1/4

Amid the real concern about impact of shifting education online for students, it is vital that we don& #39;t lose sight of the wider, longer term problems with the & #39;student experience.& #39;

Loneliness among university students is not a COVID specific problem.

We& #39;ve been interviewing students to learn more about their experience of online education through the pandemic.

One student captures this poignantly:

"I don& #39;t really have like a friend group within my department that I socialize with regularly."

2/4

Shifting online has created new challenges for supporting the social aspects of studying at university.

However, students have been struggling with loneliness for years.

This is possibly not a student specific problem - levels of loneliness are high among young adults.

3/4

I don& #39;t believe that simply getting students back on campus will be a silver bullet to fix loneliness.

We need to look at this shift online as an opportunity to think about new ways we can better support social connection between our students.

4/4