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From the article: The pandemic forced many children to be isolated at home without consistent social interactions. This unprecedented situation left many concerned about the consequences of such isolation for children. Of course, one obvious consequence is loneliness, but does loneliness mean children will experience depression? Researchers at the University of New South Wales conducted a meta-analysis of research investigating the connection between loneliness and depressive symptoms. The results, published in Behavior Change, indicate that loneliness may be a significant risk factor for depression.

As the world exits this stage of the global pandemic, it provides an opportunity to assess the response, what worked, and what did not, and to gather data to support future decisions. Researchers Carissa Dunn and Gemma Sicouri sought to analyze previous literature to determine if loneliness was a significant factor in the increased rates of depression symptoms in children and adolescents during the pandemic years.

The research team searched for studies published between 1900-2020 with human participants under 18. Search terms used were ‘loneliness,’ ‘isolation,’ ‘depression,’ and ‘children’ or ‘adolescents .’This process elicited 3,664 articles whittled down to 44 studies that fit the meta-analysis criteria. The criteria included: full text in English, peer-reviewed and empirical, participants were younger than 19, and the study included “standardized and validated measure(s)” of depression and loneliness as well as a cross-sectional relationship between loneliness and depression.

The chosen 44 studies were published between 1983-2021 and included a total of 27,214 children between the ages of 9-18. Approximately one-half of the participants were female. Statistical analysis of these studies revealed there was a moderate correlation between loneliness and depressive symptoms. This indicates that when feelings of loneliness increase, depressive symptoms increase.

I suspect being unhappy for any reason will correlate with depression.

I'm surprised there was only a moderate correlation. I would expect something like that when comparing 'spends much time alone' and depression, but actual loneliness I would expect to see strongly correlated with depression.

I was born with it. Had nothing to do with my upbringing. Edit: I'm 100% wrong! Sorry.

Boys need to stop crying and thinking everything's too hard. We are the rocks that hold our women up. Harden up Gen Z

Who would have guessed! Thank you science

Who is actually doing that?

Great job. No one could have possibly figured that out without a study. Now what are you, as educated adults, going to do to unfuck the society you built?

I was isolated throughout my childhood, and while I did go to in person public schools I was bullied and isolated there as well. Diagnosed with depression at 16, 39 now and still struggling.

I was born with it and it has to do with my upbringing

I came to this conclusion as a child. Where’s my Nobel prize?

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I had the same thought.

My parents turned me into a recluse and tried making me a preacher. Raised in strict religion. Now I feel guilty for doing anything :/

Gen X and boomers

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Hmmm how about cutting taxes for the rich, it how we solved climate change, lgbt issues, women rights, civil rights, and how we fixed the economy. Just got to keep cutting the 1% taxes and it solve everything!!!!

Look! The grass is green!

I think you'll find that boys have a wider set of needs and desires which are outside of the scope of what you think they need or need not do.

Or in other words they're people, not rocks for the benefit of someone else.

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I'm 34 but wow. SAME.

You're right. I don't know why I said that!! I just meant that it didn't matter how happy and normal my upbringing tried to be, the source of the problem was that it was genetic. That being what it is, Of course being raised by a depressed couple will only succeed in nurturing it.The psychological argument is whether its chemical, behavioral or both. I think its a combination of both. It's a viscious cycle that feeds on itself, without a seeming end. Only took 30+ years to find the right meds, still haven't beat the behavioral training, tho. There's no magic pill for that.

I am an only child and we lived in the industrial part of town above my father’s garage (he was a car mechanic), I think the nearest kids were at least a mile away and due to how dangerous the neighborhood was, no children were allowed to come over and I was an outsider. I was bullied, mildly and infrequently. Mostly, I just never belonged in any friend group.

I managed to entertain myself and was a quiet kid that didn’t complain so my parents let me be and didn’t sign me up for any activities or push me to make friends. But started showing symptoms of depression at age 9 and have had severe struggles over the years.

