Over fall break, I visited a friend at a small college in the Chicago suburbs. What should’ve been a five-minute walk across the condensed campus on a Saturday afternoon quickly became fifteen, as the friend I was with was stopped for what felt like every other 10 seconds by a passerby to say hello. As just another body in the student population of roughly 34,000 undergraduate students at the University of Michigan, this was a foreign phenomenon to me—a drastically different college experience from my own.
Despite paling in comparison to the size of big cities in the United States like New York City and Chicago, I’ve found that University of Michigan in Ann Arbor has a similar sense of obscurity if you find yourself alone around the city or the campus. Rarely do I see my friends on campus unintentionally. There have been times when I’ve spent hours in the Shapiro Library, arguably the most popular undergraduate library on campus, and not seen a single person I know pass through. I’ve developed a strange sense of anonymity, in which I feel as unfamiliar to others just as they are unfamiliar to me. Such a sensation is reflective of the effect that large cities can have on one’s behavior, where people feel free to behave however they want, with the knowledge that they are surrounded by strangers. This can also lead to intense feelings of isolation, when you look around and realize that despite being surrounded by people, you are entirely alone.
In an article published in the Hedgehog Review, Marc J. Dunkelman, a Research Fellow at Brown University’s A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy, addressed this phenomenon, referring to it as “the crisis of urban anonymity.” What used to be a crucial aspect of the urban environment, mutual familiarity, has since diminished, leaving neighbors to be nothing more than “similarly situated strangers”. Dunkelman reports that the social architecture of cities is drastically different from what it used to be, with the majority of people keeping in close contact with friends and family that live elsewhere, and knowing little about their neighbors living in their direct proximity. Thus, residents in larger urban areas develop this sense of “urban anonymity,” even when surrounded by crowds of people.
This sensation easily translates to the environment of a sizable university such as the University of Michigan. I don’t know who lives on either side of me in my dormitory hall. While this might not be the case for most people, the same principle generally applies. We are constantly surrounded by strangers. For an independent introvert, this is one of my favorite parts about attending such a large university. I could spend an entire day without interacting with anyone if I so chose. Something about feeling like just another body in the sea of 53,000 gives me the freedom to go about my day unconcerned with those around me.
Yet, as much as I enjoy this, when I think about the reasons behind why I love the anonymity, I’m reminded of what Dunkelman points out. This is the problem. Such anonymity gives me a false sense of freedom and independence which allows me to operate as if others only exist if I know them, and if I don’t then I should just ignore them. But doesn’t this contradict a large purpose of the college experience, which is to develop a community in the place you’re in? Does such a community have to be limited to the people you hand pick out of the sprawling student body? Or should it be open to everyone you find yourself surrounded by–in your dorm, your apartment, the dining hall, your classes? Despite contradicting my introverted instinct, I would say the latter.
Loneliness in college is a rising epidemic. In order to combat it, we have to combat our natural tendency to keep to ourselves. Talk to the people sitting next to you in classes, across your hall, and in the seat next to you in the dining hall. We don’t all need to be best friends, but a good place to start is a mutual agreement to acknowledge each other’s existence, because ultimately, this is not a city, it’s a college, and it should feel like it.