What Makes Us Feel Lonely Depends On Our Age, Study Finds

We're in the midst of a loneliness epidemic, where people are feeling more alone and isolated than ever before. Loneliness can be seriously harmful to one's mental and physical health, as it's associated with higher risks of cardiovascular issues, depression, and mortality, among others.

Researchers in the Netherlands gathered data on over 26,000 adults, including young adults (ages 19–34), early middle-aged adults (ages 35–49), and late middle-aged adults (50–65). Overall, 44% of all adults said they deal with loneliness, including 40% of young adults, 43% of early middle-aged adults, and 48% of late middle-aged adults.

For young adults, the most important factor linked to loneliness was how often they were in contact with their friends. Young adults with less education also tended to feel more lonely, which wasn't the case across other age groups. "Education is more normative for young adults, and they are more likely to be expected to strive for educational goals," the researchers explain in the paper on their findings. 

Early middle-aged adults tended to feel more lonely when they didn't have a job, which wasn't the case for other age groups. They also tended to feel more lonely the more contact they had with family members. The researchers suggest that this might be because this life stage is often marked by child care responsibilities and caring for older relatives, which may not necessarily scratch the social itch. 

Even though different age groups had different factors that contributed to their loneliness, one common trend was feeling like you weren't doing the same things other people in your age group are doing.

"Each period in life is characterized by specific behaviors and goals, such as completing school and leaving the parental home for young adults. Whether an individual perceives loneliness or not depends on the individual's ability to perform and/or meet these age-normative behaviors and goals," the researchers write. "If an individual perceives life events as non-normative for his or her age, loneliness may manifest."

"Most [loneliness] interventions for adults are universal. Results of this study showed that interventions should be developed for specific age groups," Thanée Franssen, a researcher at Maastricht University who led the study, said in a news release.