Touch-Starved and Stranded: an Underground Epidemic

Graphics by Kylie Adedeji

Preparing to go off to college, most people are worried about the same things: Will the classes be too hard? Will I be able to make friends? Is the dining hall food going to be disgusting? (spoiler: it is). But once you get here, there is another problem that haunts almost everyone: touch deprivation. Unless you count being sandwiched between sweaty strangers at a frat or shaking your professor’s hand during office hours, a meaningful touch can be hard to find. 

Many students on campus are going from getting regular hugs from family, cuddles from pets, being intimate with their partners, and even relaxing with their friends to a campus where they know almost nobody. 

One Syracuse University senior understands what four years of being stranded on a college campus can feel like. “Once I went to the doctor and they did their thing with the stethoscope and I was like ‘wait, this is the most physical I’ve been since the last time I got my nails done’”. 

As anyone who has gotten their nails done knows, having your cuticles roughed up and natural nails ground away is definitely not a meaningful physical experience. However, neither is what many college students end up turning to as a solution: random hookups. 

As an ESF junior eloquently put it: “You think that you feel lonely so you go hook up with this person, because it means nothing and they like you. But it doesn’t go beyond that, and it ends up exacerbating the feeling that you already had,”. 

While getting hot and sweaty with someone who thinks you’re hot can be a short-term solution, it can actually make your mental health worse over time. Studies show that having a one-time hookup can lead to increases in anxiety, depression, and poor self-esteem, especially when alcohol is involved (and at SU, it usually is).

That's not to say that casual sex doesn’t have its benefits, and I am in no way shaming people who choose to participate in that. It is simply important to evaluate the reasons behind your link and be clear about what it means to you. 

Another Syracuse senior chooses not to participate in hookup culture because of how she views the connotations behind physical touch. “To me, even a hug or something, it's meaningful, so I can’t do that with someone where it wouldn’t also be meaningful to them,” she said. 

However, those who take that route can end up going months between ‘meaningful’ physical contact, and remaining lonely because of it.

If there is one thing that we can all agree on, it's that college is tough. As with many of our first experiences with independence, it can be hard to navigate how to balance time with ourselves and others without feeling lonely or overwhelmed. 

So, you ask, if hooking up can make me feel worse and I haven’t made that many genuine connections yet, how do I deal with touch starvation on campus? Well, we here at Jerk put together a list of a few ways to healthily cope with our loneliness:

1. Weighted blankets/stuffed animals 

• Invest, Invest, Invest! While no substitute for an actual person, these are proven to simulate the feeling of human touch, tricking your brain into relaxing and feeling more at ease.

2. Go to Barnes or a workout class.

• Doing something physical, especially surrounded by people (strangers or not) can help with feelings of isolation or loneliness.

3. Go visit the therapy dogs!

• On campus, we have a great resource available to us that comes with fluffy bodies and wagging tails. The Barnes therapy dogs are always happy to cuddle and lift your mood.

4. Hang out with friends or call your family.

• Though maybe lacking a physical aspect, just seeing the people that you are close with can help boost oxytocin levels and help ease some of the symptoms of touch starvation.

So yeah, college can be a touch-deprived wasteland. It’s a silent killer, it makes us feel lonely and do stupid things (or stupid people), and it can be a significant change from how we lead our lives back home. But there’s always a fix—whether it’s a hug from a friend, a workout session, or a teddy bear that’s seen better days. So don’t be shy—go hug someone already. Or your blanket. Whatever works.