The Guardian view on loneliness: the decline in friendship leaves gen Z exposed | Editorial

Hope, Raye told a crowd at Reading festival on Saturday, was the theme of a set inspired by her second album. Having established through a show of hands that most of the audience had just done their GCSEs, and after recounting her own rocky road to stardom, the 28-year-old singer led a series of upbeat chants of “it’s gonna be all right”.

For anyone who thinks adolescence ought to be a time of optimism, it was a charming spectacle. But a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank paints a much gloomier picture. Building on existing evidence of declining wellbeing, such as Alan Milburn’s report on young people who are not in education or work, the IPPR’s researchers found that 11- to 24-year-olds in England (gen Z and older members of gen Alpha) are increasingly lonely. They have fewer friends than young people in the past and are less contented with those they do have. One in 20 say that they have no friends at all. A series of interviews produced worrying evidence of their lack of confidence about the future.

They also spoke about problems with concentration that they associated with social media. When asked what they do in their spare time, the most common answer was “doomscrolling”. But while the authors point to “deference to unaccountable tech oligarchs” as one way in which politicians have let younger generations down, their analysis goes wider. It includes housing costs, a shortage of entry-level jobs, student debt, austerity and the Covid-19 pandemic. They conclude that the social contract with youth is broken and needs fixing.

This is a deliberately broad-brush study that focuses on what the 10 million 11- to 24-year-olds in England have in common. But it does not gloss over socioeconomic differences. The steepest falls in life satisfaction over the past decade have been in deprived areas; housing is a far more serious blockage on the route to independence for those without family wealth. Noting that the average deposit has risen to £78,000, the report states that “owning a home before your mid-30s has become close to an inherited trait”. With social housing all but impossible to access for most young adults, too many are either stuck with parents or in privately rented flats. Labour has already taken steps to boost the supply of new homes, but must do more to improve young people’s prospects. It is a national scandal that so many are locked out.

Adolescence is a complicated time of life, and there is an echo of Sigmund Freud’s idea of “ordinary unhappiness” in the report’s reference to the “ordinary challenges” of growing up. It is hard to leave school and parents, and decide what to do next. This is one reason why supportive peer relationships are so important, and why research on friendship is worthwhile.

But while gen Z and gen Alpha deserve attention, their problems should not be viewed in isolation. The weakening of the social fabric around them can be seen as part of a wider pattern that the IPPR rightly links to neoliberalism’s assault on collectivism. There is no single policy lever that can be pulled to mend the missing threads. But governments and councils are far from helpless. Housing, job-market reforms (including limits on AI in recruitment) and a stronger overall emphasis on generational fairness would all make the world a friendlier place for under-25s.