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CHART 1 • Young adults feel more isolated than ever
Pandemic restrictions ended in 2022, but the share of young Americans spending an entire waking day alone kept rising for another year. It has since settled near one in ten, almost three times its pre-Covid level.
For most of the 15 years before the pandemic, the line stayed between 2% and 4%. I would pay less attention to the sudden rise during lockdown, which needs little explanation, than to the high plateau afterwards. Work, education and leisure have not reliably restored the ordinary contact they once created for people aged 23 to 29.
Source: Financial Times
The American Time Use Survey records who was physically present during one person’s diary day. It does not measure loneliness, friendships or digital contact, and the three-year average smooths annual variation. Nobody should diagnose a generation from one day. Yet a measure this blunt should have fallen once normal life returned. Its refusal to do so suggests that isolation has become part of normal life for a sizeable minority.
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