Throughout the entire life cycle, human beings want—and need—to be accompanied. Our nature is social and we are by definition tied to the company of others. For this reason, it is expected that we will find it spontaneous to refer to our peers constantly and with endless pretexts, from resolving a conflict to seeking affection.
Loneliness is usually a common target among the most frequent fears of human beings, and with good reason, since this fear is rooted in our history as a species. Furthermore, loneliness could threaten certain significant projects that we intend to undertake in our lives.
Solitude can be very good when it is desired, since it opens a world of possibilities for introspection and self-knowledge. Nevertheless, The experience of feeling alone and not wanting it can be, in addition to being painful, a predictor of deterioration in mental health and psychological disorders.
Various scientific research has shown that loneliness is linked to higher risks of depression and suicide and poorer general health, including higher mortality from all causes.
This has been studied extensively in the older adult population. However, there is a tendency to ignore that loneliness can also affect young people. The effects on this population can be equally serious, even more so taking into consideration the particularities of this stage of life. For this reason, in this article we will develop how loneliness affects young people.
Human beings are so affected by loneliness because we are “configured” for life in society. The need to belong can be analyzed from two broad perspectives. On the one hand, from an evolutionary vision: thanks to coexistence with our peers we have been able to land at the point where we are today. Thousands of years ago, we have been able to develop increasingly complex strategies to hunt or defend ourselves from predators by bonding with other human beings. Consequently, we have been able to deploy an arsenal of mechanisms for adaptation that we retain today as baggage and that are inscribed in our brain.
Besides, We avoid loneliness and tend to form social support networks while many of our personal projects are, in short, interpersonal projects Human beings, through the socialization process, have internalized the norms imposed by the social environment and have learned to guide our behaviors within the margins of what is possible to do and what is not.
In fact, it is curious how both perspectives intersect at some point: the prefrontal cortex—at an evolutionary level, one of the last areas of the brain to develop—is the neurobiological support for those functions that allow us to live in society in a harmonious way and that In short, they ensure survival. Such is the case of one of the executive functions, inhibitory control, which allows us to be able to inhibit inappropriate social behaviors. These would ultimately be unhelpful for adaptation, for example, shouting in a library where many people are reading (under the risk that, with good reason, we might be banned from entering afterwards).
The effects of unwanted loneliness
In short, we are not prepared for isolation and, therefore, it is expected that the experience of feeling alone will generate high levels of discomfort. Although it varies depending on the population studied, most research agrees that one in four people feels alone On the other hand, studies support that unwanted loneliness affects people in a noticeable and negative way. Loneliness is related to a greater probability of developing behaviors that are harmful to health, such as increased tobacco consumption and risk of hypertension and coronary heart disease, and lower levels of physical activity. However, the most affected is mental health.
The latter can suffer serious deterioration. To cite one case, a research carried out in Spain concluded that people surveyed who said they felt lonely scored worse on the “mental health” variable than people who did not say they felt that way; four times worse in men and three times worse in women.
Many problems are easily attributed to young people, but loneliness is not among the most common. There is an erroneous belief that the experience of feeling alone is typical of old age and that, therefore, it is incompatible with other instances of the life cycle like youth. This belief is nothing more than a consequence of a conception of youth as the stage that represents “the fullness of life”; where the biological body is at its maximum potential and the possibilities for the future seem infinite. Various authors attribute the consolidation of this vision of youth to the sociocultural transformations that originated in the sixties.
The stereotype of youth and social stigma
However, such a perspective can make invisible the experiences of many young people who, despite being at the “peak” of their lives, feel alone. This idea is sometimes accompanied by stereotypes about what it means to “be young.” Therefore, those who do not fit such a stereotype are stigmatized On many occasions, the young person who feels alone even internalizes that stigma: he believes that he does not ought feel like this, that has no real motives to experience unpleasant thoughts and emotions due to loneliness. Their experience, despite being valid and scientifically studied, is veiled by what we believe is youth: friendships, projects, fun. Beyond this, we emphasize the fact that loneliness in young people is not an isolated or strange phenomenon, but is increasingly common globally.
Contact through social networks
Furthermore, as paradoxical as it may seem, one of the main reasons why this phenomenon occurs is that many young people maintain contact with their social ties through the Internet and social networks instead of privileging face to face. This places them in a particularly vulnerable place when faced with the ghost of loneliness: lRelationships become fragile, ephemeral, in Bauman’s terms, liquid. More than links, we could even say that they maintain connections with their friends.
Messaging is fleeting, instantaneous, and young people can infer how another person feels from the content they publish on their social networks.
However, we know well that Behind an image an accumulation of suffering can reside Digital connections limit us when it comes to knowing specifically how others feel and what they need from others. Youth loneliness, as a phenomenon born in the digital age, is not a problem that must be solved individually: it is a problem that afflicts an entire generation and that represents, perhaps, the flip side of all the benefits that the Internet brings. to our lives.
Luckily, there are digital platforms that counteract this tendency to maintain relationships on screens. Looplan is a clear example of this, since this fun app, which is designed to make friends, proposes activities to do with the people we have met in this application. A perfect context to devirtualize people with whom we have a lot in common.
In conclusion, unwanted loneliness is an experience that harms well-being and health, both physical and mental, and can affect not only adults and older adults, but also young people. As many professionals say, it is important that we learn to be alone and stay “inside.” However, to make this possible it is essential to have a support network as a background; with a group of loved ones capable of containing an individual in the face of life’s adversities. For this reason, we emphasize the importance of going to a mental health professional if you feel alone and accompanying any young person who may be going through this situation.
