To the stereotypical GW student, a connection is just a number.
GW has a reputation for being a university full of careerists, where students have a seemingly maniacal focus on adding to their lists of LinkedIn connections at the expense of real-life bonding. This competitiveness isolates students — one aspect of the broader loneliness epidemic plaguing the country.
But if we all feel lonely and hate the “grindset” of GW, then we should realize the opportunities for connection that lay at our fingertips in college. To combat loneliness in our own lives and generation, we need to take advantage of those chances.
Americans are spending less time together and making fewer friends than they once did. Public health officials warn that the so-called loneliness epidemic is the next major health crisis. People are spending their time in self-imposed isolation — people taking otherwise social activities, like going out to dinner or taking a walk with someone, and opting instead to enjoy takeout alone or scroll on social media. These actions are perfectly healthy to do every so often but not at the degree to which they’re replacing typical arenas of association.
Loneliness and isolation are at their worst among our generation — young people who, in theory, should have the greatest shot to form real bonds with each other, especially with social media apps keeping us incessantly “connected.” Yet, as social psychologists have noted, those superficial linkages are a reflection of the idea of “cruel optimism.” In seeking something, we end up with the opposite. Social media romanticizes isolation, especially among the particularly loneliness-afflicted young men whose Instagram feeds are a nonstop slot machine of reels crafted by disciplined lone wolf alpha bros. This perpetuated solitude harms youth mental health and promotes an oft-virulent brand of masculinity that’s seeped its way into our relationships and politics.
College is the moment to combat that phenomenon, even on a campus that seems as career-crazy as GW. There’s never going to be a time in our lives when we’re surrounded by so many people our age, equally eager to forge friendships. There’s only so much a university can do to force us to forge that fellowship — we have to be the ones to actually take the necessary steps.
In previous editorials, we’ve advocated for students and officials alike to “lean in” and attend more GW events, but going to a basketball game or a community coordinator-led dinner isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. That’s okay. The lovely thing about college is that almost every second of every day offers a chance to form an affinity with someone. Instead of rushing to check your phone while scurrying out of class, make small talk with someone you were sitting next to. Give “The Bill Simmons Podcast” or the new Clairo album a break and remove your AirPods in the elevator to joke with a neighbor about the condition of your residence hall. Research indicates that we all think such interactions are going to be hard, but everyone comes away from them feeling happier.
Talking to someone after class might seem intimidating if you think that everyone at GW is focused on growing their network as a means to higher net worth, not their neighborliness. But here, we’re joined by just under 20,000 other undergraduates at various times. The ideal number of LinkedIn connections for people who fit that careerist mantra is 500. That leaves thousands upon thousands of other people — including our entire editorial board — probably feeling a lot of the same downtrodden lonely feelings we’ve all felt.
We aren’t saying that you have to talk to strangers every second. That’s an exhausting expectation on top of the heaps of readings and other stresses a college student carries daily. And as you go through college and acquire more responsibilities, it gets a lot harder to devote the necessary time to maintain and “water” real meaningful friendships.
But the solution to those problems isn’t isolation — it’s taking the time we do have and using it to cohere with others. We must take advantage of those opportunities after class and in other down moments to unite with people more, and give both ourselves and others a much-needed kindred boost. The hardest step is just acknowledging that you feel lonely and talking to someone to alleviate that feeling because so many of us feel that. Once that’s done, the rest will fall into place.
As Derek Thompson wrote in the Atlantic about the loneliness epidemic, when we talk to others we still “marginally improve the experience of one 15-minute block of time. But life is just a long set of 15-minute blocks, one after another. The way we spend our minutes is the way we spend our decades.”
That held true for our editorial board. To expand the voices present on a personal topic like loneliness, an additional four members of The Hatchet were invited to participate in this week’s editorial board discussion. At the start of the meeting, all 11 people raised their hands to say they thought we were in some sort of loneliness epidemic. After an hour of talking with each other about our experiences and sentiments, 11 people raised their hands to say they felt more connected. It’s up to all of us to form those nexuses before we leave GW.
The editorial board consists of Hatchet staff members and operates separately from the newsroom. This week’s staff editorial was written by Culture Editor Nick Perkins, based on discussions with Opinions Editor Andrea Mendoza-Melchor, Contributing Culture Editor Caitlin Kitson, Research Assistant Carly Cavanaugh and Sports Columnist Syd Heise.
This week, the following Hatchet staffers members also joined the conversation: Advice Columnist Annie O’Brien, Copy Editor Lindsay Larson, Video Editor Nicholas Aguirre Zafiro and Senior Photo Editor Sage Russell.