To this day I have no real life friends and have nor been able to maintain any romantic relations.

I really wonder how much was my isolated upbringing.

You’re not alone. I have struggled with loneliness, isolation and deep depression all my life and i’m a little older than you.

Damn that's messed up

I'm an only child as well. My mother specifically refused to let me interact with peers outside of school. I was frequently punished/grounded from interacting with family other than my parents outside of school as well.

Tell me you weren’t hugged enough as a kid without telling me you weren’t hugged enough as a kid……

Well, yeah I spose it's not their fault, social media is the cause.. but we should be teaching our men to be stronger, emotionally.... All crying does is make you angry and used to that sympathy from others. Holds you down..... Things could change tomorrow, why worry about anything, just do what you want and love

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I doubt mommy or daddy will fix anything and relying on others to facilitate change when other’s behavior is largely out of your control may not reach your goal. What are you going to do to change yourself and your behavior to facilitate societal change since you are a product of this society?

To admit one's vulnerability or emotionality is not a fault, stop thinking in these terms.

Men don't need to be strong, they need to be healthy. And tending to one's mental health is part of it.

To say that men must be strong is no different than saying that women must be obedient or accomodating; it's patriarchal drivel in the form of imposed societal roles, and it has no place in a civilized culture.

I'll be as weak as I want to be, and will defend the right of other men to do the same. Whoever tries to tell people how they should behave or be can go eat a bag of dirt.

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Some Tate juice might help you

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Wow. Science of the obvious.

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Always with the hard hitting journalism.

Friendly reminder that having data to back up common sense assumptions is really useful.

Counseling will help over time. You don’t need to live with someone else’s guilt.

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As much as they want to you can't just suppress emotions. This is a flawed mindset that will hurt you in the long run.

It's not weak to admit that your struggling and if you show kindness to the people you love in your life then they will show kindness to you

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Your right. I’ve been trying to find a therapist, but a lot have been booked for long time.

Good luck to you!

Just express your emotions openly with the people you care about dude. Pretending it makes you stronger by not crying or not talking to people won't help. Everyone has times where they feel angry , talking about it to people you trust helps form bonds with them and can improve your mood

Part of love is being there for the people you care about when you need them and knowing they will be there for you

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Not crying tends to make you angry. Crying tends to help you accept things and move on.

I don’t follow the thought process of getting used to sympathy. Like it seems like a fairly obvious premise that when we are in trouble we offer each other comfort. Are you suggested that someone would become so addicted to connecting with others they’d make themselves cry when they don’t need to? That seems possible, but the issue there isn’t really crying, but the fact that they aren’t getting a satisfying emotional connection with others in other ways.

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Think it has anything to do with staring at an iPad/iPhone their whole childhood only to discover they actually have to talk to other people when they grow up?

I am wondering how they defined loneliness. I have had depression for a long time. I also struggle with loneliness. The real issue is this “loneliness” is not as simple as “I wish I wasn’t alone” and this feeling persists whether a person is around or even talking to me.

The result is, in the moment, I can feel connected, but as soon as direct interaction ends, I am directly back to being just as lonely. So looking back, it makes me feel like I was really alone for a long time.

There is something to be said about getting what you need out of an interaction NOW to avoid being lonely LATER

You’re not alone - literally - I grew up isolated. I was lucky enough to get a second chance when I moved away for college. I can’t imagine where I’d be in life if it weren’t for those 5 years

> I would expect something like that when comparing 'spends much time alone' and depression

Why? Clearly there are many people who usually prefer to be alone.

Not necessarily. I've been through the gamut of therapists and none have been able to help me because the primary problem is other people stubbornly insisting on hating me no matter how well I treat them.

My parents loudly and publicly abused me throughout my childhood, and every schoolyard bully did the same - with entire communities cheering all of them on.

I have been diagnosed with Complex PTSD and that's never going to go away - especially since people are still trying to make sure it stays put.

