How tech created a “recipe for loneliness”

Over the summer, Laura Marciano, a researcher at Harvard University, interviewed 500 teenagers for a continuing study investigating the link between technology and loneliness. The results were striking.

For several weeks, the teenagers, who were recruited with the help of Instagram influencers, answered a questionnaire three times a day about their social interactions. Each time, more than 50% said they had not spoken to anyone in the past hour, either in person or online.

To put it another way, even though the teenagers were on break from school and spending plenty of time on social media apps, most of them were not socializing at all.

Americans now spend more time alone, have fewer close friendships and feel more socially detached from their communities than they did 20 years ago. One in 2 adults reports experiencing loneliness, the physiological distress that people endure from social isolation. U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared loneliness an epidemic late last year.

Ever since, scholars and psychologists have accelerated research into whether technology is contributing. The rise of smartphones and social networking apps has forever changed social norms around how we communicate. More personable interactions such as phone calls have been superseded by text messages. When people broadcast their lives on TikTok and Instagram, they may not be representing themselves in a genuine way.

“It’s hard to know who’s being real online, and it’s hard for people to be themselves online, and that is a recipe for loneliness,” Murthy said in an interview. He concluded that loneliness had become an epidemic after reviewing scientific studies and speaking with college students last year, he said.

I went down a rabbit hole for the past few months reading research papers and interviewing academics about tech and loneliness. (Many studies focused on how younger people used technology, but their conclusions were still relevant to older adults who used the same tech.)

The consensus among scholars was clear: Although there was little proof that tech directly made people lonely (plenty of socially connected, healthy people use lots of tech), there was a strong correlation between the two, meaning that those who reported feeling lonely might be using tech in unhealthy ways.

The correlation was rooted in three main behaviors:

— On social media apps such as Instagram, many fell into the trap of comparing themselves with others and feeling that they were lagging behind their peers.

— Text messaging, by far the most popular form of digital communication, could be creating a barrier to authentic connection.

— And, perhaps unsurprisingly, some people who felt lonely also exhibited addictive personalities — in this case, to streaming videos — that kept them indoors.

Here’s what to know and what to do with your tech if you’re feeling lonely.

The dangers of making comparisons on social media

One of the most comprehensive research efforts on tech and loneliness to date, led by Marciano and her colleagues, was a review that aggregated data from 30 studies published during the coronavirus pandemic exploring tech use and the mental health of adolescents. Most studies found that social media was linked to loneliness — specifically, when people made unfavorable comparisons of themselves with others online.

Online and offline, people naturally compare themselves with others, a behavior that psychologists call social comparisons. Social comparisons can manifest online in many different ways. One way could be counting the number of likes, comments and reshares that your posts get compared with those of your friends. It could be comparing your body with the body of a beauty or fitness influencer. For parents, it could be monitoring your newborn’s development compared with that of other infants. When people feel they are behind others in life, it can be isolating.

Social comparisons aren’t always bad. In academic and work settings, for example, many past studies have shown that comparing yourself with other high performers can motivate you to do high-quality work. So the solution isn’t simply to stop comparing ourselves with others online, said Chia-chen Yang, a professor of educational psychology at Oklahoma State University.

Yang led a study in 2018 that surveyed nearly 220 college freshmen about what they liked and disliked when using apps such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. The study concluded that the interactions that caused the most distress were comparisons of a judgmental nature evoking envy, in which people viewed others as being more popular, having more fun or looking prettier.

Social media stirred up more positive feelings among students browsing posts from people who shared useful information online. That could include a friend posting about getting a scholarship or a great deal on a used car, inspiring you to make similar decisions.

“I don’t have to see other people as enemies — I can see them as informants in my life,” Yang said. “That type of comparison is not detrimental.”

But judgmental comparisons that induce envy and “FOMO” (fear of missing out) may be more prominent on social media because the apps were designed to encourage people to compete with and seek validation (i.e., likes and reshares) from their friends by publishing only the most glamorous facets of their lives.

Yang said she had interviewed students who deleted posts if they didn’t get a certain number of likes because it hurt their self-esteem.

In response to backlash from activists and researchers about the harms of social comparisons, Meta added controls inside its apps several years ago, including an option to hide the number of likes and shares from posts. I recommend turning it on if you feel bothered: In the app’s settings, scroll down to “What you see” and tap on “Like and share counts” to turn on the setting to hide the engagement.

A Meta spokesperson referred to a blog post by Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, stating that reactions to hidden likes were mixed.

