A viral pandemic is now the most serious public health crisis in a century and threatens to compound another epidemic that has been ravaging the United States for decades: loneliness.
More subtle and difficult to trace than COVID-19, this affliction is marked by an inadequate sense of belonging, seemingly meaningless relationships, and a life that can feel lacking in purpose. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, “two in five Americans report that they sometimes or always feel their social relationships are not meaningful … one in five say they feel lonely or socially isolated.”
Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general, says that a “social recession” after the coronavirus, not just an economic recession, is deeply worrying. And although the current reality seems like an alternate world, as Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner puts it, we “have been ‘social distancing’ for decades, and the result is an affliction as lethal as the coronavirus.”
You might imagine that if there exists a group of people with structural immunity from loneliness, it would be college students. Momentarily suspended between childhood and adulthood, young men and women are immersed in a community brimming with underage peers and intellectual stimulation, not to mention vapes and TikTok. College students enjoy what is arguably the most communal of life stages: They share rooms, eat together, go to classes and parties together, participate in clubs together, and date each other.
At least, that’s how it was for earlier generations.
My best friend’s mother used to regale us with stories of tailgating and fraternities at Lehigh University in the ‘80s (to embarrass her daughter, of course). But student life has changed; she once pointed to a “study harder” poster in her daughter’s dorm and joked it should instead read “party harder.”
It’s almost a source of pride to say, “My schedule’s packed — we haven’t had the chance to talk in months. Let’s get coffee in two weeks.”
A study by W. Bradford Wilcox of the Institute for Family Studies and the American Enterprise Institute shows the share of young adults who never attend religious services rising 18 percentage points since 2005. The same study shows that young people are also having less sex — surprising given campus hook-up culture and dating apps, but less surprising given that young adults are having relationships later and with less frequency than they used to.
This is the context for COVID-19 and the college-aged generation. How well equipped are students to deal with the effects of this virus, as well as combat social isolation, in comparison to other generations?
On the one hand, young people are uniquely poised to take advantage of the virtual networks that now are our only option for outside interaction. We’re experts at Zoom or even old-fashioned texting. But that very advantage could exacerbate the bad habits we’ve been building. As David Brooks writes, “Technology wants to make everything smooth, but friendship is about being adhesive.”
It’s possible that college students will emerge from this crisis even more detached than before, and important social interaction could wilt into a series of Snapchat streaks. Humans adapt to the environments they’re placed in, and it’s possible that we acclimate to being alone and lose the urge to reach out.
But it’s also possible that this experience will renew our appreciation of community, which, when this is all over, will inspire us to pick up the phone and call people with increased frequency. If we want this to happen, we need to make things harder for ourselves, not easier. It should be difficult to cancel on someone, and that friction is introduced through routine. Instead of arbitrarily scheduling a call in a few days, make it every Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. with that friend.
We need to get into the habit of not being alone, and for this purpose, we can make almost every solitary activity conducive to social bonding. If you feel like you’re about to drop into an unending Netflix tunnel, grab a companion. Use Netflix Party. If you have a paper that you need to crank out, grab a friend who’s also working. Work together and celebrate together when you’re done. These are habits we can and should continue after quarantine.
Which path we choose depends on how we act during these coming weeks and months. Building a connection-centric lifestyle is a conscious decision, and between sinking into the Instagram scroll for hours and organizing a group video call, not always the easiest of choices. But our generation owes it to ourselves to try.
Audrey Xu is a rising junior at Rutgers University, where she serves as chair of AEI’s Executive Council.
