Dec. 22, 2023 – For many, ’tis the season for nonstop holiday and family gatherings, lasting from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day. While some wish those nonstop parties would continue, others feel an overwhelming desire to just be alone and bask in peace and quiet.

Memes on social media nail the need for “me” time, from “My alone time is for everyone’s safety” to a photo of a woman on her phone, with the caption: “This is me pretending to be on my phone so no one talks to me.” On X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, some users plead for others to respect their need for alone time.

Yet too much alone time may increase the risk of loneliness, already at epidemic levels.

So what’s the ideal balance between solo and not; the sweet spot? Scientists exploring that question say the answers aren’t simple and no perfect prescription applies to everyone. What is known: How you spend that alone time and how you perceive it – great or awful? – seem to impact whether loneliness creeps in.

While the relationship is not linear, and varies by age and other things, solitary time does not closely correlate with loneliness until a person spends 75% of their time alone, the researchers found. 

But for older adults, loneliness set in when they spent much less time alone than 75%. 

“For those 65 and older, there is a clear, a very strong association [between alone time and loneliness],” Mehl said. “For younger adults, and middle age, there isn’t much of an association between aloneness and loneliness.”

According to Mehl, the research confirms the old saying: “You can very much feel lonely in a crowd and fine alone.”

He has some potential explanations for that. Young adults, for instance, may go out to party with anyone who asks, even though they are not close to them, he said. So they may end up feeling lonely when they go out with these acquaintances, perhaps because they have very little history together.

People tend to become more selective in their socialization patterns as they get older, Mehl finds. “They prune out peripheral social contacts and curate a core social network,” he said. So if older people with a smaller circle set up a meeting with someone they really want to see, they are not likely to feel lonely with them, he said.

On the plus side, people reported feeling less stress and pressure on days when they spent time alone.

Solitude time can both benefit and harm well-being, Nguyen said in an interview. “Brief solitude can downregulate strong emotions and promote rest and relaxation,” she said. But it can also backfire. For instance, when people are alone and experiencing negative emotions, “I would think they would want to get out of that state,” she said. But they found that some wanted to continue in that state. And that might eventually lead to too much negative thinking and rumination, and increase the odds of loneliness, she said.

She concluded that “the balance is less about the amount of time than about how you spend it.” Activities such as gardening, walking, and reading may inspire people to see time alone as a way to gain rest and relaxation.

When considering whether loneliness is a risk, it’s also important to take into account a person’s “baseline” amount of time typically spent alone, she said. What one person perceives as too much time alone may be the usual amount for others.