Worldwide Increases in Adolescent Loneliness
This study by Jean Twenge, Jonathan Haidt, and colleagues used the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to track school-related loneliness among roughly one million 15- and 16-year-olds across 37 countries, surveyed in 2000, 2003, 2012, 2015, and 2018. The researchers found that reported loneliness at school rose sharply between 2012 and 2018 in 36 of the 37 countries studied, with the share of adolescents reporting elevated loneliness roughly doubling over that window. Country-years with greater smartphone access and internet use tended to show higher loneliness, while broader economic measures such as GDP and income inequality showed little relationship once the survey year was accounted for. The authors describe this pattern as consistent with — though not proof of — rising phone-based and internet-based technology use being one contributor, among others, to a broad, multi-country rise in adolescent loneliness after 2012.
PISA survey data on school loneliness among 15- and 16-year-olds, pooled across five survey waves (2000, 2003, 2012, 2015, 2018).
Reported school loneliness increased in nearly every country studied over this six-year window, with the share of adolescents reporting elevated loneliness roughly doubling.
Twenge, Jean M., Jonathan Haidt, Andrew B. Blake, Cooper McAllister, Hannah Lemon, and Astrid Le Roy. "Worldwide Increases in Adolescent Loneliness." Journal of Adolescence 93 (2021): 257–269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2021.06.006