The Bullying-Loneliness Loop: A Hidden Crisis
As humans, we are hardwired for connection with others. The bullying-loneliness loop exploits that hardwiring. But that same hardwiring is also our way out.
When I wrote about The Loneliness of the Bullied - and Bully, I explored how both victims and perpetrators of bullying end up lonely. What I didn’t fully grasp then was the cyclical nature of this relationship. New research reveals something more insidious: bullying and loneliness don’t just occur together. They feed each other in a self-perpetuating loop that can span generations.
Lonely children become targets for bullies. Being bullied intensifies their loneliness. That deepened isolation makes them more vulnerable to further bullying. Meanwhile, some lonely kids become bullies themselves, seeking connection through domination, only to find themselves more isolated than before. Round and round it goes.
The Research: A Mutually Reinforcing Cycle
A range of research supports the idea of the connection between being bullied and loneliness:
“The findings reveal complex, bidirectional relationships between victimization and loneliness, with stronger associations in adolescent samples compared to younger children or adults. While traditional bullying consistently demonstrated significant associations with loneliness, the cyberbullying-loneliness relationship showed greater variability. Some factors such as bystander behaviour or school connectedness, moderated this relationship, being this protective effect stronger for girls.”
A 2024 study from China tracking adolescents over time confirmed what researchers long suspected: loneliness significantly predicts bullying behaviour, and bullying significantly predicts loneliness.
“Loneliness under childhood emotional abuse and school bullying are correlated and that childhood emotional abuse significantly predicts loneliness and school bullying in adolescence.”
It’s bidirectional, creating what the researchers call “a mutually reinforcing cycle.”
Danish research from 2024 involving over 5,000 adolescents found:
“There was a strong and graded association between loneliness and bullying victimization at school and cyberbullying. The associations were significant for boys and girls, and the association between exposure to bullying at school and loneliness was steeper for boys than girls. The gradients were steeper for physical bullying than for cyberbullying.”
“Exposure to bullying at school and cyberbullying are strongly associated with loneliness“ the researchers concluded.
It’s not exactly unexpected that certain marginalised groups suffered the most. Among students experiencing bias-based bullying, LGBTQ+ youth showed emotional distress rates of 90%, while transgender and gender-diverse youth experienced rates of 54%. Without such bullying, these rates dropped by an average of nearly 40%.
The Biological Reality: When Loneliness Changes the Brain
These are not just psychological issues; they are biological. Animal models of social isolation reveal alterations in neurobiological systems that regulate social behaviour, motivation, and stress reactivity, particularly affecting oxytocin, dopamine, opioids, and stress-related hormones. Lonely individuals show decreased brain activity in regions important for emotional processes, such as the amygdala and nucleus accumbens, during interpersonal trust games.
“Loneliness associated increases in inflammation and neural changes consistent with increased sensitivity to social threat and disrupted emotion regulation suggest interventions targeting maladaptive social cognitions may be especially effective. Work in animal models suggests the neural changes associated with social isolation may be reversible.”
Bottom line: bullying damages brain cells.
Social neuroscientist Brené Brown puts it accessibly:
“...connection is why we’re here. It’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. This is what it’s all about. It doesn’t matter whether you talk to people who work in social justice and mental health and abuse and neglect. What we know is that connection, the ability to feel connected is neurobiologically, that’s how we’re wired. It’s why we’re here. “
It’s pretty obvious that the rise of social media has supercharged bullying with an endless list of new ways for bullies to exert influence. The World Health Organisation has found:
“Cyberbullying others. About 12% (1 in 8) of adolescents report cyberbullying others. Boys (14%) are more likely to report cyberbullying than girls (9%). Notably, this reflects an increase from 2018, with boys up from 11% and girls from 7%.
Being cyberbullied. 15% of adolescents (around 1 in 6) have experienced cyberbullying, with the rates closely aligned between boys (15%) and girls (16%). This represents an increase from 2018, from 12% to 15% for boys and 13% to 16% for girls.”
Breaking the Loop: Connection as the Antidote
If the bullying-loneliness loop is self-perpetuating, what breaks it?
The answer emerging from recent research is deceptively simple: connection.
A 2025 study from China examined 1,277 students and found that social connectedness played a mediating role between bullying and adolescent loneliness. More than half the impact of bullying on loneliness could be attributed to damaged social connectedness.
“The study findings confirmed the relationship between school bullying and loneliness and revealed the internal logical relationship among social connectedness, parental support, loneliness, and school bullying.”
As the study noted, parental support matters too. Adequate parental support helps mitigate the effects of bullying, while a lack of parental contact, understanding, and communication increases the likelihood of loneliness. For children already vulnerable, such as those separated from parents, this support becomes especially critical in preventing bullying and reducing its negative consequences.
The challenge is that if connection can break the bullying loneliness cycle, bullying often prevents connection. A bullied person is likely to question their self-worth and lose confidence, and not feel worthy of friendship.
The Intergenerational Shadow: How Bullying Echoes Through Generations
I mentioned in my previous article that lonely parents tend to raise lonely children. New research has clarified this.
Lonely parents may create family environments that aren’t as conversational, supportive, or effective as those created by non-lonely parents. They struggle to teach their children the social skills needed to navigate peer relationships. Their children, in turn, become more vulnerable to bullying and more likely to experience loneliness.
A 2024 study examining three generations of men found that juvenile bullying experiences predict social media addiction in adulthood, mediated by self-esteem and loneliness. The digital world becomes both refuge and prison for those who were bullied as children, offering connection whilst simultaneously reinforcing isolation.
“The findings demonstrate that across all three generations, there was a positive correlation between experiencing bullying in one’s youth and social media addiction in adulthood. “
We must understand that the bullying-loneliness loop encompasses biological, psychological, and social drivers, so clearly, there is no single answer.
Schools must have and enforce anti-bullying policies and actively foster ‘belonging’ and connection. For individuals, we must allow ourselves to be imperfect and vulnerable when it seems impossible. For us parents, we must find ways to support our children, even as we battle our own loneliness and intergenerational impediments.
We should take comfort in the knowledge that the bullying-loneliness loop has identifiable mechanisms. If we can map it, we can interrupt it. If it’s bidirectional, we can intervene at multiple points. If it changes the brain, perhaps the brain can change back.
Many of us may still be carrying the wounds of childhood bullying - or indeed, have experienced it in adulthood.
Brené Brown reminds us that:
“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”
For those of us who’ve been caught in this loop, either as children or as adults still carrying those wounds, truth-telling about our experiences is an act of resistance against the isolation that bullying creates.
The loop is real. The damage is measurable. But so too is the power of connection, support, and community to break it. I wrote about the power of building authentic connections a few months ago:
“Connection is why we are here; it is the purpose and meaning underpinning our lives. As we invest in genuine connections, we are building wellbeing not just for ourselves, but for those around us. For those of us who have experienced long-term loneliness, this is beyond precious. By creating authentic connections, we are building a community around us.”
As humans, we are hardwired for connection with others. The bullying-loneliness loop exploits that hardwiring. But that same hardwiring is also our way out. We’re built for connection. Sometimes we just need someone to remind us, and to sit with us in the dark until we can find our way back to the light.