Gen Z Is The Loneliest Generation...Here's Why.

I'm 22 and I feel like I have no friends that's something that a lot of people around my age can relate to loneliness loneliness I feel loneliness in my chest just a heavy weight on your back my career has isolated me I don't have a partner I don't have kids right after I got married people just fell away as a single parent I retired my greatest fear is dying alone it's a doozy loneliness it's a bad one a lot of people in this generation are saying that they suffer from loneliness isolation and they have a hard time making friends why do you think that's the case they shouldn't have a problem the old people like me hard to meet people and you don't want to meet people and a lot of them are dead anyhow it's screwy World well look at what you got to come up with the rent and everything it's murder out there for them kids so they don't want to get overly friendly I guess it just seems like nowadays people have friends that they don't really know they don't know what they look like everything is done through either you know Facebook or whatever I think people just have to get back to the basics somebody Smiles at you you smile back how are you oh not too bad how are you just simple conversation which I think has been lost CU people don't know how to do that anymore I think social media is like one of the biggest factors of our loneliness which is ironic CU it's supposed to be social we just are all like so fixated on this and we don't take time to actually make connections in person and you know want to go out of our house meet our friends we are both from in Vancouver and last year was my first year in UBC and I lived in Residence and it was kind of ironic cuz I did live in like a building with a bunch of other students but it did still feel a lot more lonely than when I lived at home it's too easy to hide behind the screens everyone's stuck at home playing video games all the time just not getting out as much so it's easy to feel lonely yeah I mean social media is great for a lot of things but too much of it it's very addictive I feel for people who do have addiction to it because it is like any other addiction and I think people feel a lot of difficulty pulling away and they feel ashamed about it and they're engaged in a lot of sometimes negative selft talk and criticism sometimes you feel by yourself a lot but I mean I've been friends with these guys for like 10 plus years we try to see each other as much as possible and it makes things a lot better we're in our final year and like some of my friends have graduated already so people are working so like it's just hard to make plans with people so even though we'll try to see each other often there's always like that one friend that won't be able to make it always so I do like catch myself like a little more often now having days where I'm like oh man like I have nothing to do like everyone's busy being alone is one of the worst things on an extended basis that can happen to a human and every day one of the worst things that can happen to a human is happening more and more to all of us in Western Society enrollment in Boy and Girl Scouts is off by like 40% Church attendance is way down the percentage of people who speak to their neighbors is off like 40% the number of people playing in organized Sports is way down if you just think about Co we don't go to the mall we don't go to movie theaters we're becoming more and more segregated by income class the number of kids who see their friends every day has been cut in half in the last 10 years so we're just not touching smelling and feeling each other nearly as much if you look at the number of individuals living alone in houses it's increased by 30% in the last 30 years now partly this is because people are getting older and they're losing their spouse through death and they're losing children through going off to college or to jobs but it's not exclusively even when you look at the demography at an age you see an increase in the number of individuals living alone and putting off having children divorce rates being high single parent households have increased all of those are contributing to more isolated living you've mentioned that in your generation there was nothing like computers phones and whatnot to distract you from making those inperson connections I'm kind of wondering has loneliness maybe ever been a thing in your generation at all you know if it was it was something that was never talked about I mean nobody ever talked about like mental health issues so you would never talk about loneliness but I mean loneliness has always been around I don't think you could go anywhere back in time where you're not going to find loneliness did I experience it I don't think so not that I remember I think it's May because I live in the country and on a farm so we had school and again our family was very close by so some of your friends were part of your family things like that it doesn't stick out of my mind that much but I I do understand that it's a bigger issue today I've went through lots of phases in my life where I felt lonely and it was all right it's okay to be a little bit lonely to a certain extent but when you're in a place where you're constantly seeing or perceiving that other people have things better or having more fun or doing things you're not doing I think it creates a different unhealthy feeling you shouldn't be afraid to be alone some of the best things happen when you're alone you know I don't think I've ever really felt lonely what would you say you did that allowed you not to feel lonely I got out and played I had friends on the street see that's another thing kids don't know how to play Everything has to be organized and when I was growing up you just went outside whether you knew them or not if some kid was playing they would automatically say do you want to play and you just do it we never had that thing where we didn't know what to do with ourselves because there was always something to do there people were heck of a lot more friendly and open than what they are now so that makes a big difference loneliness is absolutely an epidemic in our society but it's been growing for decades roughly a quarter of people in the world say they're feeling lonely even when surrounded by other people I think a big question now is whether we're facing a friendship recession I am 21 years old I have no friends and I have social anxiety disorder I'm 25 years old with no friends no social life no job I'm 37 years old now I don't have any friends at all to speak of not one single friend nobody to talk to nobody to have a laugh with or anything nobody to hug nobody to feel any sort of warmth with or anything I think everyone out there needs love they need to love and be loved and feel wanted or feel like somebody at least cares about you you know it's Saturday and I'm s sitting alone in my apartment at my desk staring at my computer like 99 99% of every other Saturday I've never had a friend that I would just spend time with and tell everything to what did I do to like run everybody else away I feel like I just something that makes people scatter we often blame social media for the current situation Our Generation finds it toughen and while there's no doubt