Is it cool to have no friends?

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, are young people lonelier than ever?

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0:43Something curious is happening on social media. As a person with no friends, here are five things that are socially acceptable to do. Welcome to the Saturday night of a single introvert in her 30s who also lives alone and don't have any friends. People are going online to brag about having no friends. And I'm at a place where I'm very comfortable admitting that. But these aren't sad videos. They're not tearful confessions. And I have absolutely no girlfriends. I'm talking about, like, none. None, OK? Pretty mundane, but oddly compelling. And suddenly, loneliness is being rebranded on the internet as an aspirational lifestyle choice.

1:23So for now, I appreciate, embrace and romanticize my life alone. I've built myself the perfect sanctuary to do it. A woman making herself pasta in an immaculate, rage, minimalist apartment. I usually make something really easy for dinner. Someone taking themselves out for solo dinner. Content creators filming themselves spending Saturday night alone, over and over, set to a kind of dull, ambient music. Tonight, just like most Saturday nights, I have no plans. So I'm a crack open a beer and drink away my sorrows. I'm just kidding. I'm actually not lonely. I love living alone. I do want to start dating.

2:00And millions of people are watching. Thousands are commenting to say that this is their life. They feel seen. Thanks so much for sharing. But how good is it for us? And what happened to the ordinary, slightly awkward, inconvenient ways that we used to become friends? From The Guardian, I'm Noshin Iqbal. Today in Focus Why loneliness influences are going viral online

2:49Hi Tess, thanks so much for joining us on Today in Focus. Could you start with introducing yourself? I am Tess Lavander, I'm 22 years old and I was born in the UK and grew up in New Zealand. I was homeschooled by my mum, I was homeschooled with my brother and I have always performed, I've always loved the arts, theatre and everything like that and I recently moved to London on my own. away from everything that I know, with no friends, no family, no plan. I wanted to be closer to opportunities in the acting industry. My parents left about a week after they helped me move. So I was just there on my own after that.

3:40And so you set up this Instagram account in April. When your first post was about, as you say, moving from your parents' home, moving down alone to London, and then there's some wholesome content about reading Alone in the Park, going on a solo coffee date with yourself and so on. Everything feels okay, but I know that everything can also change in a minute. That's how I have been feeling since I've moved here. My emotions are so... What did your social interactions look like in London at that point? I mean, did you find it difficult to talk to anyone? I did, yeah. I really just, I didn't know anyone.

4:16I didn't know a soul. and I got a job and that was really the only place that I could talk to people and even then a lot of people in that workspace already had friendships and had already been in London for some time and I felt so new I felt so out of place and I found it really hard to connect with people and yeah the workspace was really the only place I was seeing people. And is loneliness something you've experienced often before feelings of loneliness growing up? Yes in my teenage years I was in a relationship but I never really had those friendships those female friendships and I think when Covid hit that isolation period was the first time I really realised that I had such a lack of friendships because there was no one to really text there was there was none of that I really just felt like I had nobody in that time.

5:16I guess, you know, those kind of friendships, particularly when you're young, they're so valorised in our contemporary culture, you know, I guess, social media feeds and films you see the shows you watch. Did you learn to enjoy your own company in any case? I really didn't in COVID. I was I think I was 16 when that happened. And And I just didn't have a good relationship with myself. And I would constantly try and distract myself by watching TV shows and watching films. And I just couldn't, I just didn't know how to cope with that feeling of like, oh, they have that and I don't. And that means that I'm doing something wrong and you can go down a spiral.

6:13Well, I guess it took a real act of bravery to move to a city on the other side of the world. And I wonder whether you had a plan or a strategy to, you know, like the advice that people often give is like, why don't you join a club or talk to the shopkeeper? I mean, did any of that sort of resonate with you? And how does that sort of land when someone says that to you? well I think the move to London really forced me to have to go and do that and the first video I ever made was me talking about going out for a cocktail on my own and I had a phone call with my mother an hour before I recorded that and she said just go out and sit in a bar and talk to the barman just talk to somebody what was that like oh it was terrifying it was absolutely terrifying hence why I've recorded it because I had no one to talk to and so I just got out my camera and spoke to the camera because I was just like I need somebody to talk to.

