College: the most fun time of your life. Or so you thought.
Whether it’s the boisterous frat boy shenanigans of Animal House and Old School or the stylish escapades of the Legally Blonde series, we’re taught to expect college to be one of the best times of our lives. Through movies, TV shows, books, and other media, we’re repeatedly told that university is the place where we’ll meet our best friends, have nonstop parties while inexplicably acing every class, and ultimately come out richer for the experience.
At least, that’s what university is supposed to be like. But for many, whether at Simon Fraser University or elsewhere, post-secondary can be one of the most challenging, stressful, and lonely times of one’s life. The worst part? Most feel unable to share their feelings with anyone around them.
At universities across the world, more and more students have admitted to feeling isolated and lonely than ever before.
This isn’t just a small minority of students feeling this way. In Canada, 64 per cent of post-secondary students surveyed by Stats Canada reported feeling “very lonely” within the past year. Another 55 per cent cited a combination of several factors — including school work, trouble with interpersonal relationships, and living alone for the first time — as the main cause of their struggles with isolation and, in severe cases, depression.
The majority of students who responded to The Peak’s anonymous survey about loneliness on campus reported feeling “sometimes” or “most of the time” isolated or lonely at SFU; the most commonly cited reasons for their feelings were “bleak weather and/or architecture” and having “not enough friends or acquaintances.” Other cited reasons included a “lack of interest in coursework and/or student community,” and “a lack of romantic and/or sexual connections.”
Overall, almost no students responded that they had “never” felt lonely on campus.
In conversations with friends, several also mentioned SFU’s status as a commuter campus as being a potential factor in fostering loneliness among students. Those who’ve been on campus during weekends will know what a ghost town SFU Burnaby and Surrey become without classes — especially in the summer semester, when SFU’s student body is only at two thirds its regular size.
Greater Vancouver in general has been noted for its association with loneliness. Twelve per cent of residents surveyed by the Vancouver Foundation said they associated the city with “loneliness and unfriendliness.”
For students, staff and faculty across SFU’s campuses, loneliness and isolation can pose a very real threat to their health and mental well-being. Though the school offers free and confidential counselling services for students feeling overwhelmed, many are unwilling to admit that they’re facing these problems, or find the time to seek the help they need.
Dr. Gordon Flett of York University terms this “self-stigma” — rather than just fearing the judgement of others, students who feel lonely and socially disconnected also have to contend with their own judgement. More often than not, it’s harsher than anyone else’s.
This problem isn’t limited to one school, one area, or one particular type of student. In myriad universities across the world, more and more students have admitted to feeling isolated and lonely than ever before.
An article in The Guardian noted that “heavy workloads, lack of support, and isolation are the key factors contributing to mental illness” self-reported by post-secondary students.
“The issue isn’t just social, it’s a public-health crisis in waiting,” wrote Elizabeth Renzetti in an article for The Globe and Mail. “If you suffer from chronic loneliness, you run the risk of illness, and premature death [. . .] It is the great irony of our age that we have never been better connected, or more adrift.” Loneliness and social isolation is especially common among those aged 18–34 years, and can lead to a number of health problems down the road, including depression, heart disease, and elevated stress hormones.
CBC also reports that women are more likely to suffer from loneliness than men, making female students particularly at risk.
Though feelings of loneliness and social isolation on university campuses aren’t always linked to thoughts of suicide and self-harm, both remain prominent issues among the post-secondary community. Studies in the United States have identified feelings of detachment as a serious mental health risk for many students.
As reported by The Huffington Post, “the [John Hopkins Centre] study’s findings suggest that a number of common risk factors may make students more prone to suicidal tendencies. The greatest of these factors is a feeling of being unloved or detached from friends and family.”
In the United States, reports of suicidal thoughts on campus have been rising for years. The same article noted that, out of 1,000 students surveyed in the US, 12 per cent “admitted they had thought about committing suicide,” and “10 of [that percentage] claimed to have planned or attempted suicide during college.”
Here in Canada, reports of stress, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts in universities are seeing similar upturned figures; a report by The Globe and Mail showed that “more than 50 per cent [of students] said they felt hopeless” during their time at school.
The report also cited “9.5 per cent of students saying they had seriously considered taking their own lives in the past year, [and] 1.3 per cent said they had attempted suicide.” Apart from motor vehicle accidents, suicide is the most common cause of death for Canadians aged 10–24, many of whom are balancing university careers with part time work and the maintenance of social relationships.
Almost no students said that they had “never” felt lonely at SFU.
So why are we feeling more lonely than ever before? It’s easy to cite issues limited to university life — high stress levels, tougher job prospects, drug and alcohol abuse, and the like. But there’s also a clear connection between the increase of social isolation on campuses throughout Canada, and a similar sentiment spreading across all of North America.
John Cacioppo, one of the world’s leading researchers on loneliness, cites a move away from traditional collective values such as religion, nationalism, and community, and one towards individualism, as one reason we’re feeling more lonely now than ever.