that having our faces glued to our phones on a consistent basis makes it harder for us to connect to others my feeling is that we try a little bit too much to dissociate ourselves from the role that we actively play in driving ourselves away from other people I think it might come from the fact that as Society evolved and as these social media platforms became more and more prevalent we kind of forgot to remind ourselves what he truly meant to make a meaningful connection hitting that follow button now became the signal that tells you hey you've made a new friend today but that's not actually the case because somehow even with all of our unprecedented technology no one has yet solved what I'll call the other Gamers dilemma that when you shut your computer screen power down your phone take off the VR headset there you are alone in your around there's something one of the women said to me that I I never forgot she' grown up in Turkey she said when I grew up in Turkey what I called my home was my Village and everyone in it and then I came to live in the western world and I learned that what you're meant to call home is just your four walls and if you're lucky your family and she realized that we are homeless in some sense in the Western World humans have a need for a sense of belonging and our sense of home is too small to meet our sense of belonging there's a wonderful Bosnian writer called Alexander hayon who said home is where people notice when you're not there and a lot of us who notices if they're not there right probably no one they are in a sense homeless right they are spiritually homeless that was made worse as the digital Revolution gave us more and more screens to look at and software that was designed specifically to grab our attention hold our attention and therefore keep it away from the people we care about just coming back on the topic of social media cuz as you guys said it's sort of like the primary way people make interactions connect to others make friends per se so do you guys think the definition of friendship is changed people think of friendship as something more shallow or if you ask your parents or you ask anyone that's a little bit older it's the people that you can talk to about anything and I think finding that is a lot harder it's so easy to just text someone online but that inperson connection is where real friendship comes from everyone's losing Touch of that the core value of friendship like that definition would stay the same but over the years yes like the more traditional friendships that kind of has evolved I find that the world today is such a different world I'm living in your world now and I find it very confusing and particularly right now there's so much hate and and there's so many things to worry about I hear stories and you see them on the news about these kids that are being exploited in different ways they're things that I never had to even contemplate in my life sending naked pictures to people things like that like they're just heartbreaking when some kid has got has killed themselves not even told their parents why they're trying to make friends like yes nowadays making friends is such an artificial way because you don't know who's in the other end that's not a problem for me but that's a problem that I do see and I it's pretty sad actually when I was growing up you made friends you talked to people there was always face to face if you're going to Shell to yourself you're never going to get out there to meet people and when you do meet people you're not going to know how to talk to them get out from behind your computer put down your damn phone look at people when you're talking to them just learn the basic things of how how to talk people don't know how to talk they know how to yell they know how to make opinions and everything else but they don't really know how to talk to people and I think that's really sad people have lost the ability to communicate here's what most of us misst understand friendships aren't like Family Ties it's not this Timeless relationship that's going to be there no matter what just like a flower if you don't take care of a friendship it's going to die that's something that took me quite some time to realize you've got to be intentional about how often you reach out to the people around you like I can stand here all day and say that I feel like I don't have enough friends but I've also got to acknowledge that a lot of the decisions I've made my lack of effort in reaching a hand to the person sitting next to me is what brought me here in the first place I complain about not having anyone but the minute anyone does come to my life and I have a chance I do nothing with it she invited me over to our apartment we beat I could have talk to her but every time she texted me I would wait like a day to respond and when we made plans I I feel awkward about it cuz all I wanted to do was be back in my apartment that of my I'm in my apartment I'm alone humans are social creatures by nature and if we aren't fulfilled socially we're going to be really unhappy you could be depressed you could be angry you could just be completely reserved and sad and in effect you draw yourself away from other people and that makes the problem worse so you perpetuate this lifestyle of I don't trust people and people don't like me and people are probably never going to like me so I will never like people and I'm okay by myself but the fact is that you're so unhappy because you're alone like look around you we are constantly surrounded by people and yet it often feels like we're not around anybody friendships don't form themselves friendship is not a flower that just blooms all on its own it's more like a woodworking project that you have to carve out and continue to work on it's a relationship of genuine and radical equality and one in which you're not in the friendship in order to get something out of it for yourself there's no sense of dependency there's no sense of exchange it's not a transactional relationship in any way I'm not trying to invalidate anyone's experience and I understand that everyone has their own reasons nonetheless don't you want to do something about it we focused on this phenomenon in your 20s where you feel like you don't have any friends anymore and the reason why is because for the first 25 years of your life your friendships were basically handed to you because you were in settings with large groups of people moving at the same pace through life together as soon as you graduate you're on your own baby if you're in college and you're like swimming in the sea with all these people doing the same thing at the same time it takes you about 43 hours to become an acquaintance with somebody now you're sitting in class together that's part of the time you're eating in the cafeteria together that's part of the time you're hanging out in the dorm room together that's part of the time when you're an adult to become a casual friend it takes you 94 hours why we have over 40 50 years seen declining participation in the community organizations that Ed to bring people together uh including service organizations Faith organizations and others but we're also seeing that our life has changed dramatically we move around more we change jobs more often and