Like Millie Bobby Brown, over a quarter of Brits admit to feeling lonely, but what is driving Britain’s friendship vacuum? And how is it being impacted by the sudden rise of AI
Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown broke one of the ultimate social taboos. She admitted to not having many mates. “I didn’t go to school, so I don’t have the best social skills when it comes to people my own age and friendships,” the 21-year-old told Vanity Fair.
But why did it cause such an intense reaction? According to a government report, 26% of UK adults report feeling lonely at least some of the time. Yet, despite how common the issue is, there’s still something embarrassing about having to admit you’re lonely. It invokes questions like, why don’t you have someone to hang out with? It implies a self-contained defect, an inability to socialise. However, as with Millie, an increasing number of us are coming forward and revealing that we’re struggling to make friends.
Kristin Herman, a writer for Academized, admits to living with constant loneliness. She reveals life changes have deteriorated her relationships. Some of her friends have moved, while for others hectic work schedules keep them too busy to catch up. “Sometimes it feels that everyone else has these solid friendships and I’m the only one on the outside looking in,” she says.
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Being an adult makes forming friendships more difficult. Herman tells me: “It’s not like it was in school or uni. Most people already have their social circles and families. So when you put yourself out there it can feel weird or even a bit scary.”
Work and general responsibilities often leaves her too exhausted to reach out. Plus, there’s also the hard truth that sometimes people simply just grow apart. “At first you start asking and talking less to your friends,” she says, “and then it gets harder and harder to start talking like you did before again.”
Kristin’s experience echoes an increasingly widespread phenomenon, where more and more of us are slowly drifting away from each other. Even more concerning, therapists are reporting that it’s affecting an increasing number of young people.
“I’ve seen younger people, from mid-teens until around age 25, feeling lonely more often than any other group,” says Dr Kultar Garcher, a mental health expert from the UK clinic Flo Neuroscience. She says factors like moving for work and university have exposed this generation’s difficulty with forming new, meaningful connections.
It isn’t just an emotional ailment either. According to the US Surgeon General, loneliness is as harmful to the body as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. A report also found that people who feel chronically lonely are more likely to develop heart problems, have strokes, and experience memory issues as they age.
Lack of ways to meet face-to-face
While the symptoms are similar, the causes can be vastly different. For older adults, Dr Kultar points to factors like losing a partner or developing a chronic health issue causing people’s social worlds to “shrink”. A large problem is also Britain’s decline in community spaces, like pubs or town halls.
While for younger age groups, Dr Kultar highlights how the transition from school to the workplace can lead to isolation. According to a survey by the coworking space Colony, more 18 to 24 year-olds are finding it difficult to make friends in the workplace, with 37% answering ‘very difficult’ or ‘somewhat difficult’.
But why is this? A likely explanation is the prevalence of remote jobs and working from home. While ideal for those already managing busy lives, never coming into the office can make it difficult for people attempting to make connections after university. The survey highlighted that not having enough in-person time with their colleagues was a major barrier to younger workers building connections.
Screen addiction
Our screen time is posing an even more omnipresent threat to our IRL or ‘in real life’ relationships. In 2024, Brits spent an average of 1 hour and 48 minutes every day on social media. And while the perception around apps like Instagram is that they help us stay connected, Dr Kultar argues that they’re ultimately having the opposite effect.
“Scrolling through carefully curated social media feeds can actually make people feel more alone, not less,” she says. According to a scientific study, social networking sites have been linked to depression, anxiety and psychological distress.
Gen Z’s phobia of answering phone calls may also play a part. Dr Kultar says that part of the problem is that, “we text instead of call, message instead of meet up, making it easier to maintain surface-level contact but harder to develop the meaningful connections we all need.”
The AI question
There can no longer be a discussion about loneliness without having one about AI. All over the ChatGPT subreddit are posts about how users have developed a relationship with the robot – with some even claiming to have successfully replaced real friendships.
It sounds initially farfetched, but an increasing number of us are forming emotional attachments to the speech generator. Casey Paul is a UK-based positive psychology coach who says that she has observed clients using ChatGPT as emotional support.
The problem? She warns that it can create a self-fulfilling loop, in which someone turning to ChatGPT for guidance may begin to rely on it. “You may be less likely to seek support from friends and family, making you less connected, which could impact the relationships around you,” she says.
Loneliness isn’t new. As humans, we’ve always felt lonely. According to research by the late Dr John Cacioppo, the feeling stems back 52 million years, all the way to the earliest primates. Building on Dr Cacioppo’s theories, Vivek H. Murthy wrote his book Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World. In his work, he explains how humans have historically existed together in tight-knit groups, which were fundamental to our survival. Becoming separated from these communities triggered a fight or flight response. So it makes sense, even millennia later, that feeling disconnected elicits such an immediate sense of pain.
Real solution may lie in turning away from technology and looking to how we formed relationships in the past. Dr Kultar advises putting effort into maintaining strong relationships over fair-weather acquaintances, creating regular in-person meetups and even striking up conversations with strangers – the old-fashioned way.