They fucked this society on purpose because they measure their self-worth based on how many people (including children) they hold power over.

A really interesting area of psych is the difference between what boys need to develop well vs what girls need.

For instance, boys need a "gang" and they need to go on "adventures" together. This is probably because they're meant to be learning to hunt/fight together. Girls seem to require wider social acceptance for psychological safety. What we call "doting on them".

Broad brush so not everyone follows these norms, but I think it is important to acknowledge that there are some norms.

And it's interesting cuz a lot of other phenomenon seem to arise from these ideas.

For instance, there's a more readily accepted premise that men are only accepted if they're "useful". TONS of men feel this way. This is the next phase of what I mentioned above. Men (as a sub-group) begin to filter potential comrades/community members based on whether they could be adventure/hunt/fighting partners. Of course the "hunt" is not an actual hunt but a business, sports team, etc.

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One interesting thing to note: Loneliness isn't necessarily "spending much time alone". Sometimes it manifests as constantly hanging out with lots of people so that you're never alone. Or feeling alone when surrounded by others.

Conversely, some people who spend lots of time alone aren't lonely at all, and perfectly content with that level of interaction.

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You might consider cutting all contact with toxic people like that. You can’t heal if you keep getting hurt over and over.

That would require cutting myself off from society entirely - which is exactly what my abusers are trying to force me to do. There are no non-toxic people - there are only abusers and their enablers, and the only solution is to break the stubbornness and programming of the enablers so that they don't enable anymore.

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Now that we have a study, it goes from "unproven anecdote" to "studied fact" and people will take it more seriously

I feel the same. It doesn’t matter how many people I know or talk to. I feel always alone. It’s depressing.

Sometimes I find a romantic partner and feel like we know each other but it goes away.

Wow. You just went full on conspiracy. You should first start with people on your life that are actively harming you.

I feel the same about a romantic partner.

I think the problem is we aren’t getting the chemicals we need and should be getting from these interactions.

I think we are defecient in something and it cause primary and secondary issues.

Primary: A feeling of loneliness

Secondary: An inability to sate my social appetite

I’m talking out of my ass though. I think legitimately that therapy and mental health treatment is really the only way to address it properly at this time in our life.

Yeah for sure.

Some people around me mentioned I might have adhd. I just gotta find a good mental health to profesional.

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Exactly my point.

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Thats why i stayed 7 years..

Also affects kids pre- internet age..

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I cried yesterday

Logical and reasoned assumptions. Sense is never common.

Michael Jackson approves

Honest question here: who do you think is going to take it more seriously now that we have what was already assumed with a study to back it up? I'm all for data to back up assumptions, but I'm struggling to see what difference it will make in this case.

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(obviously, this is all very broadly speaking and will not pertain to every single person; this has just been my experience, from both sides.)

it's super easy to dismiss the kind of talk /u/OrganicPumpkin9156 as "crazed" or "rooted in conspiracy" because from the outside it can definitely read like that but when your whole life is that situation, it's almost impossible to not see threats everywhere.

a lot of people who are abused for a long time can develop hyper-vigilance to keep themselves safe because there's no one else to do it for them and everything seems like a threat. it's a bit much to assume everyone is an abuser/enabler and yet, i do understand that kind of mentality.

i remember watching a video a couple days ago where a very abused puppy was receiving pets and love but it was crying out like it was being beaten; the poor thing had only known pain so when there was ANY outside physical touch, good or bad, it reacted as if it was being hurt because it had only known that its whole life.

they say that loving someone who has never been loved fairly takes a lot of patience and part of that is honestly reeducation; trying to teach that person that their expectations and routines that have kept them safe all their life are now actively hurting them and need to be retooled for a difference scenario.

