Alone in her tiny studio apartment, Sarah-Jane Hoadley regularly documents her life as a single woman in her 40s with no friends.
Hoadley is what some might label a “loneliness influencer” — a rising type of social media creator, usually a woman, who embraces living life alone.
While men also experience loneliness, women may be more likely to share content about going through life alone, as they face less stigma surrounding mental health, noted Dr. Lauren Cook, a clinical psychologist living in San Marino, California.
Practically every day, Hoadley, a professional cleaner in Windsor, England, boils water for her instant coffee, bikes to her clients’ residences and later returns home, where she spends cozy evenings snuggling with her cat while watching TV. In the mundane moments, she has found peace.
Her account, @dramafreediaries on TikTok and Instagram, has amassed 100 million views and 500,000 followers across several social media platforms since her first post in January.
“When I leave work on Friday to when I go back on Monday, I don’t get WhatsApps. I don’t get any phone calls, but I’m not pining for something,” Hoadley said.
While some social media users believe loneliness creators encourage self-love, some online users and experts criticize them for encouraging isolation amid a time when the World Health Organization has made loneliness a global health priority.
“These so-called loneliness influencers give a very romantic image of what it’s like to be alone, said Phil Lane, a psychotherapist based in Pennington, New Jersey.
Detractors argue that digital natives such as Gen Z — a group frequently nicknamed the “loneliest generation” — who watch the content could lean into that lifestyle and hyper-independence.
But some experts say there is more nuance to the lifestyle than previously thought, and even positives, depending on how people look at it.
“What matters most is that the person feels like they’re living in alignment with their personal values — and not necessarily for us to say if that lifestyle is right or wrong,” said Cook, founder of Heartship Psychological Services.
Loneliness influencers have just recently gone viral, but content popularizing solitary lifestyles on social media is not new.
Lana Isa, a social media influencer, started sharing posts last summer for her “solo vlog” series, showing how her Friday and Saturday nights were often spent alone in her apartment.
Her series kick-started a wave of creators on both TikTok and Instagram centering their content on living life alone. What started as documentation of Isa’s daily life soon became an online phenomenon, one that inspired renewed discourse around mental health.
But Hoadley said she hasn’t been posting about her single life to encourage isolation. Her loneliness isn’t “aspirational,” which she said is a common misconception around her videos.
Cook said the impact of the content depends on how viewers are watching it.
“If it’s coming from a place of seeking peace and solace and restoration, that can be a great thing,” Cook said. “But if it’s coming from a place of avoidance or not wanting to be vulnerable, putting ourselves out there with dating or new relationships … then that’s something I think where we have to get curious about if anxiety is maybe dictating the narrative at that point.”
While the term loneliness influencer seems to encourage isolation, experts say content creators may be embracing it to counteract the criticism they’ve received.
This may be a way “to reduce the stigma and shame around their experience, and to help normalize that,” said Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
Loneliness can have a significant impact on your mental health, research has shown. But feeling isolated can also take a toll on your physical health and even years off your life, according to a 2023 study.
The study found individuals who reported feeling socially isolated were 32% more likely to die early compared with those who reported they had more active social lives. Those who reported feeling lonely had a 14% higher risk of dying early than those who did not.
While social isolation means spending time alone and having infrequent social contact, loneliness is what people experience when there is a discrepancy between their desired level of social connection and their actual level of connection, noted Holt-Lunstad, director of Brigham Young’s Social Connection and Health Lab.
“There’s nothing inherently bad about being alone,” Lane said. “It becomes a problem when it becomes chronic.”
Loneliness influencers — especially Gen Zers — should be more mindful of how viewers perceive their online posts, according to Lane.
“They have a lot of power, particularly among the younger generations who are hyperconnected to social media,” he said. “And with that power, I think there needs to be a little more responsibility about the content that’s being shared and the possible negative implications of that content.”
Cook noted there needs to be a healthy harmony between being by yourself and being with other people.
“We want to find a balance where folks feel at peace being alone and even enjoy that time,” she said, “and at the same time still want to socialize with others and still want to have relationships with other people.”
For many loneliness influencers, living in solitude wasn’t how they originally imagined their life — it was a path forged after experiencing difficult life transitions.
Hoadley shared that finding peace by herself helped her reclaim her agency after surviving domestic abuse.
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She always used to put her ex-partner’s preference first. “You don’t even realize you’re just answering with what they want,” Hoadley said. “You have the ability to make things happen for yourself, and I wish I’d known that before.”
Striking out on her own was a difficult transition, but embracing her solitude gave her the space to learn more about herself and make her own personal decisions, such as getting her cat or making meals of her choosing.
“I hated being in silence. It was horrible,” Hoadley said. “But I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to now love it as much as I do.”
Accepting her solitude was a gradual process. Hoadley said she still experiences feelings of loneliness in this period of her life, but one that she ultimately finds gratitude in for the calmness and safety she experiences.
Sharing her new life on social media helped give Hoadley a sense of empowerment despite her challenging circumstances.
“I’m not saying that if I had been able to see a TikTok that I would have left earlier,” Hoadley said. “But there’s something about being able to picture how you want your life to look.”
Tess Lavanda, a 22-year-old living in London with more than 27,000 followers on TikTok, said talking to the camera about her loneliness helped her cope with her fears around social situations.
Twenty-four hours after moving to London from New Zealand, Lavanda wanted to go out for a cocktail but felt strange going alone. She recorded herself applying makeup, while confessing her embarrassment, as a video diary. She wasn’t planning to post it, until she watched it back and believed sharing it might help someone.
The video has garnered more than 300,000 views since then. “It’s been very strange to talk about something so vulnerable and to have such a positive response,” she said. “That has been the craziest thing … the amount of people that feel the exact same way as me.”
Cook, the clinical psychologist in California, said that the content resonates with how many people feel right now.
“It highlights how we all have different values. … Right now, it’s speaking to people in a way that is maybe indicative that people are feeling burned out or needing more rest or feeling socially tapped out,” Cook said.
Hoadley has said that people in her town have approached her after seeing her social media posts.
It’s just a “two-second interaction, but that’s life-changing for me,” Hoadley said.
When she first moved to the English town, Hoadley only knew a few close family members, but her online content made her a recognizable face to some residents in her local neighborhood.
Striking up chats with strangers used to be uncommon for Hoadley. But the community she has built online has made a meaningful impact on her life, through digital conversations and in-person ones.
“It’s like having a ton of friends, really,” Hoadley said.
Being alone and posting about her journey ultimately helped Hoadley find contentment in her life. She finds ways to have positive moments or different types of “wins” throughout the day, such as going on a 10-minute walk, earning money and tackling an uplifting task like cooking her favorite meal.
“Nothing that I’ve done is unachievable for people,” Hoadley said. “I work a minimum wage job. I live in a 350-square-foot studio … but I’ve made it to where this is my favorite place.”
Lavanda said that the support she found online has helped grow her confidence.
There are days when the loneliness can still feel overwhelming, she said, but finding ways to embrace it, instead of hating it, helped her realize she could still find the positives in life.
“There’s no need to feel embarrassed. It’s completely normal,” Lavanda said. “Take up hobbies such as meditation or writing or walking. I think just focus on the things that you can do to enjoy this time rather than the things that you can’t do.”
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