Loneliness is a feeling that doesn’t feel good.
We can feel lonely at a party where the only person we know is the host. Or we can feel lonely when we’re not immediately invited to join a lunch table in the cafeteria. It’s especially easy to feel lonely when we see friends on social media appearing to enjoy wonderful adventures as we’re sitting at home.
Most of the time, these instances of loneliness are transitory. We meet a new person at the party, we find someone to eat with, and we recognize the curation of social media. But sometimes, loneliness deepens and begins to take a toll not only on our mental health, but also our physical well-being.
In May 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a report headlined “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” In his introductory letter, Murthy wrote that in years of meetings with citizens throughout the country, people told him they felt isolated, invisible, and insignificant. Of even greater concern: Murthy found research indicating that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly half of all U.S. adults reported feeling enough loneliness for it to be considered a problem.
A year ago, in January 2024, a poll conducted by the American Psychiatric Association showed that nearly one- third of adults reported feeling lonely at least once a week and 10% said they are lonely every day. Rates of loneliness were higher for people in the 18-34 age group, with 30% indicating they are lonely every day or several times a week. When asked how lonely they felt post-COVID, 43% of those responding said there was no change from before; 25% said they were lonelier; and 23% felt less lonely.
One of the challenges when we think about loneliness, says Peter LeViness, Ph.D., formerly the head of Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at the University of Richmond, is that loneliness is often felt in the negative – not what a person has, but what’s missing. “You can feel lonely in a crowd because there’s no one you feel particularly connected to,” he says. “It’s really about not having a close confidant, companionship, or a close friend.”
Michelle Buhrandt, LCSW, owner of RVA Counseling, adds that loneliness can be felt as an emotion – “a sense of isolation and disconnection” – as well as something physical or practical. “It can also be about limited social contact and the absence of connecting physical touch,” she says.
Some clinical mental health issues – such as clinical depression or anxiety – are not universal, but loneliness is. Every person will, at some point in their lives, feel lonely, says
Heather Cole, LPC, M.Ed., a therapist with Westhampton Family Psychologists. Instead of focusing on the heaviness of loneliness, Cole prefers to talk about belonging: how a person feels connected to others and the world around them, whether that be home, school, work and beyond.
“When people don’t feel like they belong, that’s when we get some of these much bigger struggles, such as social isolation, withdrawal, low self-esteem,” Cole says. “We all want to feel welcomed.”
What Causes Loneliness?
Loneliness isn’t caught, like an illness, but rather can develop as a result of other factors in a person’s life. Having a physical or learning difference can lead to feelings of isolation. So can times of transition – moving to a new community or a new neighborhood, switching schools as part of grade progression, or experiencing the death of a pet or loved one – because established support networks are disrupted or may seem unable to offer needed support.
Buhrandt says it’s common for new clients in her practice to indicate they’ve recently moved to the region and don’t have established connections. The whole family may suffer, with parents struggling to find the time to meet and make new friends, children missing out on playdates or social excursions because they’re “new,” and spouses relying too much on one another. “Loneliness puts an immense amount of pressure on romantic partnerships to fill in all these needs of socializing,” she says.
LeViness agrees. “I don’t think there’s a single relationship that can provide everything,” he says, adding that it can be easy for adults to undervalue friendships and relationships. “We might think other things are more important to invest time in, like work or family. But most of us would be better off if our romantic partner weren’t our only friend.”
Of course, the pandemic had an effect, too, as children missed out on learning how to socialize with their peers. In Buhrandt’s practice, team members often use role play and prompts to help children become more comfortable with casual interactions, such as how to respond when a classmate comes to school and says they got a new puppy for their birthday. “It’s about how to engage, how to continue the conversation,” she says.
Combining COVID with the transition to college was also unhelpful. “Every college has a whole class of students who didn’t really get a traditional first year, with the activities to connect people,” LeViness notes. “People really missed out on the relationship-building and connections that happened. In a residential college, there’s a lot that goes on in that first year.”
The use of smart phones and social media can be a contributing factor to loneliness, if technology replaces in-person interaction. Parents may have been happy to provide a mobile phone for their elementary-aged child initially, pointing to ease of communication for changes to a day’s schedule or an in-school emergency, but Buhrandt says she’s seeing more parents delaying handing their child a phone. She also notes that schools are starting to impose limits on phone use during the day.
Social media itself has pluses and minuses. “There are articles that rightly critique overuse of social media, but it depends on what you’re using it for,” LeViness says. “If you’re just scrolling through and thinking about all the things you don’t have or aren’t doing, that’s not useful. But if you’re using it to connect or stay in touch with people – communicating with a real human being – there are some real positives about that.”
