Do parents and society in general have a wrong idea about present-day teens? According to a new study, contrary to what many people think, teens these days are actually not lonely.
Researchers from Griffith University and the University of Queensland discovered that teens today are not as lonely as we thought they are, and there are a number of possible reasons.
First, teens are more independent and thus don't require social support perhaps as much as their parents used to during their time. This also means that they can afford to be less social. Most of all, they are more confident about themselves.
The growing popularity of social media is also helping teens cope well with the feeling of isolation and depression. For example, if they need to reach out to friends, they can simply send an e-mail through Facebook or a tweet via Twitter. In fact, they are more likely to feel the separation if they don't have their mobile device such as a phone with them as this removes them from their means of communication.
However, along with the feeling of less loneliness is less empathy, since they no longer force themselves to join clubs or other types of organizations as well as make new friends in order to avoid feeling depressed or isolated.
To come up with these findings, the researchers had to study American high school and college students between the years of 1978 and 2009. They monitored the activities and behavior of different age groups.
Upon analysing the data, they figured that only 10% of the teens during the period confirmed they don't talk about important topics to anyone. However, in 2004, the percentage jumped by 15%.
When it comes to gender, females are more likely to be less lonely than males, especially in the college level. The differences are not so significant for those who are still in high school.
As for race, whites reported a lower level of loneliness than the others, including Hispanics and African Americans.
