How Crafting, Creating, and Coming Together Can Heal the Loneliness Epidemic

Surrounded by screens, connected to everyone, but somehow still feeling apart ,it’s one of the quiet contradictions of our time. You’re not alone in that feeling, even if it sometimes feels that way.

Recent European studies show loneliness isn’t just a “sad occasional thing” for many people (especially younger people), it’s creeping in more often than we might expect. But the good news? Real-life connection making together, learning together can push it back.

What the Research Says (Without Making You Depressed)

• A 2024 Bertelsmann Stiftung study found that around 57% of young Europeans aged 18–35 feel moderately or strongly lonely. ANSA.it+1

• In Ireland, about 20% of people report feeling lonely most or all of the time, which is higher than the EU average of about 13%. The Irish Times+1

• The OECD reports that those aged 16–24 in Ireland are more likely to say they felt “lonely most or all of the time” than people over 65. The Irish Times

• From The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA): older adults who do creative activities tend to report less loneliness, less depression and stress, and better quality of life. gov.ie

Why In-Person Workshops Are (Quietly) Life-Changing

Here’s the thing: creativity isn’t just about what you make, it’s about what happens while you’re making it. When you sit across a table from someone, paintbrushes in jars and mugs of tea within reach, something shifts. You start talking without even meaning to. You laugh when someone’s glue goes rogue or a clay pot collapses in slow motion. And before you know it, that awkward first-day silence turns into easy conversation.

There’s a kind of magic that only happens when people meet in real life. Screens can connect us, sure, but they can’t replace the quiet comfort of being in a room full of humans doing something creative together. Workshops give us a reason to show up even when we don’t quite feel like it and they make it easier to belong. You don’t have to start with small talk; you start with scissors, or thread, or clay. The chat follows naturally.

And then there’s the feeling afterwards that small, satisfying spark of having made something and met someone new. It’s not a cure-all for loneliness, but it’s a beginning. Those tiny moments of connection add up: a familiar face at the next class, a shared joke, a “see you next week.” That’s community building itself, quietly and beautifully, one workshop at a time.

That’s why I believe so deeply in what Makerland can be not just a place to find workshops, but a way to find each other again.