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Wading through emails, listening to a podcaston the commute, checking the news,shopping on your phone, ordering groceriesonline, binge-watching a series or two onNetflix and then dissecting it with girlfriends in yourWhatsApp group... Have you noticed how large segmentsof the day can easily pass without you having had aconversation with a real person? That’s before you even startto take into account social media and all the platforms thatit includes: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and alltheir DM functions... At any given time of any day youcan be virtually plugged in to thousands of people at yourfingertips and still there’s no real connection at all. We’venever been so engaged, and yet we’re in the midst of aWORLDS APARTLoneliness is an epidemic gripping the young. Jessica Diner discovers why itis possible to be so connected and yet feel so isolated. Illustration by Gill Button``````loneliness epidemic, with research showing that it’s theyoung suffering the most.A recent study from the Office of National Statistics foundthat almost 10 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds in the UKoften or always feel lonely, and 22 per cent feel lonely atintervals – these figures are three times the amount of thoseaged over 65. With loneliness being something previouslyassociated with the elderly, the findings have been a big wake-up call, especially when it was recorded that people who areover 75 report loneliness 63 per cent less than their 16- to24-year-old equivalents. So, what are we doing wrong?“I hate to blame all things on Instagram,” says PoppyJamie, social-media influencer and entrepreneur, “butthe ‘comparagram’ is a huge factor in hiking up levels of122