PICTURE loneliness. Maybe an elderly widow living alone, never seeing her children or grand-children, her mobility restricted, the end looming.
The Eleanor Rigby of Beatles legend: “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?”
An answer emerged this week — and they come from a surprising place.
The loneliest people are healthy, thriving young adults, kicking off their career and probably renting a room in a city.
According to new university research for the BBC, levels of loneliness are highest among 16 to 24-year-olds, with 40 per cent saying they often, or very often, feel it. In contrast, the over-75s are positively chipper: Only 27 per cent of this group reported feelings of isolation.
Now, I’m 24 and, depressingly, these statistics don’t surprise me.
At first glance, it looks like young people have it easy when it comes to making friends.
At 18 or thereabouts, more than 50 per cent of them will be packed off to university where they’ll move in with a group of like-minded people of the same age and be encouraged to drink and party like there’s no tomorrow.
Which, when you’re only required to stumble out of bed for one 2pm lecture, there essentially isn’t.
And even if you don’t go to university, your options for meeting people are much better than they were 20 years ago.
Rather than relying on friends of tenuous friends for dubious introductions, young people these days can simply download an app and get the details of thousands of eligible strangers delivered straight to their mobile phones.
Add into the mix social media — which allows its users to connect with everyone they’ve ever met instantaneously at any given moment — and it’s hard to imagine how any young people could possibly be lonely, let alone 40 per cent.
But there are two sides to every coin.
University — though a godsend when it comes to meeting new people — can be a problem when it comes to staying in touch with them. Saddled with bottomless debt, young graduates simply don’t have the cash to socialise.
When a round for six at a London pub will set you back 40 quid, is it any wonder that more and more young people are opting to stay at home?
Dating apps, too, come with their pitfalls. Yes, it’s nice to have a database of singletons in your pocket, but the ubiquity of Tinder and Bumble mean it’s now considered almost socially awkward to speak to someone you fancy in person.
A friend of mine, who has absolutely no problem propositioning women on Tinder, hasn’t yet found the courage to ask for his next-door neighbour’s number, four months after she moved in.
As for social media, young people like me are increasingly discovering that “staying connected” is a mixed blessing at best. With no excuse to lose touch, my generation holds on to friends we’ve outgrown, leaving us with no time to make new ones. It may sound callous, but there’s an art to shedding friends, and thanks to our social media addiction, we seem to have lost it.
What’s more, earnest 16 to 24-year-olds seem to be taking to heart the faddish health advice that adults have been merrily ignoring for years, making it even harder for them to socialise because they fear alcohol, and even food.
At the end of a recent party I got chatting to a fun young woman, so I suggested some pub grub at a boozer to round off the evening. How wrong I was.
She explained in detail she was vegan and on a gluten-free diet (she’d read somewhere that wheat weighed down the soul), so the pub menu would not cater for her needs.
I decided not to pursue it.
So I say it’s time snowflake millennials took a bit of responsibility for their own feelings of isolation.
Last month commentators wagged their fingers at the big tech companies after a survey by charity YoungMinds revealed a greater number of young people view social media as having a negative impact on the way they feel about themselves than those who report a positive impact.
But it was never suggested depressed young people should simply put away their phones and do something else.
Mollycoddled millennials believe having a thriving social circle is a human right, rather than an ongoing project.
Instead of popping to the pub for a pick-me-up with whoever happens to be around, a lonely young person will all too often turn to the internet for a spot of indulgent self-reflection, or to the gym for Insta-friendly self-improvement.
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As a result, pubs are closing at a rate of 18 a day, and sites such as Tumblr are overflowing with posters instructing users to “forget the haters” and “shine like the star that you are”.
Of course, social media is made to be addictive. But surely putting down a phone can’t be an insurmountable challenge for an educated generation of young people? Dwelling on yourself is the surest route to a lonely lifestyle, so instead of posting doleful, introspective memes on social media or clinging to tired old friendships, lonely young people should find the guts to get outside and look outwards.
Making and keeping real friends takes work, and it’s time young people started putting the hours in.
Linkhttps://textbacklinkexchanges.com/university-research-claims-levels-of-loneliness-are-highest-among-16-24-year-olds/
News Pictures University research claims levels of loneliness are highest among 16-24 year-olds
You don’t have to pack away your bikini just because you’re the wrong side of 20. These body-beautiful stars reveal their secrets to staying in shape and prove you can smoulder in a two-piece, whatever your age. Read on and be bikini inspired!
TEENS
Hayden Panettiere
Size: 8
Age: 18
Height: 5ft 1in
Weight: 8st
To achieve her kick-ass figure, Hayden – who plays cheerleader Claire Bennet in Heroes – follows the ‘quartering’ rule. She eats only a quarter of the food on her plate, then waits 20 minutes before deciding whether she needs to eat again.
Hayden says: “I don’t have a model’s body, but I’m not one of those crazy girls who thinks that they’re fat. I’m OK with what I have.”
Nicollette says: “I don’t like diets – I see it, I eat it! I believe in eating healthily with lots of protein, vegetables and carbs to give you energy.”
kim cattrall
Size: 10-12
Age: 52
Height: 5ft 8in
Weight: 9st 4lb
SATC star Kim swears by gym sessions with Russian kettle bells (traditional cast-iron weights) and the South Beach Diet to give her the body she wants. To avoid overeating, Kim has a radical diet trick – squirting lemon juice on her leftovers – so she won’t carry on picking.
Kim says: “I am no super-thin Hollywood actress. I am built for men who like women to look like women.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/NINTCHDBPICT000438534409.jpg?strip=all&w=960
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