Canceling plans? Blame social burnout

During the summer, I set my goal for sophomore year: form as many friendships as possible. When I arrived on campus last month, I filled the empty spaces on my Google Calendar with events and challenged myself to have multiple conversations with new friends every day. I started discussions with strangers at the University of Michigan Museum of Art and had impromptu boba runs with friends I ran into on the Diag. 

Although I enjoyed meeting new people during the first few weeks of the semester, I started to treat each social event as a box to check, rather than an opportunity to form new relationships. Once-flowing conversations about summer had run dry, and classes and professional commitments began to populate my calendar instead. The Welcome Week excitement faded, and with it went my enthusiasm to engage with both new people and my preexisting friends. With so much on my plate, I started to question why I had canceled dinner plans to RSVP “yes” to professional events.

In hindsight, I realize my fatigue could be classified as “social burnout.” I hadn’t heard the term before this semester, but I have experienced it multiple times throughout college. My friends also report experiencing this feeling, but not recognizing it as an actual phenomenon experienced by others. 

Social burnout can include feeling tired or losing interest in certain relationships as well as feeling drained after conversations. It often causes irritability and frustration, making it challenging to invest time and energy into cultivating healthy friendships. Therefore, we must acknowledge the prevalence of social burnout and find ways of managing the social stresses that cause it. The first step to remedying this relationship fatigue is to identify why it exists: overcommitment to different activities and unfulfilling conversations with others. 

At a large university like ours, many students try to participate in as many activities as possible to make the most of their college experience and mitigate the fear of missing out. However, the pursuit of the ideal social life has a snowball effect. Social media is a breeding ground for comparison, and we often feel that our social opportunities are insufficient simply because our friends appear to have more or “better” experiences. 

The pursuit of social events under the “more is better” framework can push students into an unsustainable cycle of overcommitment. We often oscillate between feeling overwhelmed by social opportunities and feeling guilty when we cancel on others. When we prioritize quantity of relationships and experiences over quality, the constant bustle of people around us can drain our social battery to the point of burnout.

Beyond overcommitment, other lifestyle factors contribute to this fatigue among college students. When students have to juggle classwork with employment, extracurricular activities and personal wellness, burnout is likely to follow. Additionally, many of us prefer more time alone to deal with mental fatigue, but this approach can actually increase feelings of loneliness and exacerbate our tiredness. 

Given the interconnectedness between various aspects of wellness, the relationship between mental and social health also works in reverse. Friends who practice excessive self-enclosure or do not reciprocate our attention are increasing distance within the relationship. Despite constituting a relationship, these connections often increase our stress and leave us with little satisfaction from conversations. If you are on the back end of a relationship and are putting up with your apathetic so-called “friends,” you might want to consider ending the connection.

Introverts are especially susceptible to social burnout. Extroverts often gain energy from social interactions, whereas introverts can feel tired from the same amount of conversation. In campus-wide events or large group dinners, introverts report feeling overstimulated without adequate time to recharge. 

As an introvert entering the academic year, I was initially excited by the multitude of opportunities to meet people. However as time passed, I began to feel overwhelmed by the number of events on my calendar each day. In the grip of social burnout, I carried that fatigue into each new conversation. I was less motivated to interact with new people and truly enjoy the activities that I participated in. 

As much as these feelings hinder the college experience for many, we cannot eradicate them entirely. The demands of college make packed calendars and superficial interactions inevitable; we cannot eliminate our social stresses. Rather, managing burnout is more realistic and effective than removing it. 

One way to mitigate social stress is to be kind to ourselves and set healthy boundaries. We must communicate with our friends when we want to be alone to practice self-care. As we discover our personal balance between alone time and time with others, learning to clearly convey our intentions and understanding that our boundaries are not impositions on others. 

In addition to being more mindful with our alone time, we can practice the same intentionality when deciding which events to attend. To decide whether to participate in an event, we can adopt the “hell yeah or no” framework: Say “no” to any event that we do not feel “hell yeah” about. Using this strategy, we can determine beforehand which events are truly worthwhile and remind ourselves to not feel guilty about missing certain activities. 

Another strategy to alleviate the impacts of social burnout is to invest in activities that we genuinely enjoy. Attending meetings for interest-based clubs or signing up for intramural sports are prime opportunities to form meaningful relationships with like-minded peers and step away from professional and academic stressors. By prioritizing our hobbies, we can recharge our batteries and approach other aspects of college life with more energy. 

Introverts like myself can set tangible goals when meeting new people, such as walking with a friend after class or talking to a new classmate every week. By creating quantifiable goals, we can avoid falling into the “more is better” trap and take actionable first steps toward mitigating feelings of FOMO. 

Although these strategies of mitigating social burnout can be helpful, we must recognize that some friendships are seasonal. If we feel like a friendship has become one sided or less fulfilling, we have the power to end it. We must accept that such relationships have naturally run their course, only meant to last for semester or athletic season. Ending these relationships allows us to engage in new activities or find friends for the current season.

But making new friends is difficult. We often must persevere through the awkwardness and superficiality of first meetings to reap the benefits of a lasting relationship. While the challenges of forming new connections can contribute to social burnout, they are inevitable in cultivating strong relationships. 

Hence, our goal should be to manage our social stresses and constantly reflect on our level of fatigue. This approach of stress management, instead of needlessly seeking elimination of anxiety, parallels our approach to mitigating burnout in other aspects of college life. Furthermore, instead of concentrating our friendship search during Welcome Week, we should recognize that friendships can form at any point in the year. 

As I reevaluate my goals for this academic year, I recognize the importance of reflecting on my social stressors and remaining open to connections. Instead of trying to fit every opportunity into my calendar, I only fit the ones that I say “hell yes” to, and seek to continue building upon relationships from last year. 

While avoiding overcommitment and practicing intentional time management is easy in principle, yet difficult in reality, keeping social burnout at the forefront of campus-wide dialogue is the first step toward reaching this balance. Only when we all prioritize achieving wellness together can we remake the fabric of connection across the university into one where everyone feels supported. 

Sarah Zhang is an Opinion Analyst who writes about history, gender and campus culture. She can be reached at sarzhang@umich.edu.

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