雅思阅读 31: Alone in the Crowd（人群中的孤独）

改编自 Washington University / Taylor & Francis 研究（2026年）。雅思阅读 Section 3 难度，约 1050 词。 素材来源：https://newsroom.taylorandfrancisgroup.com/college-students-who-spend-hours-on-social-media-are-more-likely-to-be-lonely-national-us-study/

Reading Passage

A. Loneliness is not, the statistics say, what it used to be. Surveys conducted over the last twenty years have consistently found that the people reporting the highest levels of loneliness are not the elderly, as popular stereotypes would have it, but adolescents and young adults — a cohort that, not by coincidence, has grown up with a pocket-sized internet connection. In March 2026, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis published an eight-country study, spanning the United States, India, Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia and several other nations, in which nearly one in two young adults aged 18 to 24 reported being meaningfully, measurably lonely. The result was the same whether the country was individualist or collectivist, rich or poor. Loneliness, the authors conclude, is no longer a Western pathology of suburban isolation; it is a global condition of the digital age. The result was the same whether the country was rich or poor, hot or cold, collectivist or individualist, which makes a simple cultural explanation — that loneliness is a disease of American individualism — much harder to sustain.

B. The obvious suspect is social media. A national US study published the same year, drawing on more than 120,000 college students, found a dose-response relationship: students spending 21 to 25 hours a week on social platforms were 23 per cent more likely to report loneliness than those spending under two hours; those spending 26 to 30 hours were 34 per cent more likely; and the heaviest users, at 30 hours or more a week, were 38 per cent more likely. A seven-year longitudinal study at the University of Michigan, following more than a thousand young people from age 12 to their late teens, found an even starker gradient: adolescents spending more than six hours a day on social media had more than double the odds of anxiety and more than triple the odds of suicidal thoughts, compared with those spending under an hour. The correlation is not subtle, and it is not isolated to one platform or one country. It holds when the platform is TikTok or Instagram or X, when the country is the United States or Indonesia, and when the measure is a validated loneliness scale rather than a self-report of "feeling lonely". The dose-response curve is monotonic: more hours, more loneliness, all the way up.

C. Correlation, however, is not causation, and the researchers are the first to say so. It could be that social media causes loneliness by displacing face-to-face contact — the "displacement hypothesis", in which an hour scrolling is an hour not spent with friends. Or it could be that lonely young people, feeling anxious about meeting others in person, retreat into the safer, lower-stimulation environment of the screen, where rejection is a click away rather than a conversation. Most experts now suspect the arrow runs in both directions: social media use worsens loneliness, and loneliness drives people to use social media more, in a self-reinforcing loop. The loop is hard to break because the platforms are designed, with enormous sophistication, to keep the loop closed. The same recommendation algorithms that serve a video also serve the next one, and the next, and the next, and the next — each one selected by a system that has no incentive to send the user off the screen and into the street.

D. The mechanism by which social media makes people feel worse is not entirely understood, but the leading account is social comparison. The feed is a curated highlight reel: classmates posting holiday photos, colleagues posting promotions, couples posting weddings. No one posts the Tuesday night spent ordering takeaway alone. A young person scrolling before bed is not comparing their real life with other people's real lives; they are comparing it with other people's marketing departments, and they lose, every time. A second mechanism is the nature of the contact itself. A like is not a hug. A comment thread is not a conversation. The number of weak ties on a platform can run into the thousands while the number of people you would call at 3 a.m. stays at zero — a paradox the sociologist Barry Wellman identified decades ago, but which smartphones have amplified to a degree he could not have foreseen. Online interaction, it turns out, is not a substitute for offline interaction; it is a different product, with different nutritional value.

E. The policy response is only just beginning. Platforms have been slow to acknowledge the effect, and the few changes they have made — screen-time reminders, chronological feeds, optional active status — are nudges rather than remedies. Governments have begun to study the question seriously, with several European countries considering age-verification rules and minimum-age bans for the youngest users. Such measures are politically contested, and no country has yet enforced a full ban; the tech industry argues that age-verification itself violates privacy. The deeper problem, however, is not regulatory but design. A platform that profits from attention has no incentive to optimise for solitude, and the young adults who report the highest loneliness are, in the same surveys, the least able to delete the apps that make them feel worse. The eight-country study ends on a note that is more sobering than hopeful: the loneliness epidemic is not going to be cured by better features. It will require either a redesign of the attention economy, or a generation that learns, against its own instincts, to put the phone down. Neither outcome looks likely in the short term; the platforms profit precisely from the instinct that keeps the phone in hand, and the users who most need to put it down are the least able to do so. The loneliness epidemic, in the end, is not a problem that a settings change will solve.

Questions 1-4

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B, C, D and E from the list of headings below.

List of Headings i. The statistics linking screen time to loneliness ii. Why correlation is not causation iii. The policy response — and its limits iv. The Washington University study of university fees v. How social comparison and weak ties make things worse vi. The history of the internet vii. Why young people are more physically active

1. Paragraph B: ____
2. Paragraph C: ____
3. Paragraph D: ____
4. Paragraph E: ____

Questions 5-8

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

5. According to the Washington University study, how common is loneliness among young adults aged 18-24 across eight countries? A. About 5 per cent. B. Nearly one in two. C. Almost everyone. D. Only in wealthy countries.

6. What did the college student study find about heaviest users (30+ hours/week)? A. They were 38% more likely to report loneliness. B. They were no different from light users. C. They were less lonely than average. D. They had more friends.

7. Why is the direction of causality uncertain? A. Social media does not exist. B. Social media may cause loneliness, but lonely people may also use it more. C. The studies were too small. D. Loneliness cannot be measured.

8. What is the "social comparison" mechanism? A. Comparing prices online. B. Comparing one's real life with other people's curated online highlights. C. Comparing grades. D. Comparing exercise levels.

Questions 9-13

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer?

Write:

• TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
• FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
• NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

9. Loneliness is highest among the elderly.
10. The Michigan study followed more than a thousand young people for seven years.
11. Most experts agree that social media use causes loneliness in only one direction.
12. Platforms have voluntarily redesigned their algorithms to reduce loneliness.
13. The author suggests the loneliness epidemic will require either platform redesign or a generational change in phone use.

Questions 14-15

Complete the summary below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.

The feed acts as a curated (14) __________ reel; a like is not a hug, and online (15) __________ ties do not replace a few close friends.

答案与解析

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