"Demoralized" Young Men Face Loneliness, Anxiety and Loss of Faith in Society

America’s young men report feeling “demoralized”, with concerning levels of loneliness and helplessness, alongside high levels of pornography use and gambling, a comprehensive new report has found.

Less than half of young men feel a steady emotional connection to others, while friendships are “in short supply”, according to the American think tank Institute for Family Studies (IFS).

The figures coincide with a collapse in levels of social, civic and religious participation, with less than a third volunteering (31%) and fewer still reporting membership in faith-based groups, social clubs or adult sports leagues, its representative survey of 2,000 American men aged 18–29 found.

But while popular narratives pin the blame on “toxic masculinity” – meaning narrow, harmful gender stereotypes – or men themselves, the IFS report America’s Demoralized Men suggests that a broader collapse in social structures is the more likely reason young men are feeling helpless, lonely and anxious.

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The Fading of the American Dream

Many of the young men surveyed (84%) have strong ambitions for their future, but almost the same proportion (72%) believes that getting ahead today is about who you know, not how hard you work. Almost half (49%) think that the American Dream – hard work leading to a good standard of living – is simply out of reach.

So while eight in 10 (81%) respondents expressed firm belief in their own powers, their attitudes imply a lack of confidence in the degree to which society supports and enables them to reach their high aspirations.

The authors argue these findings show young men are under serious pressure to determine their lives for themselves, while they have less social support in doing so.

The result is a generation of men with firm ambitions but poor mental health and feelings of disconnection who seek escape by turning to pornography, gambling and gaming.

Lost Pathways, Greater Struggles

The purpose of the IFS study was to dig into the widely acknowledged difficulties facing young men, from dropping out of school and withdrawing from work to claims of nihilism, extremism and a collapse in mental health.

The authors say they also wanted to test some of the dominant explanations, such as breakdowns in social structures, weaknesses in the men themselves and failures in socialization through gendered stereotypes regarding masculinity.

Part II of the report, Lost Pathways, Greater Struggles, examines the social lives of men aged 18–29. The authors describe “sobering” findings about young men’s experience of loneliness and the collapse in close friendships.

More than four out of 10 (42%) young men have two or fewer close friends, IFS found, including 9% who reported zero close friends. Meanwhile, 55% of respondents reported feeling lonely, while one in five (20%) said they seldom or never feel loved or wanted by others.

Marriage and Religion

The authors say these figures reflect a steady decline in participation in group activities like religious worship and voluntary organizations, as well as falling marriage rates.

The report’s findings suggest a strong correlation between participating in institutions like school, church and marriage, and having three or more close friends.

Given that young men without a close friend are more likely to feel lonely all or most of the time (43%) than those with three to five friends (21%), it is perhaps unsurprising to find that the rates of loneliness are lower among those who attend religious services regularly, are married and have completed college.

The picture is not quite as clear-cut, however, when reported feelings of loneliness are taken into account, with the report finding that significant numbers of men participating in all three institutions still reported being lonely and not feeling loved. This suggests, the authors aver, that young men’s struggles are deeper than mere isolation.

Feelings of Helplessness

A potential source of this deeper crisis is suggested in the second half of the IFS report, which focused on male alienation and distress and yielded what the authors say are apparently conflicting, even contradictory results.

For instance, one set of findings shows that young men are experiencing feelings of powerlessness and demonstrate a sense of disenchantment regarding the American Dream and its meritocratic promises.

So just under half (49%) agreed that no matter how hard they worked, “people like me will never achieve the American Dream”, with its promise that working hard will lead to a certain improved standard of living.

Almost three-quarters (72%) indicated that they believed that who you know is more important than ability or hard work in getting ahead. Their experience of America’s social and economic life is leading them to question the very foundation of the meritocratic economy.

Overall, 61% of young men believe they have little control over their lives, which the authors say is concerning as a sense of agency in decision-making and responsibility is “crucial” to how young men define what it means to be an adult.

Struggling to “Be Yourself”

Yet, surprisingly, when asked to respond to positive statements such as “I have ambitious goals for my future”, the young men expressed high levels of self-confidence. Some 84% of them have ambitious goals, while 81% believe they can “do just about anything” they set their minds to.

What is behind such an apparent disconnect? The authors admit that it could be a coping mechanism, but argue against this, suggesting instead that while young men have “lost faith” in meritocracy, they still retain faith in their own powers to get them through.

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They found further support for their claim in responses to questions regarding feeling underestimated by others: the idea that “I have more potential to succeed than people think” resonated with eight in 10 men.

Rather than falling into feelings of indifference or resorting to attitudes suggestive of violence, young men want to “be taken seriously”, for others to recognize that they are trying and have “something valuable to offer”.

Mental and Emotional Distress

Having said that, this apparent conflict between self-perception of their powers and social and economic conditions is taking its toll mentally and emotionally. A third reported experiencing anxiety, while 37% experienced depression. A fifth said they were currently experiencing symptoms of or receiving treatment for each condition.

It is in the context of these stressful circumstances that IFS researchers analyze young men’s problematic media consumption, arguing that it is a response rather than a cause.

With more “complex social changes” making the world “less stable and less certain”, such that goods like the American Dream, community participation and marriage “can no longer be taken for granted”, heavy media use is a “maladaptive” response to “demoralization”, the report says.

However, the authors note that these practices “correlate with negative outcomes”, such that they reinforce experiences of anxiety and loneliness.

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Mending the Social Fabric

But while these experiences serve to reinforce male anxiety and loneliness, they are part of a wider problem regarding what a man is expected to be.

For the parents of young people today, growing up against the background of a largely safe and stable economic and social system, having the power to choose who you wanted to be appeared to be a given.

However, the authors conclude, young men today feel a failure because society is asking something of them that it “no longer can or will provide”. Never, they argue, have young people been asked to “shoulder such burdens of autonomous self-making”.

The solution to the various overlapping crises affecting young men – social, economic, mental – would therefore appear to be not tackling toxic masculinity or blaming men, but rather mending the social fabric, so that what one is expected to be is no longer in conflict with what society enables one to become.