Addressing Loneliness and Social Isolation in Adolescents During Pandemic Times

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally transformed the landscape of adolescent mental health, creating unprecedented challenges for young people worldwide. Among the most significant and enduring impacts has been the dramatic rise in loneliness and social isolation among teenagers and young adults. One in 6 people worldwide are affected by loneliness, and the percentage is highest among 13- to 17-year-olds (20.9%), according to the latest report by the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Connection. This crisis extends far beyond temporary discomfort, representing a serious public health concern with profound implications for the current and future well-being of an entire generation.

Loneliness rates remained relatively stable between 2003 and 2017 (9.5–15.5%) but spiked dramatically in 2020 (34.6%) during the COVID-19 pandemic. While these numbers have declined somewhat in subsequent years, by 2024, 20.5% of young people still reported feeling lonely at least sometimes during the past week, with loneliness remaining above pre-2020 levels. The persistence of elevated loneliness rates years after the initial pandemic lockdowns suggests that we are dealing with lasting changes to adolescent social experiences rather than a temporary disruption.

Understanding the Scope of Adolescent Loneliness

To effectively address this crisis, it is essential to understand what loneliness truly means and how it differs from related concepts. Loneliness is described as a state of mind: “a subjective distressing experience that results from perceived isolation or inadequate meaningful connections, where inadequate refers to the discrepancy or unmet need between an individual’s preferred and actual experience.” This definition highlights a crucial point: loneliness is not simply about being alone, but about feeling disconnected even when surrounded by others.

Social isolation is that objective state of when you have few relationships or few social interactions with others, something easily counted and quantified—how many friends you have, how many times you see them, etc. Loneliness is a much more subjective state. This distinction is particularly important for understanding adolescent experiences during and after the pandemic. Adolescents have higher rates of loneliness but lower rates of social isolation. They tend to have more frequent social interactions, for example, at school or with their peers. But what seems to be driving the high rates of loneliness in younger people is a sense of dissatisfaction with the quality of the relationships that young people have—an unmet expectation in terms of what they’re looking for from their peers.

The Pre-Pandemic Context

While the pandemic undeniably exacerbated adolescent loneliness, it is important to recognize that this was not an entirely new phenomenon. Loneliness levels, especially for young men, have gone up every year between 1976 and 2019. Research conducted before COVID-19 already showed concerning trends. A survey conducted in 2019 of more than 2,000 UK adults found that nearly nine in ten (88%) Britons aged from 18 to 24 said they experience loneliness to some degree with a quarter (24%) suffering often and 7% saying they are lonely all of the time.

These pre-pandemic trends suggest that broader societal and technological changes have been reshaping adolescent social experiences for decades. The pandemic acted as an accelerant to existing problems rather than creating them from scratch. Understanding this historical context is crucial for developing effective long-term solutions that address root causes rather than simply responding to pandemic-specific circumstances.

Demographic Variations in Loneliness

Loneliness does not affect all adolescents equally. Throughout the entire time between 2003 and 2024, girls consistently reported higher levels of loneliness than boys. Pre-pandemic data showed that girls were twice as likely to experience loneliness as boys. At the start of the pandemic, a high number of 41.2% of girls felt lonely compared to 28.2% of boys. Additionally, loneliness seems to be more strongly associated with elevated depression symptoms in girls and with elevated social anxiety in boys.

Loneliness affects people of all ages, especially youth and people living in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Between 17–21% of individuals aged 13–29-year-olds reported feeling lonely, with the highest rates among teenagers. About 24% of people in low-income countries reported feeling lonely — twice the rate in high-income countries (about 11%). These disparities highlight the need for targeted interventions that account for gender, age, and socioeconomic factors.

Why Adolescence Is a Critical Period for Loneliness

Adolescence is a critical developmental stage characterized by heightened vulnerability to loneliness due to rapid social, emotional, and cognitive changes. This stage of life involves significant social, cognitive, and emotional transformations, including identity formation, changing relationship dynamics, and heightened sensitivity to peer evaluation. These transitions create unique challenges that can increase susceptibility to loneliness.

During adolescence, young people are navigating multiple complex transitions simultaneously. Friends are of particular importance to the development of a young person’s identity during these early life stages and they provide vital forms of support. The pandemic disrupted these critical developmental processes at a particularly vulnerable time. Older teens and young adults may be particularly susceptible because they are often transitioning from their “inherited families to their chosen families,” meaning they lack important connections to those who can “be critical guardrails against loneliness.”