technology is utterly transformed how we interact with one another the American mind cannot comprehend what's going on around me this isn't a party it's not even a planned event it's just what happens every afternoon here in Barcelona Spain after school and work people come out to squares like this to hang out get work done while their kids play with friends socialize interact with acquaintances or true friends and neighbors and there's a huge social and economic benefit to that now in America we have a loneliness epidemic and part of it is due to our built environment you see these public squares are example of what some people call third places they're not work you're first place they're not home your second place but they're a third place where you interact with acquaintances and friends in America these third places are dwindling as religion and church is having less significant impact in Americans lives but also third places are disappearing because of zoning laws which keep separating the T different types of activity that you have in a city to the point of every activity has to be intentionally planned and what third places we do have in America things like coffee shops or bars and cafes they're paid third places that just aren't very accessible for people who are poor at least on a regular basis now why does it happen here in Spain well of course there's a culture for it but more than that there's an environment that's conducive to it as someone who has more experience with life what would be your advice to someone that maybe struggles with making meaningful connections go where people are gathering and start a conversation that's what I do I mean I could be lonely too so I can understand I guess if you start talking to people you don't have to create a lifelong friendship but you won't feel so lonely I'd say volunteer I've volunteered countless times over the years and have worked with former presidents of companies that were there mopping the floor to friends of mine that I probably met through volunteering 20 some years ago or more and we're still friends today so that'd be my advice to try and get out and do something different well probably for one thing is not to spend all your time looking at your phone learn how to talk to people find what you love to do and go out and do it and meet people with shared interests just engage like engage meaningfully when you're out in the world and try and pull yourself out out of that isolated place I feel a lot of sympathy I think it's really really difficult for young people but just those small daily actions of putting yourself out there and being friendly towards other people will go a long way I go out I head down the lake I grew up very near very near the lake and I walk a lot funnily enough I have met one or two people down there just walking I just happen to smile at them and we just started chatting and then you know you kind of find you got stuff in common when I see them out we always have a nice chat and I'm always ready and and I try to have a pleasant look on my face and I think sitting it you know on your phone a lot is not a good thing it's like look around smile at people talk to people like if you're at the cash register at the grocery store say hello ask them how they're doing rather than being on your phone all the time which I'm holding mine in my hand right now be aware be present with who's around you you know how they often say one of the hardest things you could ever do is raise your hand and ask for help I feel like there's a very similar stigma around loneliness it's not really something you talk about because somehow it feels like it means there has to be something wrong with you most of us have these blindfolds on and can't see that the person right next to us might just be going through the exact same struggles we are going through but no one is willing to open up about how lonely they feel so we might just never know that's actually the case and a journey that we could have gone on together ends up becoming this battle that we have to face alone and what makes things even harder is that ironically loneliness is probably one of the few things that you can't solve by yourself partly if you're trying to solve a problem like loneliness you think well I need more people in my life okay well that's more people in my life that's pretty vague and Abstract it's like well I need a friend okay well that's still pretty hard but that's at least only one person I need to say something nice today to the shopkeeper down the street maybe tell them who I am give them my name ask them their name pick a few places and then go to them once a week as a routine and get to know the people there people are almost always open to a friendly exchange and if you don't think that's true then I would say perhaps your social skills aren't what they could be and you need to work on that so when the time comes when you're just completely sick of being so sad that you just want to fix everything and you want to do whatever it takes to make sure that you'll never have to be this s again that's when you have to go places you have to get back in touch with those people you haven't talked to in months or maybe even years and you have to tell them you want to hang out and you have to turn yourself from such a reserved creature into a social butterfly I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I have the solution to your struggles because I don't I'm going through relatively similar things and it's only recently that I've realized the importance of being more intentional with my decisions there's a line that I've read recently and it goes like this we're all alone in this together and I think that's the best way to put it there's no cheat code there's no magic formula maybe the first step is simply as cheesy as it may sound to be willing to be vulnerable enough to admit that you want to make a friend and then let others resonate with that message it requires you in some ways to reveal a need a desire and I think as we get older there's sometimes a sense of shame that comes along with not having in our friends and actually saying I need a friend is maybe one of the hardest sentences that any human being can utter all we have is each other and the sooner we start to realize it the better I trust you even though I don't know you and that's all I can really offer and I think that is the most important thing we need to coexist we need to collaborate with each other we need to talk to each other patience is so important trying to trust others even when it seems hopeless especially now yeah uh I trust you and I'm going to go and cry so thank you I hope you've been able to take something from this video and if you want to see more content like this feel free to subscribe because the answer you're looking for is more often than not in the gray area and as I always say remember to live well then my last question would be that's Lo anyway carry on

Channel: Elvis Jesse

Views: 58,571

Keywords: gen z, mental health, loneliness, loneliness epidemic, loneliness crisis, i have no friends, i don't have friends, frendship recession, i feel lonely, i feel alone

Id: m99MySPa_hk

Length: 20min 32sec (1232 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 20 2024