“I was kind of lonely when I was living alone,” admits Fi. “I went to work, I went home, and I played on my computer, and went to bed... Here I am kind of forced to go around and meet people,” she explains.

Solo living

In Sweden, loneliness as a potential social and health problem for young people is increasingly generating discussion. Just as in the UK and the US, this age group has now overtaken the elderly as the most at risk of being lonely. A 2019 survey by community development consultancy WSP found that almost eight out of 10 Swedes aged 18 to 34 said they often or sometimes experienced loneliness, compared to a nationwide average of around six in 10.

Sweden’s largest daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter recently questioned whether loneliness among young people could be labeled “a new epidemic”, while scientists have found that being lonely can be as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes today or being severely overweight.

“It's been a myth for a long time that old people are more lonely than others. But it seems now that young people have a larger risk of being affected by loneliness,” confirms Johanna Nordin, a programme manager for the UK-based mental health charity Mind.

She explains that while loneliness is a global problem and can affect people regardless of their living situation, in Sweden a culture of individualism that encourages people to leave home and live alone at a much younger age can also play a role.

“It's [seen as] a good thing to be independent very early, that you can take care of yourself, that you can do anything like a grown up,” she explains. “But we have lots of young people calling us... And they talk about how life is really hard when they start living alone: No one understands them. There are no people around them that they can talk to.”

Dragana Curovic says that feelings of loneliness can be even more acute for young immigrants. Sweden took in record numbers of asylum seekers at the height of Europe’s refugee crisis in 2015, but the country has frequently been ranked one of the worst places for foreigners to make friends.