Adolescence is a pivotal stage for developing meaningful relationships, a sense of belonging, and one’s own identity. In this life stage, it is essential to understand and promote connectedness, given its positive role in adolescent mental health. Given that social isolation and loneliness are at an all-time high in this group, there is serious reason for concern.

The consequences of adolescent loneliness extend far beyond temporary emotional discomfort, affecting virtually every aspect of young people’s lives and potentially shaping their trajectories well into adulthood.

Mental Health Impacts

The relationship between loneliness and mental health is both profound and complex. People who are lonely are twice as likely to get depressed. Loneliness can also lead to anxiety, and thoughts of self-harm or suicide. Research has shown that 81% of adults who were lonely also said they suffered with anxiety or depression compared to 29% of those who were less lonely, with a complex interaction between troubled feelings, where loneliness, anxiety, and depression all feed into each other.

Loneliness in adolescence is associated with a range of negative outcomes, including depression, anxiety, social anhedonia, and increased health risks. The longitudinal nature of these effects is particularly concerning. Loneliness was associated with future mental health problems up to 9 years later with the strongest association being with depression. Social isolation and loneliness increased the risk of depression, and possibly anxiety at the time at which loneliness was measured and between 0.25 and 9 years later.

During the pandemic specifically, national surveys from 2023 found that nearly 40% of adolescents reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless, with loneliness identified as a major contributing factor. The mental health crisis among adolescents has been particularly severe, with loneliness — particularly among Gen Z, aged 12 to 27 — increasing steadily along with depression, anxiety, stress, and sadly, suicidal ideation.

Academic and Cognitive Consequences

Loneliness significantly impacts adolescents’ ability to succeed academically. Teens who reported feeling lonely were 22% more likely to get lower grades in school. This academic impact creates a concerning feedback loop, as lower academic achievement can further isolate students from peer groups and reduce their sense of belonging in school communities.

The impacts extend to learning and employment. Teenagers who felt lonely were 22% more likely to get lower grades or qualifications. Adults who are lonely may find it harder to find or maintain employment and may earn less over time. These findings suggest that adolescent loneliness can have cascading effects that extend into career trajectories and economic outcomes in adulthood.

Physical Health Ramifications

While mental health impacts are most immediately apparent, loneliness also takes a significant toll on physical health. Loneliness is linked to an estimated 100 deaths every hour—more than 871,000 deaths annually. Although this statistic encompasses all age groups, research suggests similar pathways operate in adolescents.

Loneliness fosters many different forces — such as sleep deprivation, difficulty self-regulating, substance misuse to quell feelings of loneliness, a weakened immune system and increased risks for heart disease, stroke, diabetes and premature death. It is linked to disrupted sleep, mild cognitive impairment, and increased risk for cardiovascular disease. Although many of these studies focus on adults, adolescent data suggest similar pathways, mediated by stress physiology and health behaviors.

Studies have shown that loneliness in young people results in increased risks of smoking, taking drugs, and consuming alcohol. These risky health behaviors represent both immediate dangers and potential pathways to long-term health problems, creating additional layers of concern for lonely adolescents.

Perhaps most insidiously, loneliness can create self-perpetuating cycles that make it increasingly difficult for adolescents to form and maintain meaningful connections. Persistent loneliness may become maladaptive, reinforcing withdrawal through negative expectations and creating self-sustaining cycles of social disconnection.

Lonely people often feel they’re reaching out or listening to other people more than other people are reaching out or listening to them. “These things can become self-defeating. When you feel like you’re trying hard while other people are not trying hard, or you feel like you’re going to get rejected again, you withdraw, which increases your loneliness and your anxiety about social situations.”

Removing opportunities from children and young people to socialise with their peers appears to be contributing to feelings of loneliness and may have long term effects on their mental health. The pandemic’s restrictions on social gatherings, school closures, and social distancing measures created exactly these conditions, potentially setting in motion cycles of withdrawal and isolation that persist even as restrictions have lifted.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global mental health crisis that disproportionately impacts adolescents. Loneliness is a particularly salient pandemic psychosocial outcome to understand. The pandemic created a perfect storm of conditions that intensified adolescent loneliness through multiple mechanisms.

