Most Helpful Feedback

I think the most helpful feedback was to include fewer statistics and facts and more analysis. Sometimes I can get caught up on just proving something with evidence and spend too little time actually analyzing and developing my arguments.

Most Interesting Discoveries

One of the most interesting discoveries I made was how badly loneliness can affect someone. Some scientists believe that loneliness is on the same level as smoking daily and obesity. To me, it is mind-blowing that a mental state of mind can have such detrimental and life-threatening effects on your actual physical being. I think the discoveries we are making about mental health are only the beginning and there are sadly probably way more harmful effects of poor mental health that we are not aware of.

 Significance of the Shift

I think the significance of the shift is fairly obvious. As I just discussed, loneliness is terrible for your mental health and actually decreases the average lifespan. The most important point for a reader to take away from this paper is to not downplay mental illnesses, whether that be loneliness, depression, or anything else. We must continue to shed light on mental illness and encourage those in need of help to reach out and others to check in on their friends and family.

How This Project Helped Me Develop as a Writer

I think the biggest thing that I learned from writing this paper is how to effectively use evidence to increase the validity of my arguments and analysis. So far, it’s the longest paper I’ve written so it helped me to better manage the space and amount of words that I’m using per paragraph. I’m also beginning to better understand how to actually make points and prove them. I feel like most of my high school writing was just random statements that loosely tied to the topic.

Intro

Hook–introduce the reader to the topic 

Since the beginning of the digital age, our society has been presented with many opportunities to further advance itself and increase our overall ease of living. We have seen huge advancements such as a large increase in automation, the ability to process information instantaneously, and a growth in online social connectivity which has led to surges in economic growth and productivity. These advancements have transformed a society that was once all about having to meet and communicate with people in person to one where we can just do most things from home. For a lot of people, this meant that the most in-person social aspects of their lives would be stripped away. Talking with people face-to-face has been replaced by texting. Sitting on the couch with your friends playing video games has been replaced by playing with each other online in your own homes. Even the most social aspect of a lot of peoples’ lives, work, has become less social since a lot of workplaces are allowing their employees to stay home. It is very apparent what tends to happen to people whenever they decrease the number of social interactions they have in their everyday lives. They become lonely.

Establish that a shift happened–point to evidence of the shift

In the last decade, there has been a shift in the percentage of people who feel lonely in the United States.

• As of 2019, 61% of Americans report feeling lonely (https://www.cigna.com/static/www-cigna-com/docs/about-us/newsroom/studies-and-reports/combatting-loneliness/cigna-2020-loneliness-factsheet.pdf).
• 79% of people from Gen Z report feeling lonely. 71% of Millenials report feeling lonely. 50% of Boomers report feeling lonely (https://www.cigna.com/static/www-cigna-com/docs/about-us/newsroom/studies-and-reports/combatting-loneliness/cigna-2020-loneliness-factsheet.pdf).
• Around 46% of men and 45% of women report feeling lonely (https://www.cigna.com/static/www-cigna-com/docs/about-us/newsroom/studies-and-reports/combatting-loneliness/cigna-2020-loneliness-factsheet.pdf).

Throughout the essay, I will be focusing on Millennials in the U.S. since we seem to have the best understanding of how loneliness is affecting Millennials.

Thesis: a declarative statement, an assertion, of what changed, and why the change matters.

In the past decade, there has been a noticeable increase in the feeling of loneliness experienced by U.S. Millenials which has been caused by an increasing digital addiction and can lead to poorer mental health, a more unproductive society,

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Body

(The body is broken down into three broad sections, but that does not mean that each section should only be one paragraph.)

 

A. “Literature review” or a review of the shift

1. Definitions (if necessary)

Loneliness – what does it mean to be lonely; how is it measured; what are the root causes of loneliness

1. Establish the before/after of the shift — make observations from primary texts i.e. speeches, popular culture, ads, TV shows, magazines, political discourse–debates, highbrow magazine articles (New Yorker, Harpers, Atlantic, etc.)

