If you’re curious about whether or not the young people you minister to are experiencing loneliness, the answer is “More than likely.” According to Forbes, 73% of 18-22-year-olds reported “sometimes or always feeling alone,”1 and to me, that seems like a significant and dangerous proportion. How dangerous? Well, the Surgeon General of the United States sees loneliness as a public health concern, equating its mortality impact to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.2
But the issue is much worse than surface-level gloom or a widespread individualistic spirit among the youthful masses. In reality, we are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. And surprisingly enough, the self-prescribed remedies that young people regularly use to deal with feelings of detachment often fall under the same damaging categories. Sadly, in their search to alleviate the pain of loneliness, the crutches teens use often end up being hazardous and creating more problems, not fewer.
So what do parents and youth ministers need to know about loneliness among young adults? How can we talk about this epidemic with our teenagers in biblical terms?
Well, even though the temptation to find comfort in places that end up making things worse is common, we as parents and youth ministers can push back on the loneliness epidemic in ways that help young people find true and long-lasting satisfaction.
Three Issues Increasing Loneliness—and How to Reverse Them
I’ve been in full-time ministry with young adults for more than 25 years, and I’ve seen time and time again how the things lonely teenagers hold onto for comfort often cause them pain. There are plenty of these supposed comforts, but right now I want to cover just three.
Let’s quickly take the issues increasing loneliness one by one and counterpunch the problem with biblical truth for authentic healing.
Digital Identities
Connecting with others through a phone in moderation is fine and good, but I believe that one of the main reasons why young people experience loneliness is because of constant access to the online world. Technological advancements have given teenagers opportunities to feel grafted into digital communities they want to communicate with. Their digital identities have generated ways for them to express themselves and relate to others in the world…but has their digital presence really connected them, or has it made them experience greater degrees of detachment from others?
The irony in all of this digital “connection” is that young people are separated from others more than they’ve joined others in their desire to plug in and belong. As a result, teenagers experience an increased sense of solitude as they dive deeper into their phone in search of a community they’ll never be able to find.
As much as young people mask it, digital identities are mostly fake. And they know deep down it isn’t the real, raw self that they are putting out there. God makes human beings to be meaningfully connected with himself and other people. As much as teenagers try, their phone just won’t scratch that itch. Genuine community is necessary, starting with God and then branching out to others too.
True life is knowing God (John 17:3), and in knowing him, we have abundant life (John 10:10b). Sometimes God actually woos people to himself and teaches them about meaningful relationships through others first, making the gospel plausible and a relationship with him a reliable reality.
We need to help our teens grasp the gospel by digging into Scripture with them in anticipation that he’ll meet them there. When young people try to assuage their loneliness and have their needs met by digital substitutes, they’ll always find junk-food solutions to serious spiritual nutrition problems. A greater gospel grasp, however, will address the loneliness problem in the best possible place—at the heart level.
Porn / Casual Sex
It’s no secret that when someone feels unloved and unknown, watching porn and pursuing casual sex can be a huge temptation. Why? Because easy hook-ups and porn promise to alleviate the negativity of feeling unwanted and detached from others. It’s a very now-based pseudo-solution that gives someone a quick hit of pleasure, which is often what they’re looking for when they’re in the pain of loneliness.
But there’s nothing casual about porn or “casual” sex. The price tag is much higher than young people imagine because the result isn’t a breezy life of liberation. It’s actually a shallow pursuit of erotic connection that traps someone in addiction and contempt for themselves and others.
As sinners, our hearts are “deceitful above all things and beyond cure” (Jer. 17:9), so if a young person is stuck in isolation, it’s rare that he or she would be able to see the evil in sexually consuming others via porn and hookups. The Bible says that as believers, we make up the body of Christ, and this body has many members (1 Cor. 12:14). So it’s vital that teenagers are connected to the other members of the body in a community where people open up to each other even to the point of vulnerability.
In light of that, we must learn to ask authentic questions and encourage honest answers when we talk to our teenagers. We should contend for a continual spirit of truth among those who are closest to us. The Bible says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Prov. 27:17).
Christians have the ability to help other Christians become more godly disciples—that’s how the body of Christ works.
Tribalism
The either/or mindset is prevalent practically anywhere you go—both online and in real life—and the peer pressure to choose one side or the other is strong. And sure, hastily picking a team might alleviate the discomfort of not belonging, but the consequential by-product of feeling the push to one side or the other is generating angry tribalism and loneliness.
If a teenager engages with a group that rallies around a particular ideal or goal, they should consider the possibility that the community they’re a part of may not actually be as genuine as they think. Why? Because the foundation of a polarized group is usually built on loyalty to the ideal—not the relationships within the group.
Sadly, there isn’t much community within a polarized community. Often, a polarized group is a works-based group that requires your performance to maintain your status within it. No grace. No believing the best. Just commitment to the idea. If you step out of line or waver at all on said idea, you no longer belong within the community.
But the gospel is the opposite of this. Because God rescues sinners through the work of Christ, we have the opportunity to show our teens the beauty of grace in ways they’ll never experience elsewhere in polarized groups, which stands in sharp communal contrast to the online “community” they might be a part of. The gospel offers genuine acceptance and community, love and care, comfort and welcome. There won’t be any possibility of loneliness in the yet-to-come reality of God’s kingdom.
The Gospel for Lonely Teenagers
Here’s the thing: teenagers are going to battle loneliness, and there’s no getting around that. The dissonance they feel when loneliness creeps in will drive them to find comfort in several places, and, depending on their choices, that can end up hurting them even more.
However, what the gospel offers a young person is something that will actually help them, actually last, and actually stand as a living example to others about what it means to be “with”—with God and with others.
Let’s show our young people the beauty of gospel-saturated culture and help them understand that they aren’t just the future of the church “one day when they grow up,” but that they’re an integral part of the church right now. It’s an outstanding way to push back on our loneliness epidemic.
If you’re a youth minister looking for coaching regarding discipling teenagers, check out Rooted’s youth ministry mentorship program. New cohorts begin in February, so apply today!