I agree with you. However, am a random commenter on Reddit, I do not feel like I was trying to be rude. I also don’t feel any love for organicpumpkin, although I feel empathy for their situation. I only made my suggestions as someone that was emotionally manipulated and abused and had to leave behind my entire family in order to begin to heal. Sometimes, you have to cut the repeat trauma causers out so you can learn to begin healing. Thank you for your insight.

Thank you; you are exactly correct - except for the last paragraph.

You need to ask yourself: How did that happen in the first place? How was a child exposed exclusively and only to abuse, and never to any caring or considerate behavior? The answer is simple: because people let that happen, on purpose. And that allowance of abuse is core to who people are as a species. Allowing other children to be abused is how they secure the futures of their own children. Human beings are only half-social - they may work together to achieve things, but they'll also work together to harm the "other", whoever the "other" is labeled as. That was exactly how I was arbitrarily labelled as a child, and that wasn't an accident - anyone in charge could have insisted that I was part of the group everyone else was in, but instead they re-affirmed that I was the "other" and gave tacit, if not explicit, permission for everyone to beat me up.

That is what humanity is as a species. Any anthropology textbook will tell you this, if you bother to read it.

My expectations and defenses are not "actively hurting" me because you motherfuckers never changed because abusing me still gets you - and will always get you* - what you all want. You all compulsively need to feel superior to me because I frighten you because you all are too mentally weak and lazy to understand me. You neurologically cannot treat me well because you define your identities by who you are superior to; admitting you all are wrong about me means complete psychological collapse - a fate worse than death.

Everyone around at the time had every opportunity to speak up against the abuse that was inflicted on me; that fact that ZERO people did condemns the whole species. The people born later need to punish those who allowed my abuse before I consider any behavior they exhibit as legitimate.

Who is paying these people to state the obvious?

Again, there is NO way to "cut out" the repeat trauma causers because the species, at the anthropological level, are psychologically compelled to continue to abuse what the are ultimately afraid of.

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I was severely depressed from age 10. Definitely a little lonely and unpopular before that. Definitely a lot lonely and unpopular after that. Chicken and egg.

Shoutout to my parents that didn't let me hangout with anyone after school and thought that friends would just distract me from my studies!

Have you ever heard of the animation called Boku No Hero Academia? (my Hero Academia). I say this is all sincerity as someone who , as a traumatized child found much solace in Japanese animation.

I bring this up because your perspective sounds a lot like the argument given by The character Shigaraki. It might help you to see a character in fiction that you can relate to.

But also see how the world actually WASN’T that way, he just saw it that way. Just a thought.

Am I the only one who thought this title meant that META (aka Facebook) caused all this?

There were days growing up I didn't say a word or interact with another person beyond doing what I was told to do. I can say that I was definitely depressed and lonely no matter what my parents chose to think.

One day humanity will look back at the isolated, lonely lifestyles that grew from Anglo-American capitalist culture with horror.

Yeah I know-person who had a lonely depressed childhood and is a lonely depressed adult

This can be used to argue for future studies of loneliness in children (since this was an analysis of previous studies over the last century.) It can also be used to support a budget for more counselors in schools, paid activities for children to meet each other, and finding ways to identify kids who are lonely and screen them for depressive symptoms. When you're asking someone for money, having a study to point to is often the difference between success and "maybe next year."

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I'm beginning to consider un-joining this reddit.

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I'm the kindest man anyone knows. I'm not saying don't show emotion once and a while, I'm saying don't let emotions take over ur life

Or their mindset is flawed

What about bro?

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The 20th century had the "roaring 20s."

The 21st century has the "coughing 20s."

Have you looked into EMDR?

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Yes - my memories have already been processed, and I've been trying to forget things since they happened. EMDR can't retrieve anything.

Oh, it also works in adulthood.

What a discovery! they needed a cohort of experts probably to arrive at this conclusion so quickly in 2022. Why meta-analysis when there are so many kids ready to talk...

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Get back to your conspiratard posts dipshit.

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If I could i would upload the "why are you booing me, i'm right" meme under your comment right now!