By Arden Berry | Staff Writer
Baylor is taking steps to address the “epidemic of loneliness” — a growing concern for college students.
Results from an online survey presented by Active Minds and TimelyCare showed that 64.7% of college students reported feeling lonely in 2024.
Vice President for Student Life Sharra Hynes said Baylor is working to combat this issue by emphasizing community on campus, especially for freshmen, who Hynes said are among the most vulnerable to loneliness.
“If they live in our residence halls, they have a full-time residence hall director, they have a faculty in residence, a resident chaplain,” Hynes said. “They have so many people who are there to see them, and that is not just to see them en masse, but to see them individually and to know them.”
Beyond these one-on-one relationships, Hynes said Baylor is working on more general strategies as well, referring to the new HealthyBearsTXT initiative as an example.
“For me, it’s not just about what we do every day that is in the seeing and knowing on the ground level, but it’s the strategies,” Hynes said. “It’s the way we’re moving. We’ve got to keep moving upstream [and] we’re developing strategies to help all students.”
The “loneliness epidemic” has become a buzz phrase in recent years. Data has shown a rise in Americans who say they are lonely. In 2023, Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released an advisory on the prevalence of loneliness and the importance of social connection.
“In the scientific literature, I found confirmation of what I was hearing,” the advisory read. “In recent years, about one in two adults in America reported experiencing loneliness. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic cut off so many of us from friends, loved ones and support systems, exacerbating loneliness and isolation.”
Eldon, Mo., junior Addison Gernenz said she is writing a thesis on the decline of friendship in Generation Z. She said she has observed a lack of deep friendships among Gen Z individuals.
“I think that comes with a lot of loneliness, because I don’t think you actually allow yourself to be known by people and you don’t allow yourself to know people, and that’s really isolating,” Gernenz said.
Sugar Land sophomore Coralee Heyden said she has noticed social media creating divisions and loneliness.
“In terms of the media and the culture curated recently, it has been socially isolating on both sides of both parties and both genders and everything,” Heyden said. “There’s been isolation in terms of that.”
Hynes said staff members are available and that Baylor as a whole can do even more to help students overcome this isolation and loneliness.
“That’s all of us, every single member of our faculty and staff. That’s our job — to know and see students and then to communicate that knowing to them,” Hynes said. “So I think we’re doing well. I think we always can be doing more and better.”
