Confronting the Toll of Hookup Culture

One of the most detrimental and perhaps overlooked factors in the mental health crisis facing adolescents and young adults is hookup culture. A recent Tinder ad is a great example. The ad reads “Meet the love of your night.”  Clever? Yes, but so disturbing. The message distorts the hope of finding love and connection into the promise of a fleeting moment of disconnected sex. According to the American Psychological Association, hookups are “brief, uncommitted sexual encounters between people who are not romantic partners or dating each other.” While the concept of “hooking up” isn’t new, easy access to apps has made hookup culture run rampant on college campuses and even in high schools. But how did we get here and how can we turn around a cultural movement that is so destructive to the health of our children?      

In my clinical practice, I see an increasing number of young adults who don’t trust traditional relationships and are pessimistic about a future where they find lasting and true romantic love. This marked increase in skepticism towards long-term commitments, marriage, and parenthood is an alarming departure from historical norms of courtship and romance. Over the past 60 years, a move from more traditional forms of courting has been replaced by more casual sexual encounters. So much so that 70% of sexually active 12-21-year-olds reported having had uncommitted sex within the last year. 

Rather than seeking enduring emotional bonds that result from a supportive and loving partnership, young adults are seeking a “quick fix,” a transient feeling of pleasure and the excitement of feeling “chosen”—even only briefly—by a peer. Gaining the physical attention of someone else has become an exciting game that nobody wins.

The consequences of hookup culture extend beyond fleeting dissatisfaction, manifesting in tangible psychological distress. Surveys among college students reveal widespread reports of negative emotional outcomes post-hookup, including regret and diminished self-esteem. An APA survey of 1468 undergraduate students found that 82.6% reported negative mental and emotional consequences after hookups, including embarrassment, loss of respect, and difficulties with maintaining steady relationships. Another study found that 78% of women and 72% of men who had engaged in uncommitted sex experienced regret afterward. These encounters seem to correlate with heightened symptoms of depression and anxiety, contributing to an already escalating mental health crisis among adolescents.

According to the Journal of Sex Research, engaging in hookups and the number of hookup partners are related to greater symptoms of depression and anxiety.  In an age when the mental health of adolescents is in decline, and 1 in 5 adolescents will not leave childhood without developing a serious mental health disorder, we have to take the impact of hookup culture seriously. In my practice, I am witnessing firsthand the profound effects of hookup culture on the mental well-being of young women and men. Many of them struggle with anxiety and depression that stem from feelings of disconnection or being overwhelmed by the emphasis on freedom over commitment.

In addition to the mental health implications of hookup culture, there is also a physical risk to those who engage in this behavior. I have seen so many adolescents in my practice who believe that STDs are a thing of the past that can’t touch them, even as there has been a rise in STD transmission.  

There is also a link between hookup culture and an increase in unwanted sex.  In one survey, 77.8% of unwanted sex occurred in the context of hookups. Hookup culture pressures people into dangerous and harmful situations that they don’t even want to be involved in because society has perpetuated that it’s “fun” and “sexually liberating.” College rape or encounters of unwanted sex have increased over the past two decades. We can no longer ignore the fact that the societal normalization of hookup culture is likely a contributing factor.

The task before us is not merely to critique or lament the rise of hookup culture but to collectively reevaluate our values and the examples we set for our children. We need to practice what we preach by prioritizing our children when they are young so they can extend their belief in us to their belief in others. 

At the core of these challenges lies a broader issue of attachment and emotional development. I am confident that the increase in attachment disorders I am seeing among the young people in my practice and the amplification of the hookup culture are not coincidental. Adolescents today have more trouble believing in relationships and their longevity because of how they are raised. Having faith in romantic love is a continuation of trusting in the unconditional love and emotional security provided by their parents. When mothers and fathers prioritize their children and are both physically and emotionally present, particularly during the first three years, children develop a deep sense that the environment is safe and that they can depend upon their primary caretakers to be there when they are in distress. This creates attachment security, which is the basis for loving relationships throughout life.  

When mothers and fathers share a deep romantic love, are affectionate with one another in front of their children, and respect and admire one another, this models the beauty of lasting romantic love. This emotional security and modeling of loving relationships builds a foundation of expectation and hope. Unfortunately, I am not seeing that foundation in the young people I treat. Instead, too many children are raised in a world where parents prioritize their careers and material success over time with their children, and they delegate the care of vulnerable and dependent children to others at increasingly younger ages. This separation is harmful and forces children to develop pathological defenses and attachment disorders that interfere with their trust in intimate adult relationships later on. Add to that the high divorce rates, which reinforce to children that committed love is unstable, fleeting, and not to be trusted. 

It is not enough to disavow or reject the hookup culture as parents or to tell them we disapprove. We need to model a more dependable, stable, and emotionally secure world. We need to understand the deep connection between how we raise our children and how that impacts their perception of relationships in the future. We need to take our commitments to one another seriously and reduce the number of divorces when possible. We need to have open discussions with our children about the differences between hooking up and making love and what healthy relationships look like. We also need to actively encourage and support the institution of marriage and the formation of strong, nurturing families. By demonstrating the beauty and stability of committed partnerships, we provide our children with the solid foundation they need to build their future relationships. As Brad Wilcox writes in his new book, marriage and family should be celebrated as cornerstones of society that foster love, support, and resilience across generations.

If we want to stem the tide of the hookup culture and replace it with a culture of lasting and committed love, the adults in the room need to do better. The hookup culture is contributing to the mental health crisis, and the imperative to cultivate a culture that venerates enduring love over fleeting interactions has never been more pressing. The task before us is not merely to critique or lament the rise of hookup culture but to collectively reevaluate our values and the examples we set for our children. We need to practice what we preach by prioritizing our children when they are young so they can extend their belief in us to their belief in others. We need to model what a healthy connection looks like and how romantic love can be beautiful, meaningful, and permanent within the context of a healthy marriage. By actively forging a path toward a future where relationships are anchored in trust, respect, safety, and longevity, we can shift this cultural tide and encourage relational health and well-being for generations to come.

Erica Komisar, LCSW is a psychoanalyst and author of Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters and Chicken Little the Sky Isn’t Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety.