When Nina Kougan started graduate school at Northwestern University, she noticed that she connected with her friends and family in Chicago less often despite being closer to them from Northwestern’s campus.
“There’s that pressure to just focus on your career because that’s what’s going to set the stage for your life,” says Kougan, a first-year clinical psychology graduate student. “Sometimes your social relationships can be the first thing to go.”
Those who have ever experienced a breakup or a falling-out with friends might know weakened social relationships can often come with feelings of loneliness. Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy shone a spotlight on loneliness when he declared it a national issue in a 2023 report titled “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.”
The report noted that all adults, especially young adults, are spending less time together than they did two decades ago. It also pointed out dangerous physical impacts of loneliness, including increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and for older adults, dementia.
Kougan, who is studying the neuroscience behind affective states in adolescents, sees loneliness as feeling “emotionally withdrawn” and disconnected from others. She adds that people suffering from chronic loneliness struggle to reconnect after losing social relationships.
“You enter this negative cycle where you don’t have the energy or motivation to do things,” Kougan says of people with depression. “Even if you did have people to see, you might not be in the mood to go socialize.”
Experiencing mental health crises or even receiving a diagnosis can be isolating, Kougan says. The disorder’s symptoms might cause someone to struggle reconnecting with others, feeding back into the disorder itself, she adds.
Research shows there’s a pattern of loneliness throughout the adult lifespan across generations.
One study from Scientific Reports found that the feeling, rooted in a lack of intimate connection, follows a U-shaped distribution. It peaks in early and late adulthood and dips in middle adulthood between ages 26 and 86.
First-year clinical psychology graduate student Claire Bertrand notes that the transition out of college can be difficult for those enrolling in higher education, as people tend to lose the structures that allow for daily interaction with peers.
“When you enter the workplace, you have to put in more effort to maintain friendships,” Bertrand says. “It’s not just like, ‘Oh, I’m seeing this friend at school,’ or, ‘Oh, I’m gonna see this friend at soccer later.’”
Bertrand adds that adolescence and young adulthood are critical periods for social sensitivity. During these times, people tend to attribute the most value to social networks and rely on these networks to define their social roles, as they are establishing their identities and purpose in life.
The years after college might represent a time when people still heavily value social connections but lose the opportunities to form and maintain them, causing an increase in loneliness.
CDC data surveying Americans on social support, loneliness and social isolation found that the 18-29 age group consistently reported the highest percentage of loneliness throughout nine months in 2024.
Headlines warn of global friendship recessions and loneliness epidemics with objective factors – like in-person time spent with others – decreasing. At least from before the COVID pandemic, empirical evidence finds mixed results about whether feelings of loneliness have truly increased over time.
A 2015 study focusing on the U.S. found decreases in average loneliness in high school and college students.
A different 2021 study reported a slight increase in loneliness only in North America, while other continents showed no increase.
While Kougan emphasized the negative effects of loneliness, she said “‘epidemic’ is kind of a buzzword.”
She emphasized that it’s natural for people to become less social as they get older. She also noted there’s unclear evidence of the role social media plays in loneliness in the generation that grew up with it.
Social media can both help people connect online and keep them from building in-person relationships. With people engaging with their screens more often, social media platforms often replace face-to-face interactions, leading to weaker social bonds.
However, a 2023 meta-analysis says the “link between the digitalization of social interactions and loneliness seems weak.”
Instead of the rise of social media, Kougan points to the distinct path in American culture from school to the workforce as being connected to loneliness. This trajectory values career success over relationships which contributes to patterns of loneliness, she says.
“You’re expected to make more time for work, and that’s supposed to be the focus of your life.” Kougan said. “In the structure our society and culture has created, it doesn’t leave a lot of room to be social, especially as you get out of those bubbles of formal education settings.”
Young adults experiencing loneliness should consider that this could be a natural process associated with aging or undergoing life changes, while still addressing potential impacts on their mental and physical health. The National Institute of Aging recommends engaging in productive, meaningful activities with others, as well as scheduling time each day to connect with friends and family. After graduation, this can look like signing up for group classes to try an interesting new hobby or setting up FaceTime calls to catch up with your college best friends.
“Going to events where I don’t know anyone has helped me make new friends,” Bertrand says, “So put yourself out there.”
Methodology:
To create the data visualization, I used the CDC’s dataset on Lack of Social Connections. I filtered the “Indicator” column to just show respondents who marked that they “usually or always feel lonely,” as well as the “Group” column to filter out other demographics like sex, education level or state to just show age group. I copied this filtered data into a separate sheet and created a pivot table to reorganize and extract certain variables. I put the collection period start dates in rows, the sub age groups in columns and the corresponding percentage of respondents in values. I uploaded this pivot table into Flourish to create the multiple line chart, separated by age group.