The timing of the pandemic was particularly unfortunate for adolescent development. School closures, restrictions on gatherings, and social distancing measures removed or severely limited the primary contexts in which adolescents typically develop social skills and form meaningful relationships. During the COVID-19 pandemic, not only were adolescents’ and young adults’ well-being and health affected but also their development. This can be related to reduced possibilities for real-life peer interactions, worry about the uncertain future, and anxiety about the threat to self, family and friends.

Four main categories emerged: Changed social networks – fewer and closer contacts, Changed mental and physical health, Increased isolation and social loneliness, and Well-being, internal growth and need for support. These findings suggest that the pandemic’s impact was multidimensional, affecting not just the quantity but also the quality and nature of adolescent social relationships.

Pre-Existing Vulnerabilities and Pandemic Loneliness

Research has identified several pre-pandemic factors that predicted which adolescents would experience the most severe loneliness during the pandemic. Over 25% of adolescents reported emotional loneliness, a figure that increased to 50% in young adulthood during the pandemic. Only adolescent mental health problems predicted loneliness in emerging adulthood.

More adverse childhood experiences and higher levels of compulsive internet use during adolescence were linked to more adolescent mental health problems, identifying potential indirect targets for the prevention of loneliness. Effective strategies may include enhancing parenting practices and increasing awareness of child mental health problems, mitigating adverse childhood experiences, and reducing excessive internet use.

The relationship between technology, social media, and adolescent loneliness is nuanced and often misunderstood. While technology is frequently blamed for rising loneliness rates, the reality is more complicated.

Technology as Both Problem and Solution

While it’s true that there are many downsides to digital media — such as comparing oneself to others, fear of missing out, high drama or anything — there are many benefits to social media. If we didn’t have social media during the lockdown, our young people would have been completely isolated. And for young people who are shy, who are anxious, or who are on the autistic spectrum, it can be very helpful as a step in face to face encounters.

Some experts point to smartphones as a main culprit for the uptick in loneliness, but past research shows that owning one isn’t necessarily the issue—kids using their phones to be active on social media is what can result in mental health problems. For example, being unfriended on social media or getting bullied for posting a picture online could lead to feelings of depression or anxiety.

Social media use can decrease loneliness through seeking support and positive feedback but it can also have negative effects through receiving negative feedback and experiencing social media ostracism. The key appears to be not whether adolescents use technology, but how they use it and what quality of interactions it facilitates.

The Quality vs. Quantity of Digital Connections

Social media might reduce the quality and the quantity of the in-person interactions that people have. When you’ve got excessive use of digital platforms, they might replace more face-to-face interactions, which we know are really essential for healthy social development. There’s evidence that says that frequent use of social media can increase the likelihood of social isolation and loneliness and can lead to things like unhealthy social comparisons.

73% of those surveyed selected technology as contributing to loneliness in the country. However, this perception must be balanced against the reality that technology also provided crucial lifelines during pandemic lockdowns and continues to offer valuable connection opportunities for many young people.

Comprehensive Strategies to Address Adolescent Loneliness

Addressing the crisis of adolescent loneliness requires coordinated efforts across multiple levels of society, from individual interventions to systemic policy changes. Adolescent loneliness should be addressed through the development of social and emotional skills, the fostering of supportive peer networks, psychological intervention, and the reshaping of environments.

Individual and Family-Level Interventions

Promoting Meaningful Virtual and In-Person Connections

While in-person interaction remains ideal, virtual connections can play a valuable supplementary role when used intentionally. Encourage adolescents to participate in structured online activities that foster genuine interaction, such as virtual clubs focused on shared interests, collaborative gaming experiences that require teamwork and communication, and video calls with friends and family that go beyond superficial check-ins.

The goal should be to use technology to facilitate deeper connections rather than replace face-to-face interaction entirely. ICT-based and social media–based interventions show promise for countering the effects of loneliness. Digital solutions developed to overcome loneliness can benefit people, and younger people in particular, more if they are made interactive in order to retain users.

Establishing and Maintaining Routines

Structure and predictability can provide important anchors for adolescent well-being, particularly during times of uncertainty. Establish regular schedules that balance academic responsibilities, physical activity, creative pursuits, social interaction, and adequate sleep. Consistent routines help create a sense of normalcy and control, which can buffer against feelings of isolation and disconnection.

Routines should include dedicated time for both structured activities and unstructured social interaction. The latter is particularly important, as spontaneous, low-pressure social time allows relationships to develop naturally and provides opportunities for the kind of authentic connection that combats loneliness.

