When I founded a befriending charity in 2018, I thought I understood loneliness. I saw how many older people were slipping through the cracks of a culture that prizes convenience and productivity over community. But seven years on, something unexpected has become clear: the group now most at risk of deep, chronic loneliness isn’t the elderly anymore, it’s young adults.
According to the ONS, 40% of adults aged 16–29 now report feeling lonely “often or always” or “some of the time,” compared with just 17% of those aged 70 or over. This is the first time in recorded history that our young adults are making up Britain’s loneliest generation. This is significant because it marks a social shift: youth is no longer a buffer against isolation, and the forces driving loneliness are increasingly environmental (tied to the structure of modern life itself) rather than age-related.
