with friends and professional peers in addition to romantic partners.
Programs and activities
- Look to programs such as “R U OK?” in Australia for a model of how to reach out to those around you and provide support. R U OK? is a harm reduction program that provides resources on how to connect with and have meaningful conversations around mental wellness with family, friends, and colleagues.
- Dedicate more resources to community organizations that facilitate social interaction,¹¹ such as youth centers. Though social distancing protocols may need to be instituted while the pandemic persists, youth centers can provide coaches, physical activity, social events, and more for young adults who could use a social outlet outside of school or work.
- Fund and promote the implementation of sustainable grassroots loneliness programs in schools and colleges.¹³ Examples of such programs include peer-to-peer mentorship programs, friendship benches, and buddy systems.¹³
- Encourage and train older adults to participate in formal youth mentoring programs that promote the value of the mentoring relationship as a primary goal.¹¹ ¹⁴ Pairing older adults with young adults would simultaneously benefit two groups known to be at-risk for loneliness.
Crisis support
- Build fact sheets and toolkits for how to cope with loneliness; such resources can prevent the progression of loneliness into a crisis. For instance, the CDC has an online resource bank for people experiencing loneliness.
- Create clear guidelines for young adults in crisis as to how they can respond in cases of severe and/or life-threatening loneliness and who they can reach out to. Recommendations should be easily accessible to a wide range of young adults and should be tailored to different language speakers and cultural groups.
- Develop crisis services specifically aimed at loneliness, especially those that foster interpersonal connection. While support groups and crisis helplines for other types of serious mental health difficulties (e.g. grief, depression, substance use, etc.) exist, similar services tailored to loneliness are scant.
- Publicize youth-centered crisis helplines, like Teen Line. Teen Line is a support line where teenagers can call, email, or text their concerns and chat in real time with peers who offer them support.¹⁵
Education
- Train adults, such as educators and health care providers, to identify and provide mentorship, support, and resources to young adults who may be at risk of loneliness.¹⁰ For example, the American Red Cross offers a 60-minute online course in Psychological First Aid that teaches participants how to support those experiencing stress during a crisis like COVID-19. Support does not always have to be an intensive effort; research has shown that even an encouraging word or acknowledgment can buffer the feeling of invisibility that often accompanies loneliness.¹
- Design educational campaigns around health-conducive ways of using social media.² Using social media platforms to strengthen existing relationships and to form new relationships — instead of relying on social media to compensate for a lack of current relationships — can decrease loneliness.² ¹⁶ ¹⁷ ¹⁸ ¹⁹
- Offer self-development workshops that help young adults discover what brings them meaning in life.²
Cultural shifts
- Reduce the cultural stigma attached to loneliness. People who are viewed as lonely, whether through their own admission or through others’ perceptions, may face ostracization as this condition is often viewed through the lens of inadequacy, failure, and defectiveness.²⁰ These social stigmas may lead to internalized shame,²¹ ²² which can then reinforce feelings of loneliness, hurt, and rejection.²³
- Normalize employers providing support for loneliness. Lonely employees may suffer from decreased creativity, productivity, and collaborative abilities as well as increased turnover and burnout.²⁴ Employers can enhance their organizational health by creating a ‘loneliness infrastructure,’ a set of strategies that identify and address loneliness among employees. Strategies might include collecting anonymous data on loneliness rates at the organization using established questionnaires (e.g., UCLA Loneliness Scale), having open dialogues around loneliness, leading structured activities to build interpersonal bonds, and instituting team arrangements that allow for deeper relationship building over long periods of time.²⁵
As the country staggers from the physical and mental toll of a pandemic, every American, not just public service workers, can play a role in reframing understandings of loneliness among our youth. By treating loneliness as a matter of public importance with compassion and transparency, we can deconstruct the culture of shame and secrecy around it. Oft considered a “personal” problem, loneliness is a timeless condition, compounded by the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” rugged individualism and interpersonal competition that permeate our society today.¹⁰ ²⁰
Can a revaluation of cooperative, communal values²⁶ and a revisitation of what it means to be a friend, a neighbor, a community member, or even a stranger help us to combat the pandemic of loneliness? How many of us know our neighbors beyond a friendly word or two? The people in our workplaces? Those who serve us at our local restaurants and grocery stores? An ironic consequence of an increasingly globalized society has been the reduced role that closer-to-home communities play in our daily lives.
Perhaps it’s time to cultivate a broadened conception of “loved ones,” one that extends past our immediate families and core friend circle,¹⁰ one that actively seeks out, offers, and receives connection from those around us in a meaningful way. Our health,²⁷ our economic prosperity,²⁸ and indeed, our stability as a society²⁹ may depend on it.
Atlas Research’s Health Equity Working Group is releasing a new series identifying and providing solutions to the complex challenges that underserved Americans face. We look forward to engaging with our readers and driving the conversation on topics such as mental health, Veterans’ health, homelessness, maternal health, economic disparities, racial justice, and more. Opinions expressed are that of the author, and do not necessarily reflect Atlas’ position.
