I WILL NEVER FORGET BEING TOLD DURING my first year of college that I wasn’t invited to come along to a party with my basketball teammates. They were going to hang out at a house near the beach, and one of my teammates said, “Sorry, but you’re not invited.” Needless to say, it hurt. That night was pretty lonely. And it stung for a while.
Later on, I found out that many of them were going to drink alcohol, and given that I didn’t, it made sense they might not want me there. But I found out they were going to the party only because I happened to walk by and see them hanging out in a dorm room beforehand. Otherwise, I might never have even known what they were up to.
You don’t have that luxury today, do you? If people weren’t invited to a party when I was growing up, they might have been unaware. But because of social media, your generation is constantly reminded of events you are not invited to. And it hurts.
A Lonely Generation
This is only one factor that contributes to loneliness in your generation. Busy families. Absent dads. Bullying. Your generation has been raised to constantly compare your appearance and accomplishments to others, to fear missing out, and to portray your life as perfectly happy on social media. These forces can be crushing.
According to a number of experts, there is a mental health crisis looming for your generation. Loneliness has been on the rise for over a decade.[1] You might be wondering, Why is he sharing this? How does it make me feel any better? Well, it means if you feel alone, you are actually not alone in that experience. Many other young people feel the same way. But they wear a mask to cover it up, as my father did when he was younger.
Wearing a “Happiness” Mask
As I said in chapter 4, my dad grew up in a broken family. His father was the town alcoholic. His sister took her own life. My dad was severely sexually abused from ages six to thirteen years old. His childhood was painful. A few years ago, as our family was talking around the dinner table, my sister asked him to share a good memory from his childhood. His response stunned me. He paused and let these words sink in: “I don’t have any.”
I was speechless. Not one good memory? None? Rarely does a day go by that I don’t have at least one good memory. But my dad couldn’t think of one from his entire childhood. Although I had known his story, for some reason, his response broke my heart more deeply for him than ever before.
Yet if you’d known my dad when he was younger, you might have assumed he was fine. He excelled at sports. He was popular. He was well-liked. By many measures, he was a normal kid. But in reality, he wore a happiness mask to hide his deeper wounds.
I get messages all the time from young people who are hurting deeply, but like my dad when he was younger, they wear a mask to pretend everything is okay. When the hurt gets too deep, many do bizarre things just to be noticed.
King David’s Desperate Son
This is exactly what happened to one of King David’s sons. King David was a remarkable warrior and a man after God’s own heart, but he was a poor father who failed to faithfully discipline his kids (see 1 Samuel 13:14; 1 Kings 1:6). One of David’s sons, Amnon, raped his sister Tamar. Out of revenge, one of David’s other sons, Absalom, murdered Amnon. David mourned for Amnon day after day, and Absalom fled to Geshur for three years (see 2 Samuel 13).
David finally agreed to allow Absalom back to Jerusalem, but he refused to see him for another two years. How could Absalom get the attention of his father? What could he do so his father would notice him? At his wits’ end, he finally had an idea: he would set fire to the field of the king’s military commander. It worked. The king agreed to see him (see 2 Samuel 14:28-33).
Have you ever felt the pressure to act out in bizarre ways just to be seen? If social media had existed during the time of King David, can you imagine what Absalom might have done to get his father’s attention?
If used wisely, social media can be a remarkable means of connecting, learning, and networking. Yet can you see how it fosters the temptation to do bizarre things so people will notice you? Sexy pics. Celebrity pics. Funny videos. Dangerous videos. Underneath, many of these reflect a cry for attention.
As wonderful as social media can be, no amount of likes, views, or followers will fill your heart. Neither can achievement in school, success in sports, or more nefarious things like drugs or pornography. None of these can fill your deepest longings. Only one thing can. Let me explain.
The Deepest Desires of the Heart
Everyone was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the economic effects have been devastating, some of the deepest pain is relational. Can you remember how hard it was to not see your friends for months? Do you remember the pain of not being able to hug your grandparents? My kids used FaceTime, Zoom, and a host of other visual platforms to “see” their friends, but they knew it wasn’t the same. They missed being with their friends physically.
The quarantine revealed how desperately we need relationships. Online “friends” don’t fill our hearts by themselves. We need flesh-and-blood relationships that involve proximity, touch, and eye contact. We suffer without them, yet we flourish with them. Why? Because God created us to be in relationship with him and with other people. Like a watch that is designed to tell time, human beings have been designed for relationship with God and other people.
Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God and love other people (see Mark 12:28-34). Our most important task is to lovingly relate to God and lovingly relate to other people. That’s our purpose. That’s why God created us. Life is about relationship.
A Lesson from the Avengers Movies
Consider the Avengers movies. My family saw them all in the theater. My son and I even got tickets for the midnight premiers of Infinity War and Endgame. Have you ever thought about why people loved these movies so much? Why they were such a cultural phenomenon? Sure, we love drama. We love battles. We love good stories. Many movies have these elements. But the Avengers movies have something else: they tap deeply into our desire for relationships.
We want Tony Stark to have a family. We pull for Captain America to have his last dance with Peggy. And we want Thor to rescue and effectively rule the people of Asgard. The Avengers movies are so powerful not merely because of the action scenes and CGI but because they are great stories of human drama, sacrifice, and redemption. Like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter series, the Avengers films are about people on a journey together. We yearn to live dramatic lives that involve meaningful relationships with other people.
Let me get personal: you are built for relationships, and when they are lacking, you will choose something to fill the void. If you don’t fill the void in your heart with genuine connections with God and others, then you will be ripe for a relational counterfeit—drugs, alcohol, pornography, consumerism, and a host of other lies. They all promise to make you feel good and make your life meaningful, but in the end, they’ll only lead to addiction, brokenness, and loneliness.
What Can We Do?
Here are a few ways you can help yourself and others overcome loneliness:
[1] Candice L. Odgers and Michael B. Robb, Tweens, Teens, Tech, and Mental Health: Coming of Age in an Increasingly Digital, Uncertain, and Unequal World, 2020 (San Francisco, CA: Common Sense Media, 2020), 11, 17, https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/tweens-teens-tech-and-mental-health.