Make introversion uncool again

Over the past few years, Gen Z has earned a reputation as “Generation Stay-at-Home”, “Generation Boring”, or “Generation Sensible”. There’s no smoke without fire, and the number of young people who regularly meet up to socialise really has dropped sharply, with young men now spending more of their free time alone than any other age group. Further research published in 2023 found that people between the ages of 15 and 24 now spend 70 per cent less time in person with friends than those of the same age did in 2003. Relatedly, people in the 16 to 24 age group are three times more likely to say they feel lonely than those in the 65 to 74 age group.

This decline in face-to-face socialising is palpably reflected in our culture. Social media is brimming with content which glamourises staying home in the name of self-care: one ‘6pm to 9pm evening routine’ video sees a young woman going home after work to light some candles and watch YouTube videos on her own. Perhaps it’s telling that Molly-Mae Hague is the UK’s most successful influencer, having built a wildly successful brand centred around an aspirational (yet relatable) kind of domesticity. “I’m not bothered about a social life, it’s not something I have been really interested in,” she told Steven Bartlett on the Diary of a CEO podcast back in 2021. More recently, in a vlog posted to her YouTube channel in December 2024, she put it more bluntly: “I don’t like having fun.”

On the one hand, it’s cheering to see young people attempt to look after their mental and physical wellbeing by prioritising downtime. Nearly half of young people no longer drink alcohol, with many citing health concerns as their principal motivation for quitting. Given that excessive alcohol consumption can pose myriad health risks, we should be glad that young people are eschewing the binge drinking culture of the late 90s and early 00s. It’s also undoubtedly encouraging to see society become a little more tolerant of introversion – thank God it’s become socially acceptable to say no to plans simply because you need an evening to recharge your social battery. 

But it seems increasingly likely that we’re in danger of forgetting it’s possible to take ‘protecting your peace’ too far. An introvert myself, I entirely understand the urge to spend a Friday night watching Netflix and mainlining herbal tea. But being an introvert simply means you expend energy in social situations – it doesn’t mean it’s healthy for you to forgo social situations entirely (the opposite is true: loneliness can be as damaging to health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day). And although many people who spend lots of time alone claim to love embracing ‘JOMO’, it’s worth pausing to ask whether we’re glamourising isolation and playing up to being introverted as a response to feeling unable to have a fulfilling social life in the first place.

Because there are a number of barriers preventing people in their 20s and 30s from socialising as much as they’d like to. There’s the cost: the average price of a pint is currently £4.79, an increase of nearly 30 per cent since before the pandemic. Even if you don’t drink, a cup of coffee purchased in March 2024 is 19 per cent more expensive than two years previously, with some cafés in the capital charging upwards of £5 for a large flat white. There’s also a rapidly diminishing number of places to go: venues across the country are shuttering at an alarming rate, with the UK losing 37 per cent of its clubs over the last four years alone. Many also report lacking the time or energy to socialise. These are all real, valid reasons why young people – especially those in precarious work – might be socialising less. But we can’t just throw our hands up in the face of these statistics and give up.

Being reluctant to socialise is not only detrimental to yourself, but also to those in your orbit. Even if you’re sceptical that going out less could be harming your own mental wellbeing, there’s no guarantee your friends feel the same. You might feel relieved to turn down your housemate’s suggestion of an impromptu pub trip, but they might be desperate to leave the house. You might think of yourself as ‘so over’ clubbing at the ripe old age of 25, but your newly single friend might be dying for one night of fun. None of this is to say that you should always put others’ needs before your own; but part of being a good friend is making an effort, showing up, and being there – physically! – even when you’re not in the mood.

In our fast-paced world, I can see how so many people have been led to believe that carving out great big wedges of ‘me time’ is freeing or ‘empowering’ – but having a sense of obligation towards others isn’t a trap. If anything, having other people make demands on your time is liberating. Jemima Kirke was being flippant when she said “I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much,” but she hit on a very real tendency among young people to lean into solipsism. 

We should strive for balance, and it’s likely ‘balance’ will look a little different for everyone (some of us might need just one or two nights a week of ‘alone time’, while others may need a little more). But if spending time with your nearest and dearest has inched closer and closer to the bottom of your priorities, eclipsed by gym sessions and ‘self-care evenings’, it’s likely time for you to reassess whether your current lifestyle is truly making you – or your friends – happy.