7:14I'm doing it because what else am I going to do just sit in my room and wait for my life to begin because it's not how it works that you actually have to go out and make the effort and try new things and that feels really hard and so. But you know what when I went I brought my book I talked to the waiter and it was fine but just that and the going out part and leaving your front door getting over the hurdle yes that was that's the hardest part that is the hardest part after that people are really nice and I think we forget that people people are nice you know what was the motivation to share it I was laying in my bed and I watched the video back and I honestly I thought I was going to get bullied for it.

7:59I thought people were going to really be mean because it was so, it was such a taboo topic. And I woke up and I, just the amount of messages I received and comments from people sharing their own story and their own situation. At the time that you began posting in April, there was this sort of boom in some ways. It was really viral for people to be posting about solitude. And I wondered, was that any of that an encouragement for you and did that content particularly resonate with you? I had no idea that that was happening but there are some creators that I follow for their honesty that's what gave me a lot of motivation was the people that have helped me through being vulnerable and honest pushed me to do it.

9:02Jessica Murray, you're The Guardian's social affairs correspondent and you recently wrote a piece about why young people today have fewer friends. And your reporting was based on new research from the Institute for Public Policy Research, which found that the number of young people in England with no close friends has risen fivefold since 2014, standing at one in 20 now, and a growing number of people saying that they're not happy with the friends that they do have. How do you understand what's going on here? And what did you find out by digging into the story? Yeah, I mean, it sounds really shocking, doesn't it?

9:35You think of young people being the ones who have the most friends. And to think that actually we're heading in a direction where young people just have an increasingly smaller amount of friends is it sounds really worrying. There's lots of different theories about why it's happening, things like social media, economic factors, mental health factors. There's a lot of potential factors that are causing this, but we don't have any kind of concrete evidence as to exactly why it's happening. And also it's part of a kind of long-term trend happening slowly over the course of a decade, potentially accelerated by COVID-19 and the pandemic.

10:05Well, you also wrote about a contemporary trend which has really taken off in recent months, and that is the loneliness influencer. When did you first come across one? I was just scrolling on my Instagram feed one day and I remember seeing a video which was something along the lines of, you know, a day in the life of a 21 year old woman with no friends. But I remember thinking it was quite unusual to see someone sort of very openly saying as someone with no friends and really making that the focus of the video. There's certain search terms that you can look for, things like loneliness influencer or solo maxing or no friends aesthetic.

10:40there's all these kind of hashtags that are proliferated around this and there's literally hundreds and hundreds of videos now I mean they're very big in America but there's a growing number in the UK as well. Can you understand the appeal of these videos to the audience? Yeah well I think there's kind of two elements to it I think there is a sort of sense that they're romanticising or creating a certain kind of aesthetic around this of making people want this really peaceful really calm life and making people feel you don't need any friends you can live a kind of full and whole life without that but I think some people might criticize that and say that it's romanticizing something that's not the reality but I think other people would argue that it's normalizing something that is becoming increasingly common for the younger generation.

11:24Jessica what about the IKEA aspect of this this does become a business model and that's monetized for for Lots of the successful ones. My lighting kind of looks like a perfect mix between an office building and an operating room. And neither of those are my vibes. So I bought some lamps. I'm using these Lincine smart light stick bulbs. It's literally a fireplace in my lamp. They use 50 individual lighting zones. What does that do to shape the stuff they're making to drive engagement? Yeah, I think there's a slight inherent hypocrisy at the heart of this in the sense that these are people saying, I'm really happy in my life without any friends.

11:58and yet they're posting online to their thousands of followers. They're seeking social connection, but in a different way. So are they really saying that that life without friends is fulfilling if they're filling that void with their followers instead? It kind of doesn't quite make sense. Only downside is you do have to clean up after yourself and do the dishes. But at least I'm only cleaning up after myself and not somebody's son. There is sort of questions to be asked about what they're doing. Are they monetising a lifestyle which actually is a bit more bleak than that they portray? And Jess, you cover social affairs across the country.

12:29What do you think this trend tells us about the possibilities of finding connection in offline life? From the experts that I spoke to, they feel that one of the big factors driving this is the fact that there are so few spaces for people to meet and interact anymore. I mean, obviously, the big one is workplaces. So many of us are now working from home, either part time or full time. So teenagers and young adults are kind of entering a workplace very, very different from previous workplaces and often aren't making the social connections there that they would have in the past. But, you know, even if you're looking at teenagers, there's a lot fewer youth clubs for them to go and meet people.