“One of the things we’ve seen is a movement away from a concern for others,” he told The Globe and Mail. “There’s more division in society, more segmentation; there’s less identity with a national or global persona, but rather on the family or the individual.”
In many countries across the world, an increased focus on individualism — self-actualization, consumerism, self-image — has led to a gradual severing of social ties. We’re increasingly told to focus on building ourselves, while failing to build solid relationships with others.
In recent years, nothing is more indicative of our move from collectivism to individualism than social media. Networks such as Facebook and Twitter promise to keep us tied more closely together, but many users end up only feeling more disconnected by our increasingly networked world.
The Innovation of Loneliness, a short film based on the book Alone Together by Sherry Turkle, explores the reasons why social media may make us feel lonelier and more isolated; the video explains how the indirectness of digitally mediated communication doesn’t measure up to the interconnectivity of a direct conversation, complete with body language, vocal tone, and the inability to plan what you’re going to say. According to the film, and Turkle, social networks may give us a larger number of acquaintances, but in turn, they limit our number of actual friends.
“Human relationships are rich and they’re messy and they’re demanding,” Turkle writes. “And we clean them up with technology. Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch, the face, the voice, the flesh, the body — not too little, not too much, just right.”
Social networks and texting are commonplace among college-aged students, and the generation currently in post-secondary is the first to have grown up with the Internet and digital communication at their fingertips. We’re technologically savvy but socially adrift, trying to navigate a world of texts and tweets while ignoring those around us.
But it isn’t just the influence of technology that’s making us lonely. Cacioppo also cites genetics, social phobia, and low self esteem as potential contributors to loneliness and other similar mental issues at school and elsewhere. Some seem more predisposed than others, but all of us run the risk of feeling lonely, adrift, and isolated, especially under the pressure of a dwindling job market and a demanding course load.
Thankfully, there are many resources which students can seek out to help alleviate stress, loneliness, and anxiety — one of which may just change the way we think about the way teachers and students interact at SFU.
Tara Black, the associate director of health promotion, sits across from me with as sunny a disposition as the summer day outside her office window.
For years, she and a team of professionals from SFU and the Canadian Mental Health Association have worked together to design the Health Campus Community (HCC) initiative, an award winning strategy to increase interconnectivity between students and promote mental and physical health among students. “We’re concerned with fostering student well-being,” Black says. “Social connectedness is a fundamental part of well-being, so it’s a huge part of what we’re interested in.”
“All of us have a role to play in reaching out to other students, to make connections with others.” – Tara Black, Associate Director of Health Promotion at SFU
Part of the HCC plan is to give staff and instructors the necessary tools to help students feel less isolated and more a part of the academic and social community at SFU. Some of the program’s tactics include suggesting study groups for students and encouraging dialogue and discussion in tutorials and lectures. “These can be simple things that instructors can do,” Black says. “It could be as easy as encouraging students on the first day of class to get to know the person sitting next to them.
“We see the classroom as such a central part of the student experience, and a part of helping students to create a foundation of social connectedness for years to come,” she continues. To Black and her team, lecture halls and seminar rooms are battlefields, and the prize is a sense of community and belonging that many students at SFU seem to sorely lack. But like many, she’s aware that the problem of social exclusion — and mental health at large — go far beyond the concrete walls of our school.
“I think all universities have this same issue,” she says. “This is not an SFU-specific problem; it’s one that is affecting all post-secondary students.” She hopes that other schools will adopt HCC’s hands-on approach to combating isolation in the university setting, and it’s not unlikely; many universities have recently increased their focus on mental health resources and tools for students, noting the alarming rise in student loneliness and disenfranchisement over the past decade.
Ultimately, Black tells me about the positive outcomes of increasing social connectivity — namely, an increase in overall well-being, as well as better educational performance and overall satisfaction with university. The project has already begun to make waves with professors and students, both of whom benefit from an increase in participation with class material and with the feeling of connection it offers them.
So how do we solve the loneliness crisis at SFU? There’s no concrete cure, but there are steps you can take to tackle your symptoms. The Health and Counselling Services website cites the usual tactics: get more sleep, drink less coffee, take time between study periods to destress. They also encourage visiting their offices at the ground floor of the Maggie Benston Centre, where the school’s team of counsellors can help struggling students to find ways to further alleviate their isolation.
Health professionals also suggest a healthier diet, regular exercise, and focusing on developing interpersonal relationships as potential ways to combat loneliness.
But this is also a problem that can be made better by working together to foster a campus community that offers encouragement and inclusivity to each and every student. “All of us — including staff, students, instructors — have a role to play in reaching out to other students, to make connections with others,” Black says. “Having SFU as a welcoming, supportive and inclusive space is an important piece of the puzzle.”
So whether or not youare struggling with feelings of loneliness and isolation, log off that Facebook page and try striking up a conversation with someone in a tutorial or sitting next to you in a café. Join a campus club, group, or society, or start one of your own. We’re all responsible for helping to make SFU and other universities less lonely places to be — and it all starts with us.
