Last weekend, my floormates and I spent the night in at the Werth lounge, half of us doing homework and the other half watching “Borat.” On other nights we might have a birthday party, a Wii Party tournament or even filming a video podcast about our favorite Mexican food. Whatever it may be, though, there’s an undeniable sense of togetherness. Such is the simple beauty of the Werth lounge.
In college, despite being surrounded by people, it’s easy to feel isolated. Maybe you don’t connect with your roommate, you don’t make friends in your classes or you feel too shy to talk to the people on your floor. This phenomenon of isolation has only worsened with the pervasion of technology. Idle moments where friendships used to form naturally — like the few minutes before class starts or in the dining hall — are increasingly squandered as people spend this time scrolling through social media, listening to music through their headphones or any other number of activities that render them preoccupied and unapproachable. And when you get back to the dorm, it’s easier than ever to just rot in your room instead of venturing outside, since the Internet has no shortage of activities to bury yourself in. To some, it can feel impossible to connect with — or even find — the people around you.
This isn’t just a personal observation. In 2023, former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared a loneliness epidemic, detailing that “approximately half of U.S. adults report [experience] loneliness, with some of the highest rates among young adults.” And while technology can be a tool for connection, it can also detach us. Murthy’s report highlighted that technology “displaces in-person engagement, monopolizes our attention, reduces the quality of our interactions and even diminishes our self-esteem.” This leaves communities fragmented, with “only 16% of Americans [reporting] that they felt very attached to their local community” in 2018.
Yet all hope is not lost. Colleges by nature have limitless potential for building community. All it really takes is little foundational moments that can set friendships and connection into motion. For example, in the first week of the year, I was eating alone at the dining hall when a girl I hadn’t met before introduced herself and asked if she could sit with me. It was a lovely encounter, and all the more precious because it’s exactly the kind of thing that is so rare nowadays.
We can foster these instrumental interactions with a little intentional design, and that’s where the lounge comes in. I’m not exaggerating when I say that living in Werth has entirely shaped my college experience, specifically because of this important space on my floor. I met my first and closest friends there, and I shudder to think of how everything might have been very different without it. The best part of college is undoubtedly the people that you meet, bond with, open up to and learn from, and the Werth lounge happens to be designed to enable exactly that connection.
First, it is dedicated to our floor specifically, establishing a microcosm that forges a sense of connection between floormates. Plus, being the one and only space of its kind on the floor ensures that it’s where any and all the action will be. This ties closely with the proximity principle in social psychology, where relationships are more likely to form when people are closer together.
Furthermore, its central location on the floor and the large glass walls make the room open and welcoming, inviting passers-by to wave as they walk by or come in and join in the fun. The furniture isn’t anything fancy, but it’s comfortable. The TV kind of works, and that’s enough. This allows for a series of spontaneous interactions, while providing a lighthearted and pleasant environment where you can freely let your guard down — the other two conditions that sociologists say are crucial for making friends.
Unfortunately, many dorms don’t have lounges or have only one for the entire building. Other dorms used to have lounges but have seen them transformed into quads to create more beds for our growing enrollment. And some dorms, like Connecticut Hall, have many open spaces — so much so that they fail to really bring people together. So, if the University of Connecticut ever wondered how to ensure students feel connected on campus, designing spaces with the intention of drawing people together would be a great place to start.
All in all, the lounge is nothing special — just a room that helps us find one another — and yet that’s all it needs to be extraordinarily special. Even though the lounge won’t singlehandedly solve the universal problem of loneliness, it’s Werth a whole lot.