HYP: Kathryn Sutter
Loneliness
Social media ruled me. The comparison started when I was young – everyone else on Facebook seemed to be having such a fun time: they have perfect hair, why is my hair frizzy? At university – surely this would be the time? I would finally have hundreds of friends and be popular and cool with an Instagram account to match. Not sitting in my room far from home missing my family. Then there’s now – the scrolls through Twitter feeling that maybe my life isn’t quite enough, am I doing enough? Achieving enough? Am I enough?
Loneliness. I am 29 and often I feel lonely. I wasn’t sure 29-year-olds were allowed to feel lonely. Surely it’s only for old people whose friends have died and who sit around watching daytime TV? Not 29-year-olds with a job, a boyfriend, a family who live close by, as well as a few close friends and many more connections to others? It’s an emotion I have always wanted to extinguish, always something wrong with me that I needed to fix, an identity marker I needed to be ashamed of. The image of loneliness doesn’t ever seem to be a positive thing. Since I was young, the image of loneliness was older people, making loneliness as a young person difficult to admit, bringing shame and then more loneliness.
Social media has definitely increased my feelings of loneliness. As a young teenager I was comparing my life to others online, wondering if I was meeting the standards needed. Today, children much younger than I was are attempting to meet these unattainable standards. When used for connection, social media can be great, but when used for comparison, feelings of isolation can grow. I personally had to delete Instagram as I couldn’t get my head around the fact that it was a highlight reel, not real life.
There are multiple studies that demonstrate that social media has played a part in the increasing isolation of young people today. Comparing yourself to others doesn’t create connection. Spending time on social media can significantly reduce face-to-face contact with others, negatively affecting mental health. This perhaps explains why I can have 50 WhatsApp chats active in my phone and still feel lonely. Whilst older generations can remember living without social media, young people today can’t live without it.
How can I be lonely when I have people in my life? It’s a feeling that my life is never quite enough because I’m always comparing myself to people online. What if getting Instagram likes gives you a feeling of satisfaction for a moment and then emptiness? What if you want to have real connections with people and not surface level relationships?
Admitting that loneliness is real for me feels huge but important, I am slowly realising that it is not wrong to feel this way, and that lonely people shouldn’t be stigmatised – including myself. Instead, we need to consider the feelings of doubt, unworthiness and loneliness that are amplified by social media. Those who are lonely have not done anything wrong, it is not an identity for life. It actually feels like a relief to admit that I can feel lonely, rather than a burden.
Recently I have been braver and shared with some people my feelings of loneliness in person. Instead of being shamed, it has actually helped to open up to people. Loneliness is not an easy thing to solve, but perhaps admitting it is a first step to building connections and realising that many of us face loneliness in life. Maybe I will always, to some extent, feel like a teenager comparing her life to others on Facebook, but now I care less about building a life online. The only life that matters is my real one, not whether it looks good enough to share.
As an extension to this piece, I asked young people in Hastings aged 17-30 to share their thoughts on social media and their relationship to it. Comments were both negative and (surprisingly for me) positive. Collecting these quotes has made me consider the benefits of social media as well as the downsides, helping me to consider that one day I could have a healthy relationship with social media. The quotes accompanying this piece show some of their thoughts.
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