Alone but Online: Rethinking Solitude and Social Media in Young Adults’ Everyday Lives

Imagine Tim, a 20-year-old, sitting alone in their room. No one else is physically present, and there is no face-to-face conversation. At first glance, this looks like solitude. But on his screen, a different social world is wide awake: a friend is receiving birthday messages, likes and comments are appearing, and an endless stream of other people’s faces, jokes, achievements, meals, holidays, and opinions is only a swipe away.

So, is Tim alone?

This question makes solitude surprisingly difficult to define today. In the chapter that inspired this blog, Nguyen (2026) argues that solitude is not the same as loneliness, isolation, or social withdrawal. It is better understood as a state of being disengaged from social contacts and social demands. But in a world of smartphones, this definition becomes more complicated. A person can be physically alone while still being socially reachable, socially visible, socially evaluated, and socially stimulated. They may be alone in the room, but not necessarily alone in the mind.

Phones and social media have blurred the boundary between being alone and being with others. Being alone is no longer simply about whether another person is physically present. It is also about whether social demands are present. Are we free from others’ expectations? Are we able to choose where our attention goes? Are we thinking our own thoughts, or are we mentally pulled into social comparison, feedback, and imagined audiences?

In other words, the question is no longer just: Are we alone?

It is also: What kind of aloneness are we experiencing?

A useful distinction is between active and passive social media use. Active use means doing something that directly involves other people, such as messaging, commenting, or posting. Passive use means mostly looking, such as scrolling, browsing, or watching. This distinction is helpful because social media is obviously not one single activity. Silently watching videos is not the same as messaging a close friend. Posting a photo is not the same as reading the news. Commenting on someone’s update is not the same as falling into a 30-minute scroll that somehow began with “just checking one thing.”

In the research literature, active use has often been viewed more positively, because it can involve communication, self-expression, and social connection. Passive use has often been associated with less favourable outcomes, such as social comparison, envy, or lower well-being. This has led to a common idea: active use is the healthier kind, and passive use is the risky kind.

But real life is messier.

The same behaviour can lead the mind in very different directions. As Tim scrolls through a friend’s birthday messages, he might smile, remember last year’s party, plan his own celebration, or wonder why he never receives as many messages. If he replies or posts, he might feel connected and excited - or anxious about saying the right thing and getting a response. What matters is not only what Tim does on the app, but what the activity sets in motion in his mind.

The active/passive label tells us what people are doing, but not what’s happening in their minds while they do it. This is the gap I (Xiangyu Deng, a PhD researcher in the Solitude Lab), am currently working on: the thoughts that unfold while people use social media.

In one study, I wanted to understand social media use not just as behaviour, but as a mental state. I was interested in what young people are thinking while using social media in daily life. Are their thoughts social, reflective, task-focused, intrusive, positive, negative, spontaneous, or deliberate? Does active use create different cognitive experiences from passive use?

To examine these questions, I recruited 146 young adults aged 18 to 24. Participants completed a baseline survey and then received smartphone prompts four times a day for 14 days. At each prompt, they reported whether they had used social media in the past 10 minutes, what kind of activity they had engaged in, whether they were alone or with others, how they felt, and what their recent thoughts had been like. This method allowed me to capture social media experiences close to when they happened, rather than asking people to summarise their habits long after the moment had passed.

The results showed that participants were more likely to report recent social media use when they were alone than when they were with other people. In those moments alone, they were usually scrolling or browsing rather than posting or talking to someone.

The key part of the study was the kind of thoughts that participants had when they were using. Participants reported different features of their thoughts, such as whether they were focused on the self, other people, the past, the future, memories, goals, tasks, images, words, or intrusive content.

From these thought items, three broader patterns emerged:

The first was Episodic, social, memory-based thought. This involved thoughts about memories, past events, the self, and other people. It captures the way social media can pull us into personal and social memory: remembering a conversation, thinking about a friend, comparing today with the past, or connecting what we see online to our own lives.