13:07Just lots of social spaces have all been kind of stripped away. And a lot of the experts I spoke to said that that's kind of undermining the ability of young people to just build those basic social skills of almost kind of like small talk, of like bumping into people, meeting people, saying hello, having a quick chat. That doesn't happen as much anymore. It kind of makes it harder to build really strong relationships and friendships. So, yeah, I think that is a really big part of it.

13:39Tesla, a lot of your content is about learning to embrace enjoying your own company. Take yourself to solo dinners, to dates, to holidays even. But is there a slight risk, do you think, that it could also encourage other people who are consuming the content to think that maybe I don't need to make the effort to try and go out in the messy reality of the world or forgetting perhaps that the cost of community is being inconvenienced, right? And so is there a worry that it glamorises and romanticises something that is actually a genuine problem for people and their mental health? I would just encourage balance.

14:21But what I'm trying to do is shine a light on such a dark corner of the room that it hasn't been explored. and I think that if you can find a balance with being in your own company and enjoying your own company and then also connecting with community and connecting with family and friendships then you'll be set. Do you still feel lonely these days? Absolutely and I don't think that's something that ever goes away. I really don't. I think that you can be in a group of people and still feel lonely. I think that's when I feel the loneliest. It's not when I'm not around people. It's when I feel like I need others' validation.

15:06I feel like I need other people to fill a hole in myself. And I think that that can affect friendships when you are seeking other people's validation. Did you, when you posted, or do you now want to make friends and make social connections? The second part of that is, and if so, given the wildly positive response you've had, lots of offers for, you know, let's go for a walk, let's go for a coffee, hey, hit me up, I'm in the same situation. How have you dealt with those? And are you interested in perhaps making those more human connections offline? I think that's the beautiful thing about what has happened is the amount of connection that has formed from it.

15:50And there are definitely people that have reached out that I have been in contact with. I know that there's this thing around, oh, well, if you're making content about loneliness and enjoying your own company, then what's going to happen when you make friends? I think the thing that has made people feel so seen and connected is not so much the topic of loneliness. I think it's just the honesty around the topic. I don't want to just be alone forever and I don't just want to not have any friends. I want to grow as a person, but I want to share the honest truth of that as I go through it. Coming up, the UK's loneliness expert on how to make social connection.

16:32Thank you.

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18:18Pamela Quilter, you're the UK's leading scientific expert on child and adolescent loneliness. You're based at the University of Manchester and you work with the UK government's tackling loneliness team, which isn't something I even realise existed. And just in scientific terms, at least, how is loneliness defined? Loneliness is a subjective experience. It's to do with our thoughts. And it's when our social relationships don't match what we actually want. So it might be that we want to be with people more. It might be that we want to have a close other. So we want a more romantic relationship or a closer friendship.

18:59And when we don't have those things, we experience negative emotions. So anger, sadness, frustration. Pamela, the World Health Organization confirmed that we are living in a epidemic of loneliness, which they declared in 2023. It's been described as a critical global public health concern linked to 100 deaths an hour with young people and old people reporting the highest rates of social isolation. How did we get here? We have seen increases in some parts of the world in loneliness. In other parts of the world, we haven't seen that same increase. But what I think is really important is to not think of loneliness as pathological.

19:41Most people come out of loneliness. There's a lovely way of describing it. It's about loneliness as being like hunger. So when you are hungry, you know you've got to eat. When you experience loneliness, you know you've got to reconnect with your social world in whatever way you need. The issue becomes when people get stuck. And that tends to be, in our statistics in the UK, it tends to be about 10 % of people who are persistently lonely. They're reporting loneliness over time. Pamela, given your work, I'm sure you're aware of this wave of so-called loneliness influences online, you know, mostly women, mostly young, posting content either about having no friends and owning that and publicising that or preferring solitude to company, which are two different things, to be fair.

20:33What do you make of this trend and why it's become so popular now? In some instances, it's kind of almost on the hermit type scale, spending all of their time by themselves. What I quite like about watching some of these videos is the fact that they make it easier for other people to hear that their own stories actually may be quite normal. Spending time by themselves, liking being by themselves is okay. I wish they talked more about variability and how for some of us that works. For some other people that won't work because they get their energy from others. You know, they need to be with other people.

