You Can't Find Yourself in a Room Where No One Talks

In CNBC Make It, Gili Malinsky reports on something many parents of college students have heard about but few have seen up close. In College campuses have (largely) gone silent. Can practicing small talk and phone-free spaces change that?, students describe dorm floors where no doors are open, dining halls full of people eating alone with earbuds in, and clubs where someone can sit for an hour without a single conversation.

The data behind those stories is striking. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey, Americans ages 20 to 24 spent about 31 minutes a day socializing and communicating in their leisure time in 2025, roughly half what they did two decades ago, by CNBC's count. The same table shows they spent more than twice as long on games and computer use. One professor in the piece describes how students now see college: you go to class, and then you leave. The article ends on a hopeful note, with students starting clubs to pair strangers and an NYU effort that has more than 1,000 students taking a challenge to break up with their phones.

The piece treats this mainly as a loneliness problem and a social skills problem. Both are real. I think something deeper is at stake.

Identity Is Formed in Front of Other People

College has long been the place where young people try on who they are. They test opinions in late conversations, discover what they are good at in group projects, and learn what they care about by arguing with people who see the world differently. Much of that discovery happens in unplanned moments: the hallway, the dining hall, the friend of a friend at a party.

When those moments disappear, the classes still happen and the credits still accumulate. What goes missing is the feedback that helps a young person see themselves. You learn that you are funny when people laugh. You learn that you are the one who settles disagreements when friends keep coming to you to do it. Without other people in the room, identity has nowhere to show up and no one to reflect it back.

I made a related point about adults when The Atlantic documented the decline of the dinner party, in We Stopped Hosting Each Other. We Lost More Than Dinner Parties. We are most fully ourselves when someone else is there to see us. That is just as true at 19.

Fear of Being Seen Is an Edit

One detail in the article deserves more attention than it gets. Students describe anonymous apps and campus social media pages that make fun of individual students. One student remembers being afraid to sit alone at a football game in case someone photographed her and posted it.

That fear is the edit at work. Young people learn early which versions of themselves are safe to show and which might be mocked. So they show less. They keep their headphones in, skip the club and stay in their rooms. Staying quiet feels safer than risking being seen as awkward or alone.

Small talk practice can help, and I applaud the students building new ways to connect. But conversation skills only go so far for someone who doesn't feel free to be themselves in the conversation. The deeper work is helping young people believe that who they are is worth showing, including the awkward parts. Students often assume everyone else is thriving while they struggle alone, a pattern I explored in Students Think They're Struggling Alone. The Script Says They Should Be Thriving.

Building Rooms Where Students Show Up

Colleges have real tools here. Consistent rhythms, like orientation groups that keep meeting, shared meals and residence traditions, give students a reliable structure for connection, and that structure matters. The opportunity is to design those rhythms so students are asked to bring something of themselves, not just attend.

A few ideas for this semester:

For parents: when your student calls, ask who they talked to this week, not just how classes are going. Then ask what that person noticed about them.

For students: pick one place where you show up the same time every week. Familiar faces make it easier to take the risk of being known.

For colleges: look at your first-year programs and ask where a student is invited to share what they care about. If the answer is nowhere, a phone-free room won't be enough on its own.

The student at the center of the story plans to bring back house parties. She has the right instinct. Young people don't need fewer screens so much as more places where someone is glad they showed up.

Young people discover who they are in the company of others, so the rooms we build for them should make it safe to be seen.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.