Do you ever feel like you’re just in the background of everyone else’s lives? Do you ever feel like you don’t necessarily have a purpose in a group of people or have that person that you click with? You’re not alone, in a 2018 (most recently found) study labeled the “Health insurer Cigna’s 2018 U.S. Loneliness Index,” 47% of people feel left out either sometimes or always. Why do people feel this way? Is this happening at Sylvan Hills?

We surveyed students at Sylvan Hills to get an answer of how it is affecting our students. We got a total of 44 responses from students in all three grades (Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors combined). 54.5% of students surveyed to have felt unseen in the school setting. An even larger 65.9% of students said they have felt like a third wheel in a group setting. Finally, 27.3% of students have felt like they have no purpose or belonging here at school.

That’s a majority of students who have felt unseen, or like a third wheel in our school, and over a fourth of students feel as if they have no belonging or purpose here. The problem is acknowledged and is present, but the question is why. Why do students feel this way in the relatively large school we have? We gave students the opportunity to respond and keep it 100% anonymous on why they think they are caused to feel this way.

Many students said they feel unseen and without purpose because people only use them when they need them, whether it be for help with struggles or school work, and that’s the only thing they feel like people go to them for. Some students talked about feeling like no matter the group, they are just pushed away or ignored by whoever is around them. Others feel like it is because of who they are and what they do. One example was when a student compared how one activity group of students are viewed compared to another possibly more popular activity group, saying that they are not as recognized as the more popular activity group.

We asked History Teacher Jorden Berberian who also is in training to be a school counselor, what she thinks could be done to help fix this problem in our school.  She gave us three main points on how we can work towards being a better community of a school. Her first piece of advice was to ignore the feeling of embarrassment. “Teens are psychologically hardwired to be very self-critical so I promise no one is scrutinizing you as much as you are scrutinizing yourself.” Berberian said. The second point she made was we need to ignore the status quo and not just go with whoever you feel like you have to and instead go be around the people who you share interests with. Berberian shared her own regrets from when she was in high school. “I wish I would have hung out with the people I shared the most interests with/had the most fun instead of just hanging out with the people I thought I had to hang with,” Berberian shared with us. Finally, the last point Berberian gave was that phones lead to less connection between people. Saying that when you have your phone out people will find you less approachable, and that being on your phones can fade you into that background feeling. To give a full summarization and ending, Berberian said that “If your friends constantly make you feel bad or left out, it’s time to find new friends”.e