An epidemic of loneliness
Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for adolescents: are digital technologies to blame? Why do technologies designed to foster connectedness and relationships seem to be producing the opposite effect? Center founder Jeffrey Cole explores the issue.
By Jeffrey Cole
In early November, University of Southern California President Carol L. Folt sent a campus-wide email addressing the problem of nine student deaths since August 24th. (The Center is part of the Annenberg School at USC.) It was the fifth email of the semester dealing with this horrible problem, and it let the community know that increased counseling and mental health support have been established on campus.
Of the nine deaths, at least three were suicides. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 10 and 24.
All campuses deal with these issues. To its credit, USC is one of the few to go public, acknowledging the problem, the numbers, and efforts to address it.
Adolescence has always been an extremely difficult developmental phase, regardless of the era or generation. It is a time of beginning to separate from parents, trying on new personalities, dealing with the temptations of alcohol, drugs, and sex, and determining your place in the world and whether you fit in. It is an age full of physical change, doubt, “mean girls,” and bullying.
Generation Z (born 1997-2012) faces a particularly difficult and unique set of challenges. They became teenagers during the Great Recession, when the path to college and a good job suddenly was in doubt as graduates faced immense student debt and the most difficult job market in generations.
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Is digital technology the distinguishing factor that separates today’s teenagers from the generations that came before? If so, will it ultimately help them move past loneliness and detachment, or will it compound the problem as they move into adulthood and middle age? Will it interfere with getting on the path to successful careers and stable, long-term relationships?
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Worse yet, they grew up in an era of school shootings (beginning with Columbine in 1999) and fear that the planet and environment had been ruined for them by previous generations.
Especially worrisome are the large numbers of students who feel lonely and disconnected from other people. What used to be simple tasks–finding friends, a romantic partner, or a group to belong to–now feel impossibly difficult. Loneliness is a chronic disease creating overwhelming feelings of hopelessness and despair.
Every generation of young people has faced special challenges and problems. The”Greatest Generation” had to deal with World War II while boomers faced Vietnam. They eventually dealt with these issues and came through to lead normal lives. The same is likely for Gen Z.
However, there is one critical difference with today’s post-millennial generation: they have had digital technology and social media almost all of their lives.
Is this a phase or the new normal for today’s adolescents?
Is digital technology the distinguishing factor that separates today’s teenagers from the generations that came before? If so, will it ultimately help them move past loneliness and detachment, or will it compound the problem as they move into adulthood and middle age? Will it interfere with getting on the path to successful careers and stable, long-term relationships?
It’s easy to conclude that the internet, mobile phones, and social media are the causes of today’s adolescents’ problems. However, this easy conclusion ignores other pressing issues completely separate from personal technology: adolescents today face the greatest political and economic divides in at least 100 years.
Mark Zuckerberg says he created Facebook to foster human connection, first on the Harvard campus and today to 2.6 billion people. But if that were the case, shouldn’t it be easier than ever to be heard and find friends and form relationships? Instead the opposite seems to be true. We may have far more acquaintances, but far fewer deep relationships. It is the deep relationships that make us feel that we belong.
Studies of social media have shown that using Facebook causes many people to feel depressed. (For example, see this 2017 piece in the Harvard Business Review.) Rather than becoming connected, looking at Facebook made users feel that “everyone else is having a better life” since we only see other people’s enviable moments -enjoying a fabulous vacation or winning an award. It’s like a highly edited film with only the good parts left in. Yet this is what we compare ourselves to.
Any parent will tell you about smartphone and social media addiction. Instagram (which Facebook owns) is trying to quell some of the feelings of inadequacy by suppressing some of the data on likes, hoping to diminish social media users’ addiction to instant feedback on their lives.
Most worrisome, heavy users of phones, apps, and social media seem to be developing online relationships at the expense of face-to-face friendships and interactions. Lost in the online relationships are some of the fundamental skills of connection: empathy, social cues, reading people’s faces and tone, eye contact, and other essential qualities of being a friend or partner.
Here are the trillion-dollar questions: are these changes brought about by digital technology just a phase of youth or are they permanent? As today’s Gen Z’s mature, will they develop satisfying careers and relationships? Or, is all this technology creating a profound change that will distinguish this generation from any that came before? Will loneliness and disconnection follow them into adulthood and lead to more anxiety, general despair, drug addiction or alcoholism, shorter life expectancy, and suicide?
What’s next?
To the degree that digital technology causes or leads to loneliness or despair, we need to do more than just examine it: we need to find solutions.
Starting in 2020, the Center for the Digital Future intends to devote significant, time, energy, and resources to understand and combat the role of digital technology in creating or exacerbating loneliness, depression, and lack of social connections.
For 20 years, we have been tracking social behaviors, how we spend our time, the number and nature of online and offline relationships, and much more about our personal lives. We now want to combine that data with new areas of inquiry to look at how communications technologies may lead to increased alienation and hopelessness.
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Jeffrey Cole is the founder and director of The Center for the Digital Future at USC Annenberg.
See all columns from the center.
December 4, 2019