'I have no friends': How loneliness influencers are finding their audience

1 in 20 young Britons say they have no close friends — five times more than in 2014

'Loneliness influencers' share solo lives on social media, sparking widespread resonance

'Even when you go out, everyone's just on their phone'

Experts caution against assuming youth loneliness is simply rising

"I have no friends."

That is the title of a YouTube video posted by Tess Lavanda, a 22-year-old living in London. Uploaded about a month ago, it has since surpassed 500,000 views. Her Instagram feed tells a similar story — titles like "I spent my 22nd birthday alone," "living alone in London," and "it's OK to be alone this summer" document a life spent largely in solitude. Thousands of viewers have watched and left comments, confiding that they feel the same way.

A growing number of young people are choosing to speak openly about friendlessness rather than hide it. Content tagged with phrases like "solo-maxxing," "loneliness influencer" and "friendless aesthetic" — sharing the rhythms of a solitary life — is spreading across social media. Some of it romanticizes living alone, but it is also emerging as a new mode of connection: an honest reckoning with the difficulty of making friends that resonates with audiences hungry for acknowledgment.

Lavanda told the Guardian on Saturday (local time) that people seem relieved to finally be able to talk about the issue. "There's a culture of shame around being alone — like it's something wrong with you — so nobody had the courage to bring it up," she said.

Lavanda said she had struggled to make friends even before the pandemic, but the isolation deepened during COVID-19. "The absence of real friendship felt really acute," she said. "I went through a really hard time because I had nobody to talk to."

One night, she was about to go out alone when fear and dread overcame her, and she turned on her camera. She had not planned to make the video public. She made it to express her feelings and comfort herself, but then thought it might help someone else — and posted it.

"I expected to be criticized and bullied, but the response was overwhelmingly positive," Lavanda said. "People shared their own stories, and I realized that so many people feel exactly the same way I do."

She acknowledged that solo living tends to be aestheticized and romanticized online, but said her own videos are closer to showing friendless people that they are not alone. "I think just the fact that there is now someone who can speak about this topic is a comfort to people," she said, adding that speaking honestly and finding one's voice is what matters most.

The phenomenon tracks closely with recently published research on the state of young people's friendships in Britain. According to a new study by the Institute for Public Policy Research, the share of young Britons who say they have no close friends has risen fivefold since 2014, reaching roughly 1 in 20. The proportion dissatisfied with their current friendships is also growing.

Having fewer friends and feeling lonely do not necessarily go hand in hand, however. Experts caution that there is not yet sufficient evidence to conclude that young people are simply lonelier than they used to be. What may be changing, they say, is not just the number of friends young people have but their expectations of friendship and the ways they form relationships.

Social media, mental health struggles, the pandemic and economic instability are among the factors commonly cited as making it harder for young people to form friendships, though experts say no single cause can explain the trend.

Pamela Qualter, a British expert on loneliness in children and young people, pointed to a shrinking number of spaces where young people can practice basic social skills. Making friends, she said, does not begin with deep connection — it starts with brief, chance exchanges with people encountered in everyday life.

"We are really missing those small interactions with people we bump into in our daily lives," Qualter said. "More people are working from home, there are very few free or affordable places where people can gather, and disposable income has fallen."

She explained that these casual interactions with acquaintances — what researchers call "weak ties" — form the foundation of lasting friendships. Brief greetings and small talk at a neighborhood shop, a workplace, a school or a community gathering help people build social skills and create openings for deeper relationships.

Lavanda agreed. "People seem to lack the motivation to go out and meet others," she said. "And even when you do go out, everyone's just on their phone, which makes it even harder to approach someone."

Economic instability may also shape people's ability to connect. Manuela Barreto, a professor of social and organizational psychology at the University of Exeter, said research attention is shifting away from individual factors such as poor mental health or low self-esteem toward structural social and economic causes.

"Everything — getting a job, getting your first home — is just so hard right now," Barreto said. "There's no data I can point to clearly, but those struggles can make people feel anxious and undermine their sense that they deserve to have good friends."

Jodilee Foster, education and development officer at the youth organization UK Youth, said the quality of friendships also matters. Relationships formed on social media and in group chats can quickly turn into bullying or harassment, she said, which can leave young people more isolated and withdrawn.

Financial pressure can also make it hard to see friends in person. Some young people said they cannot afford the bus fare to meet friends outside school. Others have found it difficult to spend time in crowded spaces since anxiety increased after the pandemic.

"People assume that being young means being carefree — that the world is your oyster and everything is within reach," Foster said. "But for some young people, that can feel completely overwhelming and frightening. Being young is genuinely hard."

Qualter noted that 14- to 24-year-olds in Britain report the highest levels of loneliness, but said this has been true in previous generations as well. "Maybe what we expect from friendship is changing," she said. "Perhaps people with fewer close friends are actually content with that."

sjy@heraldcorp.com