A NEW study by researchers at University of Limerick (UL) has found that loneliness is part of normal development for some young adults.
The study explored young adults’ views and experiences of loneliness and showed that, for the cohort, the experience of loneliness can be particularly varied and related to development during this life stage.
The new research from the Department of Psychology in UL’s Faculty of Education and Health Sciences, funded by the Irish Research Council, highlights that the experience of loneliness during young or emerging adulthood (18 to 25 years) can be tied to key social transitions during this life stage and may not always be an entirely negative experience.
The study, which has just been published in the journal of Emerging Adulthood revealed that while loneliness involves negative feelings, there are individual differences in how emerging adults perceive their experience of loneliness and some individuals may even identify positive aspects to it, such as the opportunity for self-reflection and motivation to form new relationships.
Lead author Emma Kirwan, a PhD researcher and IRC scholar in UL’s Department of Psychology, said that “loneliness is the unpleasant feeling that accompanies the experience of perceiving one’s social relationships as inadequate, either in quantity or quality. As opposed to social isolation or being alone, loneliness is the subjective experience of feeling alone and can occur even if someone has many social ties.”
“Although social transitions are important for development, they can cause shifts in a person’s social relationships and make emerging adults particularly vulnerable to experiencing loneliness,” Ms Kirwan said.
The results suggest that future efforts to understand and prevent loneliness in emerging adulthood should consider that loneliness may be transient in nature and a more complex experience during this life-stage.
Co-author and primary supervisor on the project Dr Ann-Marie Creaven, lecturer in psychology at UL, said: “Loneliness is often considered an issue specific to older adults, but in fact it is very common in young adulthood and often a precursor to more significant mental health challenges.”
