Christian community and today’s rising loneliness in the digital era

Ours is perhaps the most socially connected generation in history.

We live in an age when people can communicate almost instantaneously by email and messaging programs, talk with one another over video, and be in contact with a large number of others through social media.

The endless possibilities for social connection have many benefits. However, the paradox is that loneliness is an increasingly serious problem in western societies, and especially amongst the generation that is most digitally connected.

What then can the church do better or differently in meeting this growing social need, both within our congregations and beyond them?

The problem of loneliness

Loneliness can be measured by the gulf between the degree of social interaction a person desires and the amount that they experience. We can be lonely in the midst of a crowd, or we can be alone but not feel lonely.

People may be lonely for relatively brief periods of their lives, particularly when moving to a new location for work or study. Such seasons of social isolation are just part of life in a geographically mobile society. We can gain resilience from such experiences, as we do from illness and other adversities. However, prolonged loneliness is likely to have profound impacts, not only on people’s mental health, but their physical health as well.[1]

Loneliness amongst the under-30s

A surprising, but consistent, finding from many countries is that young people are the loneliest age group of all. Young people under 25 are actually more lonely – as a group – than the elderly.[2]

In one Australian study of nearly 1,500 adolescents and young adults, more than one in three (37%) young adults aged 18–25 indicated a problematic level of loneliness.[3] A recent British survey of university students found that a quarter of students said that they do not have any friends at university. More than a third did not participate in extra-curricular activities.[4]

An indicator of how greatly loneliness has increased in a short period comes from a study by UK Onward. There was a threefold rise in the proportion of 18–34s who said that they had only one close friend, or none at all, between 2011 and 2021. Now 21% of this age group say they have no more than one friend.[5]

The limitations of digital connection

Our digital connectedness has a lot to do with this. Far from ameliorating the problem of loneliness, it has increased it.

This is for at least four reasons. First, there has been a trade-off between digital connections and actually getting together with friends. US data indicates that between 2006 and 2017 there was a sharp drop in the proportion of 15–16 year-olds who said that they got together regularly with friends, either at home or going out to parties, movies, shopping malls or dating. The decline in face-to-face contact was roughly equally matched with increased use of the internet and social media.[6]

Second, social media tends to promote quantity of relationships over quality. Vaughan Roberts observes that there is a difference between friending – relationships which are conducted almost exclusively in cyberspace – and friendship.[7] In friending, he notes, more is always better. In friendships, it is quality that matters.

Third, digital communication involves social distance. Friendships develop in at least some of the ways that relationships of love develop. Gary Chapman identified five love languages that are means by which different people give and receive love. These are loving words, kind actions, quality time, thoughtful presents and physical affection.[8] The love languages can have their application to friendships as well. Few of them are well-enabled by digital communication. Speaking the love languages in friendship will necessarily involve engaging with others in personal interactions.

Fourth, young people on social media may observe what their friends are doing without them, and this may increase feelings of social isolation.

The loneliness of so many people, notwithstanding their connectedness in cyberspace, provides both a pastoral challenge in caring for those within our congregations, and an opportunity for connection with others outside of the church community.

Christian community

In the new covenant, God’s answer to loneliness is for the church to be a caring and cohesive Christian community of people. Peter identified the transformation that being in Christ brings: ‘Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.’

Churches, in the New Testament, were to be communities of caring for everyone. In 1 Thessalonians 5:14-15, Paul’s instructions concerned how to live together peaceably, not paying back one wrong with another, but also striving to do what is good for each other. That involved giving attention to people’s emotional needs and vulnerabilities as well as their physical needs. ‘Encourage the disheartened’, he wrote, ‘help the weak, be patient with everyone’ (v.14).

Jesus told His disciples at the Last Supper (John 13:34-35, NIV): ‘A new commandment I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’

In an age of loneliness and alienation, manifest love may well be very powerful in helping people come to a recognition of their need for God and the relevance of Christianity for their lives.