Fostering Open Communication

Creating safe spaces for adolescents to express their feelings without judgment is crucial. To reduce the stigma associated with loneliness, the creation of national, state, and local campaigns that stress the importance of maintaining social ties, and reassure those suffering that it’s OK to seek help is recommended. “We need public education that removes the stigma of loneliness and really tries to alleviate the shame, because shame can also be self-defeating and cause you to avoid social situations or hide your true feelings in ways that make meaningful connections with others very hard.”

Parents and caregivers should actively listen to adolescents’ concerns, validate their feelings, and avoid minimizing their experiences. Parents and caregivers are the experts in their children. If you see a major change in your child, that’s the time to intervene. Regular, non-judgmental conversations about emotional well-being can help identify loneliness early and prevent it from becoming entrenched.

Connecting with Mental Health Resources

Professional mental health support can be invaluable for adolescents struggling with loneliness, particularly when it co-occurs with depression, anxiety, or other mental health challenges. Clear information on how to seek help and support from professionals should be made available. This includes school counselors, therapists specializing in adolescent mental health, support groups for lonely teens, and crisis intervention services when needed.

Doctors should also be asking about loneliness during annual physicals, helping connect patients who are struggling with social supports. Integrating loneliness screening into routine healthcare can help identify at-risk adolescents who might not otherwise seek help.

Active Parental Engagement

Both attachment to school and parental support may be key protective factors for mental and physical health during a developmental period when distress is high. Parents and guardians should actively engage with their teens, monitoring their well-being while respecting their growing need for independence.

Parents play an important role in facilitating opportunities for youth to engage in activities with their peers and participate in extracurriculars. This might include providing transportation to social activities, hosting gatherings at home, supporting participation in clubs and sports, and helping adolescents navigate social challenges without being overly intrusive.

School-Based Interventions

Schools represent critical intervention points for addressing adolescent loneliness, as they are where young people spend much of their time and form many of their most important relationships.

Creating Inclusive School Environments

Schools can be important points of intervention, where teachers can be trained to connect parents to each other and to ensure every student is connected to a school adult. This might involve implementing advisory programs where each student has a designated adult mentor, creating peer mentorship systems, and training staff to identify signs of loneliness and social isolation.

Schools should also work to create multiple pathways for belonging, recognizing that different students connect in different ways. This includes supporting diverse clubs and activities, creating inclusive classroom environments, and actively working to prevent bullying and social exclusion.

Structured programs that teach social and emotional skills can help adolescents develop the competencies needed to form and maintain meaningful relationships. These programs should address skills such as emotional regulation, empathy, communication, conflict resolution, and recognizing and responding to others’ emotional needs.

Social-emotional learning should be integrated throughout the curriculum rather than treated as a separate add-on. When these skills are reinforced across multiple contexts, students are more likely to internalize and apply them in their daily lives.

Facilitating Peer Support and Connection

Schools can implement various programs to facilitate peer connection, including peer support groups where students can discuss common challenges, buddy systems that pair students across grade levels, collaborative learning activities that require genuine teamwork, and structured social activities that bring together students with shared interests.

Virtual events and online platforms can supplement in-person activities, particularly for students who may be absent due to illness or other circumstances. However, the emphasis should remain on facilitating face-to-face interaction whenever possible.

Mental Health Education and Resources

Schools should provide comprehensive mental health education that includes information about loneliness, its effects, and strategies for addressing it. This education should normalize discussions about mental health and reduce stigma around seeking help.

Additionally, schools should ensure that mental health resources are readily available and accessible to all students. This includes adequate staffing of school counselors and psychologists, clear pathways for students to access support, and partnerships with community mental health organizations to provide additional resources when needed.

Community-Level Initiatives

Communities play a vital role in creating environments that support adolescent connection and combat loneliness.

Creating Safe Spaces for Adolescent Gathering

Communities should provide accessible spaces where adolescents can gather safely, both with and without adult supervision. This might include community centers with teen programs, parks and recreational facilities, libraries with teen-friendly spaces, and venues for youth-led activities and events.

These spaces should be designed with adolescent input to ensure they meet young people’s actual needs and preferences. When adolescents feel ownership over community spaces, they are more likely to use them and to develop a sense of belonging within their broader community.

