The difference between alone time and loneliness

When most people enter college, they are thrown into a new environment where they know no one and life is completely different. This change can affect the experience of alone time versus loneliness.

Alone time and loneliness are different things, despite the fact that they are both a solitary experience. 

In an article from Psychology Today, author Hara Estroff Marano describes loneliness as “a negative state, marked by a sense of isolation. [Where] one feels that something is missing.”

When one is lonely, they are experiencing sadness due to their situation. Alone time is on the other end of the spectrum.

“The state of being alone without being lonely is a positive and constructive state of engagement with oneself,” Marano wrote. 

So, while we can experience both these situations, we tend to want alone time and resist loneliness.

The amount of alone times varies depending on the person and their personality type. When thinking about introverts and extroverts, one’s need for alone time and feelings of loneliness can be drastically different. While extroverts recharge by interacting socially, introverts recharge by being alone, impacting how they experience loneliness and need for alone time.

With the new environment, and little pre-existing roots, college can have a major impact on solitary experiences. 

Associate Director at Hall Health Meghann Gerber talked with me about how college can affect someone’s feelings of loneliness.

“One of the pressures of being new to school is they might have the perception that they are suppose to have a lot of friends, [that] they are suppose to be really social,” Gerber said. “If you’re alone in your dorm, it can feel lonely. [Like you’re] not doing what [you] should be doing. The reality of college is many people feel alone and you should “try and remember you are not the only one,” Gerber said.

College also tends to impact how much alone time people have. On such a big campus with so many people, it can feel hard to ever be completely alone. 

“Alone time often becomes a place where you are surrounded by people. You go to seek out your alone time at a coffee shop or just walking by yourself,” said Gerber.

What may have been alone time before you entered college has probably drastically changed.

College campuses not only change these experiences, but social media has a major impact on our alone time and loneliness too. Social media can make us feel more lonely and disrupt the reflection aspect of alone time.

Gerber urges us to remember that “the people that we are interacting with on social media platform is not the people themselves, it is a representation.” 

We look at these people and we feel that we don’t have as many friends or as much fun and loneliness is fueled by that.

Social media has a major impact on alone time because a person “basically never has to be alone. There is somebody on social media at all times,” Gerber said. “[Social media can] interfere with the capacity for someone to withdraw and be reflective.”

Ultimately, how people experience loneliness and alone time varies for each person, but it’s important to remember to check in on yourself mentally and to remember that everyone feels lonely from time to time. 

Reach writer Chamidae Ford at wellness@dailyuw.com Twitter: @chamidae_ford.