Teens must deal with isolation in new world of online friends

It’s an accepted reality that you can be loneliest of all in the heart of a busy city; like a tree in the forest, just because you’re surrounded doesn’t mean you don’t feel like you’re completely on your own.

What is now becoming clear, as well, is the new reality in this age of technology and global connection – that just because you have hundreds of friends on Facebook doesn’t actually mean you have any friends at all.

Friendship can be defined in many ways – but there's a growing recognition that friends are not to be found among those people you’ve never actually met on Facebook or other social media platforms.

And this isn’t just some sort of old-fashioned notion of how to define friendship; Childline, for example, has revealed that social media is leading to an epidemic of loneliness among children.

Part of this comes from an insecurity at seeing how busy their class-mates appear to be online and on social media, and a feeling of inadequacy on their part that they don’t seem to be as successful.

That has led to a significant increase in the number of young people seeking counselling from Childline to help them cope with loneliness.

The report was from the charity’s UK operation – but there’s no reason to think that the same patterns aren’t prevalent here.

Childline delivered 4,636 counselling sessions for loneliness in 2017-18 – a 14 per cent rise on the previous year.

Teenagers accounted for most of these, with the youngest child being just ten; girls received almost 80 per cent of sessions.

And the recurring theme among these young people was that they saw their friends having a great time on social media, which left them feeling worthless that no one cared enough to invite them to join in.

Making friends was always an issue for young people and we all grew up with the knowledge that some people are naturally more popular than others.

There were those kids who weren’t great at football, who would be the last pick for the five-a-sides; those who didn’t know their music and were left out of conversations – those who weren’t great in the company of the opposite sex and who withdrew into themselves as a form of protection or self-preservation.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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