It’s not every day you see a 24-year-old hanging out with a 75-year-old, but for Grace Martin and Pam it’s a friendship that transcends generations.
The pair met in Melbourne through a government volunteer scheme, and their friendship has helped them overcome loneliness at a time where more young people are reporting feeling social isolation.
Young Australians are experiencing a “loneliness crisis”, experts say, with new research revealing one in five people aged 18 to 25 say they are lonely.
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This makes them the nation’s loneliest age group despite being the most digitally connected generation.
Grace began struggling with loneliness when she moved to Melbourne for university.
“You’d think being around so many people your age, you have so much to connect on, it just didn’t feel that way,” she said.
According to a new national survey by Ending Loneliness Together, 18 to 25-year-olds are Australia’s loneliest age group.
“Right now, young people are going through a loneliness crisis in our country,” said Associate Professor Michelle Lim, CEO of Ending Loneliness Together.
Lim says loneliness and social isolation are associated with a range of negative health outcomes including cardiovascular issues, Alzheimer’s disease and mental health disorders such as depression and social anxiety.
Determined to find a solution, Grace took matters into her own hands.
“I kind of went in search of that connection I was missing,” she said.
Grace signed up to a program through the government’s Aged Care Volunteer Visitors Scheme which partnered her with an aged care resident named Pam.
“Before I knew it got a call about Pam. We really just bonded over music initially and all of her interesting festival experiences,” Grace said.
“She’s an incredible listener, so patient. She’s in her early 70s and a lot of the people that she’s around are not cognitively as where she’s at and I think that must be really hard.”
Ending Loneliness Together’s research also found that volunteering significantly reduced the risk of loneliness and social isolation.
“Volunteering regularly, it doesn’t matter whether it’s formal or informal, actually reduces your own risk of social isolation and loneliness by 62 per cent,” Lim said.
According to experts, spending just one to three hours a week with friends reduces your risk of loneliness by 90 per cent.
“Things like having a strong sense of community, regularly sharing with family and friends about how you feel, even things like chatting with neighbours. All those little things make a big difference in how we feel towards our community and others,” Lim said.
People in regional and remote areas are 1.3 times more likely to experience loneliness and social isolation compared to people living in urban areas.
Grace says that building a connection with someone from a different generation has been pivotal for changing her outlook of the world.
“I always leave with a lot of perspective and it’s humbling,” she said.
