Voices is the Dorset Echo's weekly youth page - written for young people by young people.

This week Oliver Streather-Paul looks at social isolation among young adults.

As stated in a recent article in the Echo, 87 per cent of young adults in the South West admitted to feeling lonely, and 67 per cent said there was at least one occasion where they felt they had nobody to confide in.

This news is not only heartbreaking, but a cause for concern and a call to action. But one question remains unanswered. Why is this happening?

I argue the rise of smartphones and mass-consumption of social media has led to the exact opposite social networks intended effect.

This effect does not hit a particular gender, class, ethnicity or location, but all of them at once.

The issue is that Generation Z (those born between 1995 and 2012) have not had a time in their lives where the internet did not exist, with even the earliest-born members seeing the rise of MySpace, Facebook and Snapchat.

More and more people are spending huge amounts time on social media.

Whilst the Facebook's slogan is that it “connects you with people around you”, it has been proved in surveys by Psychology Today (PT) alongside others, that in fact, it does the exact opposite.

PT's survey revealed that trends of unhappiness and loneliness in young adults surged following the releases of iPhones, Facebook and Snapchat.

The change has not only been visible in surveys and statistics, but visible in society surrounding us.

Something I have witnessed firsthand.

I was in Year 8 when Snapchat exploded and I watched my classmates shift from the odd message in the evening on Blackberry Mobile to being glued to iPhones and near-compulsively posting on Snapchat.

Four years on, nothing much has changed, except the intensity of this posting and the further decline in happiness. But how do we deal with this?

I would only suggest taking some time completely away from our smartphones and to spend some time with close friends and family. Besides, it’s not the end of the world if we leave our phones behind for a bit, right?

By Oliver Streather-Paul