Isolated children become lonelier adults

The case for boosting social development in early childhood education

By Isabel Doraisamy 

Here at the Tackling Loneliness Hub, we believe in the power of community and conversation. We’re dedicated to sharing insights and stories that can help bridge the gap between isolation and connection.

Through our content, we want to explore the multi-faceted nature of loneliness, spotlight the fantastic organisations on the hub, and highlight the innovative approaches and real-life experiences that inspire hope and action.

Earlier Risk Factors.

Thankfully, as loneliness is now being discussed more at government level and at the dinner table, we are starting to get a better grasp of its prevalence and risk factors; We know that older groups of people are more likely to be lonely, as are those living in rural areas, people suffering from chronic mental or physical illness, people who have lost their jobs, and many more.

But while a lot of the research has focused on current predictors of loneliness, what of the earlier risk factors? Given that children are now growing up in a society so deeply dependent on communication technologies and inextricably linked to social media from vulnerable ages, we have a responsibility to understand more fully how certain social experiences in childhood may determine later life loneliness, and simultaneously consider how these effects may be amplified by modern life.

I decided to use my masters dissertation to make a contribution here. In response to the UK Government’s call out for research which focuses on lifecourse predictors of loneliness, I focused my dissertation (I’ve just completed a MSc in Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics) on the lasting impact of early childhood social isolation from peers on adult loneliness.

To be clear, social isolation refers to the lived, real experience, whereas loneliness is the perceived experience.

In other words, I sought to find out whether children who were observed (by their teachers and parents) to be more solitary and lacking friendship during primary school, reported feeling lonelier in adulthood – regardless of known covariates.

Proxy measures for social isolation.

Using the 1970 British Cohort Study, I worked with extensive data on over 16,000 men and women born in Great Britain in the same week in 1970. Thanks to regular intervals of in-depth data collection on anything and everything from weight to whether the participant enjoyed playing sports, I was able to create proxy measures for social isolation from peers at 5, 10 and 16 years old, and proxy measures for loneliness at 30 and 42 years old. (Thankfully, the researchers used the UCLA Loneliness Scale – the international standard for measuring loneliness – at the 50 year follow-up). I also controlled for factors like gender, ethnicity, poor physical or mental health, partner status and employment status.

After weeks of analysis, I found that early life social isolation does significantly increase the experience of loneliness across adulthood, as significant effects were observed at 42 and 50 years old for isolated children at all three ages.

This suggests that a child as young as 5 years old who is more solitary or struggling to make friends at school is indeed likely to be lonelier at 50 years old.

But while a 5 year old’s experience can have this significant an impact, my findings actually suggest that experiencing social isolation later on, in the thick of teenagedom, might have the biggest impact on adult loneliness, as all effects at 16 years old tended to be larger than those at 5 and 10 years old. In fact, much of the related literature corroborates this by asserting that adolescence is a particularly vulnerable stage of social development due to people’s internal reference points for social satisfaction changing so rapidly. (Laursen & Hartl, 2013).

But how do these experiences actually lead to loneliness in adulthood?

While various schools of thought have different ideas, I’m most compelled by a life course perspective, which assumes that adult loneliness is the result of a domino effect that’s been in motion since infancy. In other words, the experience of social isolation at school impacts a person’s social development (self-esteem, social confidence, ability to meaningfully connect, etc.), which then impacts adult social outcomes (social satisfaction, marriage, family dynamics, etc.) and increases their likelihood of becoming lonely. A person who was isolated in childhood may have lower self-esteem and end up thinking ‘these people are friends with me out of pity’, rather than believing them to be genuine, and thus they might still feel lonely despite actually having social connections.

But if loneliness begins in the playground, considering how we interrupt this domino effect before or after it has tipped it into motion, is our most crucial consideration.

Personally, I strongly believe that social health must be a greater classroom agenda; we must focus on boosting social and relational skills development in childhood education. This includes improving the depth of learning around the importance of community and fostering meaningful relationships, as well as understanding how social health implicates other areas of health. It should also include comprehensive training for educators in identifying and responding to children who may be at greater risk of isolation.

These measures have always been important, but are especially so now that our social landscapes have changed so dramatically. Children and young people’s social development is so much more vulnerable than it was in the 1980s and 1990s (when this data was collected), as Instagram and Tiktok are creating the means for excessive social comparison, and we know that digital interaction cannot replace the value of real-world connections.

About the Author

Today’s blog has been written by Isabel Doraisamy, a researcher and writer at social psychology think tank Global Future Foundation, and has recently completed her masters in behavioural science at the London School of Economics, where she specialised in wellbeing for policy. Isabel is passionate about embedding social health into national education and policy agendas, as well raising awareness about the personal and societal-level impacts that different types of relationships have on our health. Isabel can be contacted by emailing: igdoraisamy@gmail.com

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