Abstract
ABSTRACT Loneliness in adolescents is related to common mental health issues, and as a major global concern it is important to investigate loneliness from their own perspectives. The aim of this study was to explore how adolescents experience and describe negative and positive sides of loneliness. Data was collected through interviews with fifteen young Swedish-speaking Finns. Two main themes and seven subthemes were found. Negative experiences of involuntary loneliness were stressful and paralysing giving rise to physical symptoms, emptiness, anxiety, fear and invisibility. Other negative experiences resulting from involuntary loneliness were shame, self-blame and self-contempt, as well as meaninglessness, hopelessness and exclusion. Positive experiences from self-chosen solitude were freedom, calmness and recovery, creativity and meaningfulness as well as reflection, recharging and personal growth.
Highlights
Adolescents and lonelinessA major global concern, loneliness in adolescents is related to common mental health issues such as depression or other emotional disorders (World Health Organization, 2019) and even suicide (Mental Health Foundation, 2010)
Loneliness in adolescents is related to common mental health issues, and as a major global concern it is important to investigate loneliness from their own perspectives
We have seen that adolescents experience both voluntary and involuntary loneliness
Summary
Adolescents and lonelinessA major global concern, loneliness in adolescents is related to common mental health issues such as depression or other emotional disorders (World Health Organization, 2019) and even suicide (Mental Health Foundation, 2010). Loneliness can be seen as an individual’s lived discontentment with present social relationships (De Jong-Gierveld, 1987; Perlman & Peplau, 1981), and it is characterized by negative feelings, such as sadness and pessimism (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2005). When people feel their social relationships are less satisfying than what they desire or they experience a situation where the intimacy they wish for is not realized, a sense of loneliness can arise, characterized as a distressful feeling Loneliness can emerge when relationships end (Peplau & Perlman, 1979), when an adolescent
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