A hush fell over a dimmed Hampton University ballroom as dozens of students waved their cellphone flashlights to show they sent a text to someone who inspired them.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy asked them to send those messages Wednesday at the end of his last stop on his “We Are Made to Connect” mental health tour across nine campuses nationwide. “All American” actor Abraham D. Juste, known as Da’Vinchi, joined him in Hampton for an hourlong conversation about feeling alone even when in a group, the stigma of therapy and the value of deleting social media.
“We’ve just seen so clearly how deeply affected young people are by loneliness,” Murthy said after the talk. “I have never seen the kind of demand and engagement at events as we’ve seen during these college campus visits.”
Along with the extent of loneliness among college students, other patterns that emerged include the effect of technology, especially social media, and the lingering social effects of the coronavirus pandemic, Murthy said.
In May, Murthy named loneliness as a public health crisis in a surgeon general advisory. The accompanying “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation” report explores the physical health impacts of poor social connection, including increases in the risk of heart disease by 29%, stroke by 32% and dementia in older adults by 50%.
“It has really powerful health implications but most people don’t actually know that,” Murthy said. “They think they just have to deal with it.”
Murthy and Da’Vinchi, both raised by parents who immigrated to the U.S., each spoke about the stigma around pursuing mental health care during their talk, which kept students nodding, murmuring and laughing in recognition.
Da’Vinchi, 26, who described his childhood in Brooklyn as one where witnessing violence was the norm, said he never considered counseling until he moved to Florida in his late teens and connected with a teacher in his senior year.
“You don’t know if it’s OK if you’re feeling something to express it and that’s a problem because what happens when you hold all that stuff in, if you get triggered, you might explode and that explosion, when you’re over 18, is jail time,” Da’Vinchi said.
Murthy nodded as he listened.
“Mental health, counseling — that’s not something we talked about,” he said. “You went to the doctor if you were bleeding but not if you were struggling inside.”
Da’Vinchi swore off social media for three years from 2019 to 2021. While he now uses it to connect with fans, he said he sets firm limits.
“We’re almost the same age. I’m not far from you at all. I know I sound like I’m 50,” he said to laughs from the audience. “But these are things that I’ve done that really made me get out of my environment.”
The fall tour was conducted in partnership with the “Acknowledge, Support, and Keep-In-Touch” or “A.S.K.” campaign by MTV and Active Minds, a leading youth mental health nonprofit founded in 2003 by a college junior whose older brother had died by suicide in 2000.
Research from Active Minds shows that 67% of young people tell a friend they’re struggling before they tell anyone else. But there’s little guidance for those young people on how to respond.
“We didn’t have a ‘stop, drop and roll’ for mental health,” said Erika Soto Lamb, vice president of social impact at MTV who attended the talk.
The “A.S.K.” campaign hopes to provide that framework, she said.
“Mental health is health,” Laura Horne, chief program officer for Active Minds, said in a phone interview before the event. “At the heart of what Active Minds is trying to do is to equip young adults with the education, skills and opportunities they need to promote mental health in their environment and to encourage their peers to be open about mental health needs and to advocate for themselves.”
Hampton University doesn’t have an Active Minds chapter but does have a robust network of peer educators who worked with the tour, Horne said. There are 23 chapters in Virginia, including at Old Dominion University and Norfolk State University.
Next week, Murthy will issue the rest of the country the same “5-for-5 Connection Challenge” he’s shared at colleges and universities, he said.
“The holidays are a time where people are getting together with family; they’re reflecting on their lives,” Murthy said.
“We want people to be thinking about the power of connection, about the importance of investing in our relationships with one another, so that people can know that if they’re struggling with loneliness as many people do throughout the year and including during the holidays, they’re not the only ones,” he said. “This is a common struggle but it’s one that we can do something about.”
Katrina Dix, 757-222-5155, [email protected]