I guess it’s because many young adults move far away from home to get jobs in cities.
In the past young adults probably would have stayed living near their family, so they could see them easily.
The cost of living is too high to travel in this neo feudal world of the criminally rich. Back 30+ years ago, the cost of fuel and travel was much lower relative to wages. The poor have gotten much poorer so that a few thousand monsters can have a meaningless competition.
Especially with how cities in the UK are effectively banning driving for anyone but the rich.
cool story, where do you live right now?
This probably reflects increasing immigration - there will be plenty of people who don’t celebrate christmas so it’s just a bank holiday, or who are alone in the UK without family with them.
For example in 1981, 96% of the population was white british. In 2011 that was down to 87% and in 2021 it’s down to 83%.
It’s not surprising that 10% of young people might spend Christmas alone if nearly 20% of the population is not white (which is largely Christian or secular with some Christian traditions). While some of the non white population may be Christian, it’s not surprising that christmas may not be an important day to Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs.
Also European white migrants who might be christian may celebrate christmas on a different day.
So there is a danger of over interpreting statistics like these. Saying more young people are spending Christmas alone over 50 years is kind of meaningless as it’s a totally different group of young people today than 50 years ago.
Why bother with the hassle? If it’s close and fun then fine, but if it’s far and expensive and the people aren’t fun, why go that far out of your way not to have a good time?
Alone with a mobile and 4 separate communications apps with dozens of chats