• Americans were no lonelier in the 1970s than in the 2000s (http://bostonreview.net/Fischer-loneliness-modern-culture)
• Loneliness spike from 2010 to 2020.
• Dr. Vivek H. Murthy noticed a loneliness epidemic before Covid-19. “When I look at how I spent my life over the last 10 years — where I put my time, energy and attention — it’s probably been much more on work than it has my family,” Murthy said (https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/health/loneliness-epidemic-coronavirus-healing-wellness/index.html)
• The humor of the Millennial generation consists mostly of self-deprecative humor. The “lonely generation” uses self-deprecating humor as a coping mechanism, a bad one, and to relate to other Millennials who feel the same way.

B. Analysis of Causes

1. What reasons do scholars give for the shift?

• A lack of social support and infrequent meaningful social interactions.
• Negative feelings about one’s personal relationships.
• Poor physical and mental health.
• A lack of “balance” in one’s daily activities – doing too much or too little of any given thing (e.g., sleep, work) (https://www.cigna.com/static/www-cigna-com/docs/about-us/newsroom/studies-and-reports/combatting-loneliness/cigna-2020-loneliness-factsheet.pdf)

• Digital addiction increases loneliness, anxiety, and depression. (sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180411161316.htm)

1. What evidence exists to support the analysis of the causes?

• A survey of 1,787 U.S. adults aged 19–32 years showed that those who used social media more frequently reported feeling more isolated than those who did not. (https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(17)30016-8/fulltext)]

C. Critique of the shift: What are scholars saying about the consequences/implications of the shift?

1. Possible questions to explore: Is there a consensus or disagreement about the implications of the shift?  What are the points of contention? What do these points of contention indicate? How might points of contention be resolved?

• Scholars agree that the shift is a bad thing.
• Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Brigham Young University believes that feeling lonely is on the same level of bad for your health as smoking obesity and physical inactivity (https://www.webmd.com/balance/features/loneliness-epidemic-consequences).
• Lonelier people are 32% more likely to die than people who are not lonely (https://www.webmd.com/balance/features/loneliness-epidemic-consequences).
• Although, it is hard to pinpoint the exact reasons why being lonely leads to a shorter life on average. Some researchers believe it is because surrounding yourself with people “who encourage you to make healthy choices, such as keeping doctor’s appointments, eating right, and taking medications” can lead to a longer and healthier life.

1. Possible questions to explore, continued: What is the greater significance of the shift? Why does this shift ultimately matter?

• A society with increasing numbers of lonely people is a society that cannot further advance and succeed.

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Conclusion

Resolve the discussion

The “loneliness epidemic” that has plagued U.S. Millenials has developed fairly recently and has serious and harmful implications.

Possible conclusion: suggest opportunities for further study on the issue (i.e. will the trend continue or morph into something else? What could the something else be?)

It seems as though the loneliness is not decreasing and the social isolation due to Covid has not helped with the issue in any way. As humans become more and more interested and involved with their smart devices, the loneliness will only become more severe.

Chosen Focus

The shift from communicating in person and hanging out with people in person to communicating online and hanging out with people online. Over the past decade, there has been a huge shift from communicating in-person to communicating online in people from Generation Z. This can be seen through many programs such as Discord, Twitch, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. It has many serious implications and has caused serious mental harm in teenagers and young 20-year-olds.

Boundaries

• Last decade
• First world countries
• Mainly Generation Z, but also Millenials (rarely other generations)

The Story I Seek to Tell

In this essay, I aim to show how in the last decade people of Generation Z have become lonelier more than ever. I aim to show the reasons for this increase in loneliness, what life was like before this increase, what life is like during this increase, the implications of this increase, and why this is important to our society as a whole.

What Makes This Paradigm Shift Important?

For one, I have been a victim of this increase in loneliness and I’m sure many of my fellow students have noticed it as well. Zoomers are at one point or another going to be the generation with the most power/prominence, so it will be interesting how this loneliness affects that.