21:16So I wish there was more discussion around that. I wonder about this because there's a balance, isn't there? I mean, a lot of them will say that they're, yeah, that they're trying to make other people feel less lonely and that sharing is desigmatizing. and on the one hand I I mean I'm at a stage of life where I love spending time my own extrovert introvert there's so much chaos in my life like oh my god give me a restaurant and a dinner by myself with a book you know a dream but I've built up a store of friendships and social connections I can dip in and out of I've had experiences as a younger person that are very different to ones I'm having now and I wonder about the danger of very young people who may be very comfortable having a few close friends and posting about their solitude influencing other younger people who actually are really lonely and actually do want friends and then perhaps think that maybe maybe they don't have to make the effort maybe they don't have to make social connection because all the research shows that that is one of the keys to longevity in terms of health and happiness is the human connections that we make and being lonely is very bad for us so does does that part of the influencing not worry you?

22:27No, that really worries me because you only get a snapshot of somebody's experience. Like you said, you're able to spend time on your own because you know you've got friends that you're able to engage with at other points in your daily life. That isn't what you see on these videos. You'd get the impression that they spent their whole life on their own. And I think that does become problematic. I think as well for me, It's that the terms are used interchangeably on the videos. You know, they move from talking about social isolation to social disconnection to solitude to loneliness. And they're different things.

23:04And so if somebody is chronically lonely, if this is being presented as a solution, then I think actually that that is really problematic. Well, talk to me about that then a bit, at least from the scientific public health perspective. what impact does loneliness have on us as humans as humans we know that it impacts our health we know that it's to do with our cortisol so basically what it means is that we have this fight and flight response and we always feel like we have to respond the fact that our cortisol responds to feelings of not fitting in means that actually yeah this is a big deal it has an impact on our heart and our cardiovascular system.

23:48It also means we don't sleep very well because we're always on high alert. It takes quite a long time for that to have an impact on our bodies. So we don't see those physical health impacts amongst younger people who report loneliness. We see them in our older populations. But amongst our younger populations, we definitely do see impacts on mental health. So we know it has an impact on depression. We know it increases anxiety. For those who already have depression or anxiety, we see massive changes. We see big increases in those things once somebody is experiencing loneliness. Social relationships really matter to us.

24:28I think the loneliness experience when it becomes persistent is the one really we need to be most worried about. But look at this in the trend that we're seeing online. It's actually being promoted as a lifestyle aesthetic and a lot of the content seems to be gearing up to create an almost frictionless life experience where self-care is prioritized above all. Pamela what does your research show about the balance between creating boundaries on your time and energy and having real world in-person interactions? Social relationships are really messy they are really hard but they're worth that effort they are worth the effort because the moments you have with other people can be absolutely wonderful and can also tell you something about yourself.

25:13So I suppose for me, I see social connection as self-care. You know, you are with other people, you learn about yourself, you develop as yourself by being with other people. But there is something really special about being, you know, part of a group or having somebody really trust you. There's something special about that. Big question. How can people feel less lonely in a practical day-to-day sense? I think in a practical day-to-day sense, if we accept that loneliness happens to all of us, I think the biggest thing for me is to have weak ties. And that means the bumping into people, the just feeling part of something.

25:54That really matters. And I know sometimes it's really hard to do that it's really really difficult to do that but it's about getting out there and actually engaging with individuals and I think if we can overcome anxiety to do that then actually that will make us feel less lonely but of course that's easy to say but how do you start a conversation with anybody yeah I think lots of people would say that with you know social anxiety who do find it hard who haven't had that practice of those small everyday interactions how do they and particularly when you can seemingly have a lot of chat online?

26:31I would still encourage people to get out there. I really would. So a strategy that I know a lot of people reporting loneliness use is they join a club, but it's about a club where they know almost what that conversation is going to be about. So a swimming club, you know, they're going to talk about how quickly can you do a length? For me, I meet my dog walking buddies, you know, people just around my estate. I know what the conversation is going to be about. It's going to be about my dogs. So I can practice what I'm going to say. So in those moments when I'm particularly shy, quite anxious about the day ahead, I know how to engage.