Supporting Youth Organizations and Activities

Community organizations such as sports leagues, arts programs, volunteer opportunities, faith-based youth groups, and hobby clubs provide structured opportunities for adolescents to connect with peers who share their interests. Communities should support these organizations through funding, facilities, and volunteer recruitment.

Particular attention should be paid to ensuring that these opportunities are accessible to all adolescents, regardless of family income, transportation availability, or other potential barriers. Scholarship programs, transportation assistance, and flexible scheduling can help ensure equitable access.

Intergenerational Connection Programs

High schools, colleges, and senior centers should focus on connecting young people with the elderly. Intergenerational programs can benefit both adolescents and older adults, many of whom also experience high rates of loneliness. These programs might include mentorship initiatives, oral history projects, technology tutoring where teens help seniors, and shared community service projects.

Workplace Support for Families

66% chose insufficient time with family as a reason for loneliness in America, and 62% surveyed picked people being overworked or too busy or tired. Employers can support adolescent well-being by implementing family-friendly policies that allow parents to be more present and engaged with their children. This includes flexible work arrangements, reasonable work hours, and paid family leave.

Employers should check in with employees about whether they are lonely and provide them with resources that support connection. Supporting employee well-being, including their ability to maintain family connections, benefits both workers and their adolescent children.

Policy and Systems-Level Approaches

Addressing adolescent loneliness at scale requires policy changes and systems-level interventions that create supportive environments for all young people.

Public Health Campaigns

The report of the WHO Commission on Social Connection outlines a roadmap for global action focusing on five key areas: policy, research, interventions, improved measurement (including developing a global Social Connection Index), and public engagement, to shift social norms and bolster a global movement for social connection.

Public health campaigns should raise awareness about adolescent loneliness, reduce stigma around seeking help, promote the importance of social connection, and provide practical resources for individuals, families, schools, and communities. These campaigns should use multiple channels to reach diverse audiences, including social media, traditional media, schools, and healthcare settings.

Healthcare System Integration

Healthcare systems should integrate loneliness screening and intervention into routine adolescent care. This includes training healthcare providers to ask about loneliness and social connection, developing protocols for responding to identified loneliness, and creating referral pathways to appropriate resources and interventions.

The costs of social isolation and loneliness are high, but the benefits of social connection are far-reaching. WHO calls on all Member States, communities and individuals to make social connection a public health priority.

Education Policy Reform

Education policies should prioritize social-emotional learning and student well-being alongside academic achievement. This includes allocating adequate resources for school counselors and mental health professionals, supporting teacher training in social-emotional learning and trauma-informed practices, and creating accountability measures that include student well-being indicators.

Policies should also address structural factors that can contribute to loneliness, such as school size, class size, and scheduling practices that may limit opportunities for relationship-building.

Research and Data Collection

Continued research is essential for understanding loneliness and developing effective interventions. While qualitative research highlights nuanced experiences of loneliness, it remains underutilized relative to quantitative survey approaches. Incorporating adolescent voices through co-production can reveal mechanisms invisible to standardized measures, such as how social comparison and identity exploration intersect with loneliness. More research is needed on minority and marginalized adolescents, who experience unique risks. Intervention research must move beyond average effects to identify what works for whom, under what circumstances. This includes examining dosage, fidelity of implementation, and subgroup effects.

Special Considerations for Vulnerable Populations

While loneliness affects adolescents broadly, certain populations face unique challenges and require tailored approaches.

LGBTQ+ Youth

LGBTQ+ adolescents often face additional risk factors for loneliness, including potential rejection from family or peers, limited access to affirming communities, and experiences of discrimination or harassment. Interventions should include creating explicitly inclusive and affirming spaces, supporting LGBTQ+ youth organizations and social groups, providing access to affirming mental health services, and educating broader communities to reduce discrimination and increase acceptance.

Adolescents with Disabilities

Young people with physical, developmental, or mental health disabilities may face barriers to social connection, including physical accessibility challenges, communication differences, and social stigma. Addressing loneliness in this population requires ensuring physical accessibility of social spaces and activities, providing appropriate accommodations and supports, creating inclusive programs that bring together adolescents with and without disabilities, and addressing ableism and promoting disability awareness.

Immigrant and Refugee Youth

Adolescents who are immigrants or refugees may experience loneliness related to language barriers, cultural differences, separation from extended family and friends, and experiences of discrimination or marginalization. Support should include language learning support and multilingual resources, cultural bridging programs that honor heritage cultures while facilitating integration, mentorship from adults with similar backgrounds, and family support services that address the unique stressors of immigration.