The second was Intentional, detailed, task-focused thought. This involved more detailed, deliberate, and goal-directed thinking. It may appear when someone is composing a message, deciding what to post, planning how to respond, or using social media in a more purposeful way.

The third was Intrusive or negative thought. This involved thoughts that were more intrusive and negatively toned. This is the kind of thinking that may feel less like “I am choosing to reflect” and more like “I cannot stop thinking about this.”

The most emotionally important pattern was Intrusive or negative thought. When these thoughts were stronger, young people also reported more distress. This suggests that some of the emotional cost of social media may come not from the screen alone, but from the train of thought it starts.

Comparing active and passive use revealed another part of the picture. When participants were messaging, commenting, or posting, they reported more Episodic, social, memory-based thought and more Intentional, detailed, task-focused thought than when they were simply scrolling. Active use was also linked with feeling slightly more cheerful or excited. Tim’s birthday reply shows why: he may remember last year’s party, think about his friend, choose his words, and decide how to present himself. This also returns us to the chapter’s central idea. Although Tim is physically alone, active use asks for his attention and brings other people’s expectations into the room, making the moment mentally less solitary.

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But active use did not necessarily mean fewer Intrusive or negative thoughts.

This is the crucial point. Active use seemed to be more cognitively engaging, but not automatically less psychologically harmful. It may wake up the mind, but what it wakes up may depend on the person and the situation.

Individual differences helped explain this further. For young people who were more sensitive to social reward, active use was more strongly linked to Episodic, social, memory-based thought. If Tim enjoys this kind of feedback, replying to birthday messages may feel connecting and meaningful. But suppose he tends to worry about how others see him, compare himself with others, feel envy, or replay upsetting thoughts. The same birthday posts may lead him to count who received more messages, rehearse what to say, or worry that his own post will be ignored. In the study, social anxiety, envy, social comparison, and rumination changed some of the links between active use and participants’ thoughts or feelings, although they did not all produce the same pattern. The broader lesson is simple: the same online action can feel rewarding for one person and draining for another.

This is why advice such as “use social media more actively” may be too simple. A better question is not only whether someone is posting or scrolling, but whether the activity leaves them feeling connected, purposeful, playful, under pressure to perform, caught in comparison, or emotionally drained.

When young people use social media while alone, the phone can become many things. It can be a window, a mirror, a stage, a comfort blanket, a distraction machine, a social lifeline, or a comparison trap. It can help someone feel connected during solitude. It can also make solitude feel crowded.

A young person alone with their phone may be resting. They may be reflecting. They may be avoiding boredom. They may be seeking reassurance. They may be comparing themselves with others. They may be trying to feel less lonely. They may also be carefully crafting a version of themselves for an imagined audience. From the outside, these moments may all look the same: someone alone, looking at a screen. Psychologically, they may be completely different.

This is the direction I am now taking in my future research to better understand whether active and passive use actually shift cognition and emotion, especially during moments of solitude. Together, these studies are part of a broader effort to move beyond yes-or-no debates. Is solitude good or bad? It depends. Is social media good or bad? It depends. Is active use better than passive use? Again, it depends.

But “it depends” should not be the end of the conversation. It should be the beginning of better questions.

It depends on whether solitude feels chosen or imposed.

It depends on whether social media brings connection or comparison.

It depends on whether active use involves authentic interaction or anxious performance.

It depends on whether passive use is relaxing, numbing, inspiring, or spiralling.

It depends on what thoughts are activated, and for whom.

In the digital age, solitude is no longer just the absence of other people. It is also shaped by attention, autonomy, imagined audiences, and the small social world we carry in our pockets. To understand young people’s well-being, we need to look beyond whether they are alone, and beyond whether they are scrolling or posting. We need to ask what kind of mental space is being created when they are alone but online.

Perhaps the most important question is not whether social media interrupts solitude. Perhaps the better question is: when we reach for our phones in solitude, what kind of company are we inviting into our minds?