Given current societal needs and circumstances, do pastors need to consider changes in how churches operate that will better contribute to a sense of community in which everyone, whatever their relationship status and life circumstances, finds a place?

Family-centred churches

While there is no doubt some variation across the churches in the English-speaking world, there is a recognisable pattern for local church organisation to be based substantially around nuclear families. This is evident in the groups that local churches have typically sought to provide (to the extent needed). Commonly, larger churches have a crèche and Sunday Schools for children, Sunday morning groups for teenagers, and a mid-week youth group. They may also have mid-week playgroups for pre-schoolers and social groups for the elderly. Community, in church life, has therefore been structured, to a very significant extent, around families and children.

One question is whether the single, separated and divorced may feel at the margins of a church congregation that seems to be oriented around families, particularly if they sense an expectation that this is the normal pathway of Christian living. Singleness needs to be recognised as a calling that God may place on our lives, if not indefinitely, then for long periods of time. It should not be marginalised in our teaching on discipleship, or our church activities.

In many churches, given the decline in marriage formation and the increase in relationship breakdown, it may be a reasonable assumption that as much as half of the adult congregation is not currently married or in an ongoing dating relationship. Some couples are involuntarily childless. Furthermore, many people who might be encouraged to come to church may also not be married or in an intimate partnership. So how we include the single, the separated, the divorced, and childless couples, is of very considerable importance.

The importance of friendship

One response to tackling the problem of loneliness is to provide teaching on friendship. There have long been extensive resources available to the Christian community about marriage and parenting. There are fewer resources about what it means for Christians to be friends.

The rich teaching from Scripture about friendship indicates that true friends are likely to be few in number, but rich in quality; for there are only so many people who can know us well, and with whom we can be vulnerable. Developing such friendships takes time. Jesus, in particular, invested a large amount of time in building relationships with a relatively small number of people. It was after some three years on the road together, sharing experiences, that Jesus spoke of His 12 disciples as his ‘friends’ (John 15:15).

Friendships may be facilitated and maintained by modes of digital communication, but are not usually built by them. As C.S. Lewis observed, friendships develop from doing things together, sharing experiences and having common interests.[9]

It seems unlikely that the problem of loneliness, particularly among young people, can be addressed without tackling the issue of digital communication. We are not present in community if our heads are in our screens. Pastors may need to encourage adolescents and young adults who are struggling with loneliness to replace some of the time spent communicating with a range of friends and acquaintances digitally with time spent with a small number of people in person, building friendships.

Conclusion

With Christ, we are never truly alone; but God has made us also with the human need for companionship, friendship and love. If those basic human needs are not met for extended periods of time, we risk suffering severe consequences in terms of both physical and mental health. The church can provide answers to these deeply felt human needs, as with other human needs. To do so effectively in an age of alienation and social isolation, may require some recalibration of our ministries.

Patrick Parkinson is an Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Queensland and Executive Director of Publica (www.publica. org.au). A longer version of this article is available on the website for Cambridge Papers (see www.cambridgepapers.org/the-loneliness-of-the-digitally-connected/).

FOOTNOTES
1. Y. Yang et al, ‘Social Relationships and Physiological Determinants of Longevity Across the Human Life Span’, (2016) 113 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 578. 2. Will Tanner, Fjolla Krasniqi & James Blagden, The Age of Alienation p.16 (2021) 3. M. Lim, R. Eres & C. Peck, The Young Australian Loneliness Survey: Understanding Loneliness in Adolescence and Young Adulthood. (Swinburne University, 2019.) 4. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ four-five-uk-students-affected-mental-health-issues. 5. Tanner et al, above n. 2, p.15. 6. J. Twenge, B. Spitzberg, & W. Campbell, ‘Less In-person Social Interaction with Peers among U.S. Adolescents in the 21st Century and Links to Loneliness’, (2019) 36 Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 1892. 7. Vaughan Roberts, True Friendship (2013) p.32. 8. Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages (1995). 9. C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (1960) p. 58.