Young Americans are more likely to feel lonely, anxious about the future

April 28, 2025
Young Americans are more likely to feel lonely, anxious about the future Young Americans are more likely to feel lonely, anxious about the future

Younger Americans, particularly those in Gen Z, tend to describe themselves as feeling lonelier and more anxious about the future than their elders, according to findings in the new NBC News Stay Tuned Poll, powered by SurveyMonkey.

Twenty-nine percent of U.S. adults under age 30 say they feel lonely or isolated from those around them all of the time or most of the time. Similarly, 26% of the next oldest generation, or those ages 30-44, say they feel lonely or isolated all or most of the time.

But only 15% of survey respondents who are members of Generation X, or those who are 45 to 64 years old, said they felt they were lonely or isolated most or all of the time, and only 8% of those ages 65 and older said the same. The overall results have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, with a slightly higher margin of error (plus or minus 2.7 points) among the smaller Gen Z subsample.

The stark divide between older and younger generations comes amid years of warnings from public health experts, including former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, about a “loneliness epidemic” impacting people’s health, which only got worse during the Covid pandemic.

According to a 2023 report from the then-surgeon general’s office, loneliness can increase the risk of premature death and puts people at a greater risk of stroke and heart disease. The risk of experiencing depression, anxiety and dementia also rises when people increasingly feel isolated, the report found.

“Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling — it harms both individual and societal health,” Murthy wrote in a letter attached to the report.

Beyond loneliness and isolation, poll respondents from younger generations were also more likely to say they often felt anxious or worried about the future.

Over half of the youngest cohort — 56% — said they felt anxious or worried about the future most of the time or almost all of the time. Among those ages 30 to 44, 50% said the same.

By comparison, just 37% of respondents ages 45-64 said they were anxious or worried about the future, and only 32% of those ages 65 and over said the same.

Young women were the most likely to say they felt anxious or worried about the future, with 66% of female respondents ages 18 to 29 saying they were anxious or worried most or almost all of the time. A significantly lower level (45%) of male respondents of the same age said the same.

Young people’s general anxiety about the future appears to be affecting their outlook for the country, too.

While 60% of survey respondents of all ages said they believed the U.S. was on the wrong track, those ages 18 to 29 were more likely to say so. Almost three-quarters, or 71%, of Gen Z poll respondents said they believed the U.S. to be on the wrong track, with only 29% of that age group saying the country was on the right track.

Again, young women were more likely to say the U.S. was on the wrong track, with 80% of Gen Z women saying so and only 63% of Gen Z men saying the same.

This NBC News Stay Tuned poll was powered by SurveyMonkey, the fast, intuitive feedback management platform where 20 million questions are answered daily. It was conducted online April 11-20 among a national sample of 19,682 adults ages 18 and over. Reported percentages exclude item nonresponse and round to the nearest percentage point. The estimated margin of error for this survey among all adults is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

byWeb Desk
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