Economically Disadvantaged Youth

The disparity in isolation prevalence between high-income and low-income groups peaked in 2020 at 10.8 percentage points (high-income, 15.6% vs low-income, 26.4%). Adolescents from low-income families may face barriers to social connection related to limited access to extracurricular activities and social opportunities, transportation challenges, work responsibilities that limit social time, and housing instability that disrupts social networks.

Addressing these disparities requires ensuring free or low-cost access to activities and programs, providing transportation assistance, offering flexible programming that accommodates work schedules, and providing stability supports for families experiencing housing insecurity.

The Path Forward: Building a More Connected Future

The crisis of adolescent loneliness revealed and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic represents both a significant challenge and an opportunity for positive change. By recognizing loneliness as a serious public health concern and implementing comprehensive, coordinated responses, we can create environments that support adolescent connection and well-being.

Individual Action Matters

If every person who’s in pretty good shape can make a commitment to reaching out to one person they are concerned might be lonely once a week, that would be a good thing. Individual actions, multiplied across communities, can create meaningful change. This includes reaching out to isolated peers or family members, volunteering with youth organizations, supporting policies and programs that address loneliness, and modeling healthy social connection in our own lives.

Collective Responsibility

Addressing adolescent loneliness is not the responsibility of any single sector or group. It requires coordinated efforts from families, schools, healthcare providers, community organizations, employers, policymakers, and adolescents themselves. Each sector has unique contributions to make, and the most effective approaches will integrate multiple levels of intervention.

Strong social connections can lead to better health and longer life. The benefits of addressing loneliness extend far beyond preventing negative outcomes; they include promoting positive development, enhancing resilience, improving academic and career outcomes, and fostering healthier, more connected communities.

Reasons for Hope

Despite the concerning statistics and serious consequences of adolescent loneliness, there are reasons for optimism. Internal growth, need for support and increased loneliness were also seen. Many adolescents have demonstrated remarkable resilience during the pandemic, developing new coping skills and finding creative ways to maintain connections.

We now have greater awareness of adolescent loneliness than ever before, with major health organizations, policymakers, and the public recognizing it as a serious concern. This awareness creates opportunities for action that did not exist previously. Research continues to expand our understanding of what works to prevent and address loneliness, providing an evidence base for effective interventions.

These findings suggest the promise of testing scalable loneliness interventions and policies during adolescence to better determine their impact on various outcomes. As we develop and refine interventions, we have the opportunity to not only address current loneliness but also to prevent future problems and promote positive development.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the issue of adolescent loneliness into sharp focus, revealing the extent of the problem and its serious consequences for young people’s mental health, physical health, academic success, and overall development. Rates of loneliness have increased since the pandemic. Teenagers are spending less time hanging out with friends in person than they did a decade or two ago.

However, this crisis also presents an opportunity for meaningful change. By implementing comprehensive strategies that address loneliness at individual, family, school, community, and policy levels, we can create environments that support adolescent connection and well-being. This requires recognizing that loneliness is not simply an individual problem but a public health concern that demands collective action.

The path forward involves promoting both virtual and in-person social connections, establishing supportive routines and structures, fostering open communication about mental health, ensuring access to professional support when needed, creating inclusive school and community environments, and implementing policies that prioritize social connection as a fundamental component of health and well-being.

Most importantly, we must listen to adolescents themselves, incorporating their perspectives and experiences into our understanding of loneliness and our approaches to addressing it. Young people are not passive recipients of interventions but active participants in creating solutions. By empowering adolescents to build meaningful connections, develop social-emotional skills, and advocate for their own needs, we can help them not only survive but thrive during this challenging period and beyond.

The elevated rates of loneliness we see today need not be permanent. Through sustained, coordinated efforts across all sectors of society, we can create a future in which all adolescents have access to the meaningful connections they need to develop into healthy, thriving adults. The stakes are too high, and the potential benefits too great, to accept the current crisis as inevitable. Together, we can build a more connected world for the next generation.

For more information on supporting adolescent mental health, visit the World Health Organization’s mental health resources. To learn about evidence-based interventions for loneliness, explore resources from the American Psychological Association. Parents and educators can find practical strategies at Mental Health First Aid. For crisis support, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline provides 24/7 assistance. Additional research and policy recommendations are available through the U.S. Surgeon General’s office.

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