Cole says it’s also important to pay attention to whether you, or your child, is an extrovert or introvert. Broadly put, an extrovert is energized by interactions with others, while introverts expend energy when they’re with others and need time on their own to recharge. “You have to think about aloneness versus loneliness,” she says. “Introverts can handle aloneness, but when aloneness becomes isolation, introverts can be more susceptible to anxiety and depression, from my experience.”
Introverts may have a harder time reaching out for support, she says, while extroverts might more easily call a friend. Regardless of personality type, Cole notes, it’s the quality of relationships that matters, not the quantity. “One person to an introvert could feel like a full room to an extrovert,” she says.
Looking for Loneliness
Younger children don’t have the language skills to share when they’re feeling disconnected. Rather, Cole says parents of littles should be on the lookout for behaviors – such as avoiding playing with others or aches and pains that may be caused by anxiety – that can lead to isolation. “There are a lot of physical symptoms, and it’s important to get those checked out by a doctor,” she says, “but social anxiety can manifest as headaches or stomach aches, which then prevents having a playdate or going to a birthday party.” Buhrandt recommends early conversations about emotions and, again, observation. “You’re looking for something that’s not there, rather than something that is there,” she says. “Maybe it’s a lack of interest in their peers, or when they report socializing, it’s a negative interaction.”
As children continue to mature, they should desire time with friends. “When they reach school age, they should have an interest in wanting to play and be with others,” Buhrandt says. “In teens, you would look for the signs they are trying to push socialization away, such as an extreme disinterest in hygiene or appearance.” Loneliness during this time may be harder to pinpoint because it’s natural for teens to pull away from and become less communicative with parents and spend more time in their bedrooms. “It’s normal for parents to be sad about their teen pulling away, but when I hear that, I’m hearing that you have a healthy adolescent,” Buhrandt says.
LeViness recommends parents keep the lines of communication as open as possible, even if conversations are uncomfortable, to ensure concerns can be voiced, heard, and managed appropriately. “People can be too quick to put mental health labels on experiences that are part of everyday life, that are normal transitions,” LeViness says. “It’s good that talking about mental health is more acceptable [than it once was], but there are problems within the crisis narrative. There are disappointments in life, and to call the reaction ‘depression’ muddies the water. We may be using that word a little too broadly to encompass a whole range of emotions and reactions.”
Helping our Children and Ourselves
Ideally, the best way to avoid overwhelming loneliness is to seek connections, the experts agree. Connectivity looks different at different stages of life, and a person’s ability to forge those connections also changes over time. “In a younger population, belonging isn’t a child’s responsibility; that’s the adult problem,” Cole says. “Families, schools, communities … they all have to foster community and inclusion. If you see a kid on the playground always by themselves, we need to help them make those connections.”
It’s important to talk about loneliness, she says. “We have to be proactive, as parents, to teach our children what loneliness is,” Cole notes. “We all know what feelings are, so we can talk about what loneliness feels like, and then we can find someone the kid will listen to – a grandparent or cousin.”
Fostering inclusivity is especially important for children who may have an obvious – or not so-obvious – difference, whether physical or intellectual. Cole recommends that parents read books to their children that show a variety of people with different life experiences and abilities. “We need to teach kids how to engage with others,” she says. “Maybe that’s reading a book about inclusion and turning it into a conversation.”
As children grow older, it’s helpful to find activities or groups where they can explore their interests, but don’t go overboard. “You want a combination of unstructured play and structured play,” Buhrandt advises. “We see parents with good intentions who overschedule their kids.”
It’s also useful to do things as a family, following a child’s lead. “Follow the kid’s interests,” Buhrandt says. “Even if you can’t socialize outside the family unit, you can practice socializing within the family unit. You can play board games, put phones away at mealtimes, use conversational prompts.”
And children should see parents building and maintaining their own connections to others. “We can talk about healthy relationships, but we have to show it – to make space for it,” Cole says, adding that parents can help their children learn about what healthy relationships look like, about when to set healthy boundaries, or accept that a friendship isn’t clicking. “We have to let our kids experience the natural consequences of choosing friendships,” she says. “Not all of those will work out, and that will feel lonely. We can be there for them in those periods of loneliness.”
For older children, LeViness recommends following the child’s lead. “You want to encourage a student to pursue what they’re really interested in – their passions – because they’re probably going to meet similar people in the course of pursuing those things,” he says. And when a large transition is on the horizon, such as going to college, ask what’s on the student’s mind. “Ask ‘Who do you know there?’ or ‘What are some of the things you’ve thought about?’” he says. “Let them know you’re happy to have a conversation about it, that you don’t expect them to have all the answers. It’s always dangerous to offer unsolicited advice.”
Remember, Cole says, loneliness is lessened when we feel heard and understood. “That doesn’t mean you won’t ever feel lonely or experience loneliness, but finding ways to engage with others can help mitigate other mental health struggles,” she says. “We’re constantly looking for control, so when loneliness is reframed as belonging, it gives us more of a sense of control, because we can look for ways to belong.”