Loneliness is a felt experience that has nothing to do with whether someone has friends or is surrounded by people. It happens when what someone’s wants doesn’t line up with the quality of the friendship they are experiencing. Our kids can “show up” (and put in all the effort) and still feel like they aren’t truly seen and heard.  

A 20-year-old girl I spoke to recently explained it like this, “I’ve got some friends. I go out a lot. I’m not alone but no one knows what it is like to live inside my head and inhabit my bones.” My interpretation of her poetic words, “My relationships are not an authentic exchange. I don’t feel I can be myself.” 

We often associate loneliness with the child sitting by themselves at lunch or the one who keeps getting left out of group chats, but that isn’t always the case. Kids who might appear to be thriving on the outside can be quietly aching on the inside, and that’s something we don’t talk about nearly enough.

Very sadly, loneliness has become one of the defining challenges facing today’s constantly connected young people. Right now, there is a genuine epidemic of loneliness crippling young people. In Australia, 15 to 24-year-olds report the highest levels of loneliness of any age group, while older Australians now report the lowest. Around 60 per cent of young people Australia-wide report feeling lonely. This figure is even higher in regional and remote areas.

This is significant for a few reasons. 

We often think of loneliness as ‘just’ a painful emotion. However, it turns out it’s not just painful but quite dangerous for our kids. Emotional illness may not always show up first on death statistics, but it is one of the greatest and fastest-growing sources of suffering, disability and lost healthy life in our time. 

Researchers can now quantify loneliness’s impact on our physical bodies especially on cardiovascular health and overall mortality risk, with some analyses suggesting that a lack of social connection carries a risk comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. That alone should stop us in our tracks.

But how does an emotion translate into physical damage? It sounds a bit abstract, doesn’t it? We can understand this by grounding it in our evolutionary wiring. Humans survived because there is safety in numbers. Being part of a group didn’t just feel good. It signalled to our nervous system that we were protected. Strip that away and our body enters a chronic stress state, flooding the system with cortisol and inflammation which has a real impact on our physical health.

There is another physical connection that we don’t always talk about. When our kids have friends, they are more physically active. They are out and about in the world. They are also getting social cues on how to take care of themselves, which significantly shapes their self-care habits. No wonder loneliness is so strongly associated with increased risk of depression and anxiety. Most concerning to me is that loneliness doesn’t just hurt in the moment.

Over time that can alter both behaviour patterns and neural pathways, making it harder for young people to form future connections when they are older. This might show up in ways that make future connection harder, including increased sensitivity to social threat, negative social expectations, and patterns of withdrawal or self-protection.

What can we do to help?

Lift the stigma. For many young people, there is a stigma attached to loneliness. After all, aren’t they supposed to have an abundance of friends at this age? It can be a difficult experience to describe and embarrassing for many kids to talk about. When adolescents are unable to name feelings, or bottle them up, they can get worse. Think of Pandora’s box. When the lid is shut, those trapped feelings spin around and intensify. That is when many adolescents begin to think, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ or ‘Should I feel more secure?’ or ‘Why don’t I have a best friend?’ These thoughts can quickly lead to the false belief that they are the only one feeling this sense of void. This isn’t a space in which we want to see any child linger.

Ask the right questions. Asking the right questions can help them articulate the gap between their longing and their experience. Once the gap is named and the story is untangled, we can help them be more proactive about not looping on unhelpful narratives. Questions parents can ask include:

• If you could design a friendship, what would it ideally look like?
• When you think of friendship, do you want a big group, one friendship or a few close friends?
• Do you prefer friendships that are deep, fun, chilled, predictable or spontaneous, or a mix?
• Whose friendships do you admire?
• What do you like about them?

Identify potential triggers. Anyone can experience loneliness, but it’s often triggered by significant life events, transitions or poor mental health. Moving schools, friendship breakdowns, family changes, health challenges, anxiety and depression can all make it harder for young people to feel connected to others. Being aware of these triggers and talking openly about loneliness can help adolescents make sense of what they are experiencing.

School choice matters. Interestingly, research identifies that “where a child goes to school” matters. This is because some schools do a better job of addressing bullying, creating supportive cultures and developing programs to help kids forge stronger friendships. Sometimes change is necessary. Finding places to be seen, heard and accepted, both inside and outside of school, is the only way through loneliness. 

Finally, we need to acknowledge the role technology plays in the social landscape our kids are growing up in. Today, a disagreement, awkward moment or unpopular opinion can have very public consequences, making many adolescents feel as though judgement is only a click away. When the social fallout from conflict feels so visible, it can become harder for young people to speak honestly, take risks in relationships and work through difficulties together. Yet interestingly, research suggests that loneliness is not simply linked to the amount of time adolescents spend on technology. Instead, it appears to be more closely related to a lack of meaningful face-to-face interactions, where trust, belonging and connection are built. Technology can help young people stay in touch, but it cannot fully replace the depth of connection in real life. 

You will find more about this topic in my book Friendship Smart