FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2024
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VOLUME 71, ISSUE 3
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ST. MARK’S SCHOOL OF TEXAS
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DALLAS, TEXAS
THE LONELY GENERATION In the age of constant connectivity, teenage boys are experiencing unprecedented isolation. While social media creates opportunities for connection, interactions online often remain surface-level, leaving many young people struggling to bridge the gap between online presence and meaningful, real-world relationships.
Illustration by Joshua Goforth
INSIDE Issues......................3 Academics................9 Life.........................14 Front & Center..........16 Reviews..................22 Editorials................23 Sports....................26
BY HILTON SAMPSON, LINYANG LEE AND MATTHEW HOFMANN Even through the phone, when you ask Rob Glass ‘72 to look back at his time here, you can hear from his voice how much fun he had. Rappelling down the side of the A-frame chapel. Beating 6A public schools on the soccer field. Being named MVP his senior year. He has so many great memories with his group of four friends, too. Studying in the library together. Going to Brownsville one spring break together. Glass still has the 16 millimeter black and white films they made together. But looking back now, more than 50 years later— those relationships were thinner than the ones he’s got now. They weren’t as deep.
For many young men, though, finding a group of friends to begin with—let alone solid, deep connections—is difficult. A new analysis of social trends reveals a significant increase in loneliness among boys and young men over the past three decades, with technological and social changes driving the shift. According to research by Richard Reeves in “From Boys to Men,” the percentage of men reporting no close friends has increased from 3 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2021. Among high school boys, loneliness has also grown substantially, rising from 28 percent in 2000 to 35 percent in 2019. And here, even at a school with so much emphasis on community, so many of us aren’t immune. So many are alone.
see CONFRONTING on page 16
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