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 per cent 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 socialising at all.

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 More personable interactions such as phone calls have been superseded by text messages.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,” said US surgeon general Dr Vivek Murthy. He concluded that loneliness had become an epidemic after reviewing scientific studies and speaking to college students last year.

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Although there’s little proof that tech directly makes people lonely (plenty of socially connected, healthy people use lots of tech), according to many research papers and academics, there’s 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 behaviours:

• 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.

Making comparisons

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 unfavourable comparisons of themselves with others online.

Online and offline, people naturally compare themselves with others, a behaviour 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.

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 (ie, likes and reshares) from their friends by publishing only the most glamorous facets of their lives.

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. 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 “favourite” 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,” said Chia-chen Yang, a professor of educational psychology at Oklahoma State University.

Texting

Dozens of studies have 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 taking a long time to respond to a message – stoked anxieties and feelings of loneliness.

In addition, very few teenagers – about 2 per cent – 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

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 programmes 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, Prof 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,” Prof 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. You can turn off features that enable this behaviour, such as Netflix’s ability to automatically play the next programme. 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.

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.

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 one student resonated with him. “He said, ‘it’s not the culture for people to talk to each other any more, so how are we supposed to connect’? 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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