Unwanted loneliness

According to the report published by the Universidad de Comillas titled "La soledad del siglo XXI" (Loneliness of the 21st Century), over 21% of the Spanish population experience social isolation. What's more, this feeling is twice as prominent in young people as it is in other age brackets.

People seem to believe more and more that society is changing and has become cold, aloof and distant to others, especially when it comes to young people. Would you agree?

To find out if this is true, we conducted a study with 2500 young people between the ages of 18 and 36 to analyse how they feel about loneliness and their own situation, and the results were very interesting.

Two young people sitting casually on the floor, playing video games, with a controller in their hand

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70% of young people suffer or have suffered from unwanted loneliness at some point in their lives.

This feeling of loneliness makes young people more dependent on social media and the Internet.

Sadness, insecurity and frustration are the emotions most felt as a result of loneliness

Breaking the results down by gender, 19% of young women said they had felt lonely, compared to 15% of young men.

Home and the workplace are the two places where young people felt most alone

Those who feel lonely more often consider it necessary to redesign cultural spaces, parks and gardens, educational institutions, sports centres and spaces in their home or bedroom.

Tackling unwanted loneliness

That is why, as part of our passion for Life at Home and our vision to create a better everyday life for the many people, IKEA is returning once again to Madrid Design Festival with the IKEA Inspiring Talents initiative to create a space to reflect on a current issue: loneliness and young people. How can we improve this reality from a design perspective? Could we design spaces to alleviate this feeling in environments such as the home, communities, neighbourhoods and educational institutions?

It's time to get to work

We always say that our home and where we work or study must reflect our personality, interests and who we really are, as they are places where we build such lasting and important relationships. That's why we're launching IKEA Inspiring Talent again – a co-creation space that is open to everyone to directly find a solution to this situation through decoration and design in our homes.

Showroom with windows looking out to the outside, a grey JÄTTEBO sofa and white, black, and green patterned GURLI cushions

Showroom with a grey JÄTTEBO sofa and white and black GURLI cushions

General view of an enclosed room with windows looking out to the outside where there is an interactive board with communications related to the event

Group of six people sat at a conference table with their laptops and office supplies

General view of an enclosed room with windows, where there is an interactive board with communications related to the event, in yellow, green, black and white tones

A marvellous result

After all the co-creation work, there were infinite ideas to work with. This is an example of the magnificent results of this study. A space designed specifically to tackle loneliness and promote togetherness among young people from Gen Z.

View of the IKEA store exhibition space with furniture

Interior view of the IKEA store exhibition space with kitchen furniture