CONNECTION WITHOUT CLOSENESS: A REFLEXIVE THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL DISRUPTION, LONELINESS, AND EVERYDAY WELLBEING AMONG UNIVERSITY YOUTH IN PUNJAB, PAKISTAN

Abstract

The contemporary generation of Pakistani university youth has grown up under conditions of continuous digital connectivity, yet accounts of their everyday lives are increasingly marked by narratives of loneliness, comparison-driven strain and the thinning of face-to-face relationships. This qualitative study explores how young Pakistanis experience, narrate and negotiate the effects of digital engagement on their physical, mental and social wellbeing, with the paradox of being densely connected yet emotionally alone treated as the central analytic thread. Data were drawn from twelve focus group discussions conducted with a total of eighty-four Bachelor of Studies-level students at public-sector universities in Faisalabad, Lahore and Multan (seven participants per group; four groups per city). Recordings were transcribed verbatim from Urdu and Urdu–English mixed speech and translated into English, and the transcripts were analysed following the six-phase reflexive thematic analysis procedure of Braun and Clarke, supported by NVivo qualitative data-analysis software. Ten interrelated themes were developed, of which Theme 7 (Digital Relationships, Social Isolation and Loneliness) was identified as the cross-cutting theme through which the surrounding themes converged upon wellbeing. Supporting themes documented digital technology as an expanding but conditional educational resource, the reshaping of social support toward thinner and more performative forms, the mental health footprint of comparison and self-presentation, embodied physical strain operating through sleep displacement and reduced movement, and the layered inequality that structures who benefits from digital access. Interpretation through Social Determinants of Health, Digital Divide, and Social Capital and Postmodern Identity theories suggests that digital disruption reshapes wellbeing not directly but through the erosion of bonding relationships and the performative demands of curated identity. The paper contributes a Pakistani case to an international literature dominated by Western samples and specifies the experiential mechanisms through which digital connection can nonetheless produce loneliness