“Not seeing like counts was beneficial for some, and annoying to others, particularly because people use like counts to get a sense for what’s trending or popular, so we’re giving you the choice,” Mosseri said.

Instagram also has a tool to “favorite” accounts so that they surface at the top of your feed, which could be useful for focusing on the right people and accounts.

But a more helpful step may be to do some self-reflection.

“If you feel bad about yourself after browsing a lot of social media posts, maybe it’s time to pause for a few hours or a few days,” Yang said.

Maybe we text too much

Dozens of studies found that one-on-one digital communications, including messaging, phone calls and video calls, were associated with the most positive mental health effects, including decreased feelings of loneliness. But an overreliance on text messaging, which superseded phone calls as the most-used communication method on phones many years ago, could contribute to loneliness if people weren’t genuinely connecting with one another.

An overwhelming majority of teenagers primarily communicate through text messaging, and they have also reported feeling connected with others when they were on “the same vibe,” according to Marciano’s research. They also said some text interactions — like a friend’s taking a long time to respond to a message — stoked anxieties and feelings of loneliness.

In addition, very few teenagers — about 2% — used video calls, Marciano said. Therein lies a potential problem. It’s difficult to imagine how people could sense vibes and authenticity through typed messages, which lack the context and social cues of face-to-face interactions.

“How can you feel on the same frequency with someone if you don’t communicate properly?” Marciano said.

Lonelier people could consider shifting to richer forms of communication. Instead of sending a text message, consider a video call or, at minimum, send a short audio message so that a friend can hear your voice. And by all means, take advantage of the tools in social networking apps that help you meet others in person.

Murthy lamented that the tradition of wishing someone a happy birthday had devolved over time, from a phone call to a Facebook wall post and now to the abbreviation “HBD” sent via a text message.

“I can’t underscore just how powerful it is to have a few moments of authentic interaction with somebody where you can hear their voice and see their face,” he said, adding, “There is tremendous benefit that comes to each of us from being able to show up for each other.”

Binge-watching isn’t helping

During the pandemic, researchers also homed in on whether binge-watching, or streaming shows back to back for long blocks of time, was linked to loneliness. An academic review of multiple studies concluded that adults who binged programs tended to experience depression, anxiety and, to some extent, loneliness.

Dr. Marc Potenza, a Yale professor and addiction expert who worked on the review, said that although the binge-watching studies focused on streaming apps such as Netflix, it was important to note that other types of apps, including TikTok and Instagram’s Reels, encouraged a similar type of infinite viewing.

People with mental health problems may engage in binge-watching as a coping mechanism for stress and other negative emotions, Potenza said. There are also obvious consequences to physical health that can harm mental health: being sedentary for too long, losing sleep and not going out to engage with others.

“It consumes a lot of time,” Potenza said. “They may procrastinate and not address other concerns, which may lead to more anxiety.”

It may feel good temporarily, but it’s probably not helping. I recommend taking steps to turn off features that enable this behavior, such as Netflix’s ability to automatically play the next program. In the app’s settings, click manage profiles, select a profile and toggle off “autoplay next episode,” and then click done.

TikTok and Instagram’s Reels include screen-time tools in their settings that show reminders about how much time you’ve spent scrolling, although those tools can be ineffective because the reminders are easy to ignore. I suggest temporarily deleting the apps when scrolling feels problematic.

Netflix declined to comment. Spokespeople for Meta and TikTok said their apps automatically set screen-time limits for teenagers.

Looking ahead

The relationship between technology and loneliness is a moving target because tech and its users are constantly evolving. Emily Weinstein, a social scientist who has studied how teenagers use tech, said that just as we begin to understand our relationship with our apps and devices, younger people find other ways to be anxious online and new outlets to cope with loneliness.

A teenager could feel distressed if you commented with fewer fire emoji on his or her Instagram photo than you did on another person’s photo, she said. And many are rapidly experimenting with chatbots using generative artificial intelligence that can replace human companions, raising new concerns.

“Teens are telling us things like, ‘That robot actually listens to me — people are mean and judge you, but gen AI tools don’t,’” she said. “I’m wondering what that’s going to look like.”

Murthy said that during his cross-country listening tour at college campuses last year, the dining halls were eerily quiet, as students busily typed on their phones.

He said a conversation with a student at the University of Washington resonated with him.

“He said, ‘It’s not the culture for people to talk to each other anymore, so how are we supposed to connect?’” Murthy recalled. “His point was that even when you’re walking to class, everyone is occupied, but then they’re looking at their phone. It feels intrusive to say hello to someone.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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