Young adult loneliness extends beyond the screen
Published on 25 October 2026 at 02:49 GMT
By Editorial Team SDG3
Loneliness among young people is receiving growing public-health attention as evidence challenges its association with old age. Digital contact can coexist with emotional disconnection, while insecurity at work and at home is associated with higher loneliness. The emerging picture raises questions about the conditions in which younger adults build relationships, alongside the continuing isolation experienced by older people.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported in June 2025 that approximately one in six people worldwide experienced loneliness. Its estimates for age groups spanning 13 to 29 ranged from 17% to 21%, with the highest rates among teenagers. These are estimates across populations, rather than a prediction of any individual's experience.
Loneliness and social isolation describe different problems. In the WHO definition, loneliness is the painful gap between desired and actual connections; isolation concerns an objective shortage of social connections. A busy social calendar therefore cannot establish whether someone feels understood or supported. Equally, time spent alone does not automatically indicate distress.
Different vulnerabilities across generations
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reported in 2025 that people aged 16 to 24 experienced the largest increase in loneliness between 2018 and 2022 in the countries covered by its analysis. Older people remained particularly exposed to isolation: 11% reported never meeting friends in person in a typical year, more than twice the general-population rate.
The comparison complicates an age-based hierarchy of concern. Young people's reported distress and older people's limited contact describe overlapping but distinct experiences. Treating the two measures as interchangeable would obscure both. It also leaves open how support can reflect different circumstances without making one generation's experience the benchmark for another.
Connected online without feeling connected
Research from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) challenges the idea that constant connectivity necessarily produces meaningful relationships. Its December 2024 account of analysis using the 2022 EU loneliness survey distinguished passive consumption from active engagement and instant messaging.
Intensive passive social-media use was associated with greater loneliness. The analysis found no significant association with intensive instant messaging or active social-media use. That finding does not establish that those activities prevent loneliness. It does show why an undifferentiated measure of screen time can conceal different forms of contact.
Causation also remains unresolved by an association: lonely people may turn towards passive browsing, browsing may contribute to disconnection, or other circumstances may influence both. A message exchanged with a close friend and a stream of posts viewed without interaction are different experiences, even when both appear as time online. The findings leave limited grounds for describing either all digital communication as harmful or online availability as proof of companionship.
The insecurity surrounding relationships
A study by Lluís Mangot-Sala and colleagues, published online in November 2024, examined 3,337 participants in the Barcelona Health Survey 2021. Job insecurity, temporary employment, financial hardship and insecure housing were among the factors associated with higher loneliness scores. The association with job insecurity was stronger among younger participants than among those aged 36 to 50.
The study's youngest age category was under 35, so its findings cannot be treated as a separate estimate for people in their twenties. Its cross-sectional design also prevents a conclusion that insecure employment or housing caused loneliness. The pandemic setting further limits direct generalisation to other periods and places.
Nevertheless, the research places insecure work and housing within the investigation of loneliness. It examined both material conditions and anticipated insecurity, including the prospect of losing employment or being forced to move. This distinction captures uncertainty about future stability as well as present resources. Employment status alone cannot describe those differences: having a job can coexist with an insecure contract, just as having accommodation can coexist with a threatened move.
The places and time available for community life
Urban mobility adds another question: whether places to meet are accessible within everyday journeys. The OECD identifies the availability, accessibility and welcoming character of libraries, parks, community organisations and other shared spaces as relevant to relationships. Their presence on a map does not establish how easily a resident can use them. Distance, access and opportunities for repeated encounters connect the built environment to the practical organisation of social life.
Evidence on community participation also resists a simple story of uninterrupted decline. England's Community and Engagement Survey 2025/26 recorded monthly formal volunteering at 18% among people aged 16 and over, up from 17% in 2024/25 but below 23% in 2019/20. Among 25 to 34-year-olds it was 12%, compared with 25% among 65 to 74-year-olds.
The survey, published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, concerns England, not a worldwide youth trend. Formal volunteering is also only one part of community life. It cannot capture every friendship group, informal act of help or form of participation, and its age differences do not establish that younger adults have withdrawn from community organisations over time.
These qualifications change the question from whether young people are simply less sociable to how different opportunities for connection are distributed and measured. The link to SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) concerns the health implications of loneliness across the life course. WHO identifies associations with mental and physical ill health and calls for social connection to become a public-health priority. The evidence documents vulnerability in youth alongside old age, while leaving the relative effects of digital habits, insecurity and community access open to further investigation.
Written by a human author, edited with AI assistance.
Further information:
World Health Organization, its June 2025 release supports the global estimates, definitions and health context.
OECD, Social Connections and Loneliness in OECD Countries supports the age comparison and discussion of shared spaces.
European Commission Joint Research Centre, its December 2024 analysis distinguishes passive social-media use, active engagement and messaging.
Lluís Mangot-Sala and colleagues, Emerging socioeconomic correlates of loneliness documents the Barcelona findings and their methodological limits.
Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Community and Engagement Survey 2025/26 provides England's volunteering trends and age comparisons.
