“I know everyone is around, but it feels like nobody is there,” Robert Contofalsky, 24, told The Post.

As a Zoomer myself, I know the feeling. Growing up an introverted only child, at any given moment I could scroll through my Instagram feed or pop on a YouTube video to keep me company.

At the end of the day, I’d think that I connected with the hundreds of faces I encountered on a screen. But in my bones I knew that “social” media was anything but social.

Gen Z grew up in the digital age with the whole world at our fingertips — and yet, with hyper-connectivity came an explosion in loneliness.

Earlier this month, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy officially declared loneliness an epidemic, and Gen Zers are feeling it most. In fact, 8 in 10 of us report feeling isolated — twice the rate of senior citizens.

“This is the first time we’ve seen an emerging generation experiencing that level of loneliness that’s even outpacing our elderly population,” Ryan Jenkins, author of “The Generation Z Guide” and “Connectable,” told The Post.

On paper, Gen Z — those born between 1997 and 2012 — is the most connected generation in history. So why is it that we feel so paradoxically alone? 

Many Gen Zers and experts agree that it’s less about how much we’re connecting and more about how we’re connecting.

“Social media has taken the actual social interaction out of socializing,” Sam Egbe, 19 of London, told The Post. “Instead of going up and saying hello to someone, you just click a button and you add them on Instagram. It’s a lot easier to DM someone than it is to stir up the courage in-person.”

In fact, half of Gen Zers spend more than four hours on social media every day — and experts say that the sense of community it fosters can be deceptive.

“Technology facilitates a form of connection that makes us feel more connected than we actually are,” therapist Jake Ernst told The Post. “Something like a phone or a screen is a bit of a window into someone’s life. It looks a lot like emotional intimacy, but really it’s an artificial intimacy.”

And, as it turns out, racking up followers doesn’t necessarily mean racking up friends.

American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Daniel Cox has been ringing the alarm bells on a so-called “friendship recession” — a trend he says is hitting Gen Z the hardest.

According to Cox’s research, nearly half of Americans have three or fewer close friends. And four times as many say they have no close friends today as did in 1990.

“Young adults, and especially young men, have been most affected by America’s friendship recession,” Cox told The Post. “They spend disproportionately more time with their friends, but report having fewer close friends than older Americans.”

Daniel Lim, a 21-year-old Duke University student who has struggled with loneliness, said this turn away from friend groups could be the result of a devaluation of community in general.

“Our generation has an individualistic desire,” he told The Post. “But there’s really not that much of an emphasis on community. It’s this sort of shallow shell that people are living in.”

As Gen Zers turn from community to screens, some have even resorted to inventing friends out of thin air in the form of para-social relationships — one-way connections dubbed “imaginary friends for adults.”

Videos that provide a window into someone else’s life and an illusion of togetherness rack up millions of views — from gamers who livestream themselves playing Call of Duty to makeup gurus who chit chat and give advice while they doll themselves up in “get ready with me” videos.

For some Gen Zers, influencers who end videos telling viewers “Love you” start feeling more like a friend than a stranger on a screen.

Freya India, a 23-year-old writer, used to watch makeup gurus on YouTube and felt a “big sister” affinity for them as a tween. Now, in retrospect, she gets that it’s all an illusion.

“If you’re more introverted, which I am, it’s very tempting to get your social hit from this sort of stuff,” India, who lives in London, said. “If you spend a lot of time alone but you’re spending that time consuming content and watching influencers, it’s easy to kid yourself that you’re less lonely than you actually might be.”

This sort of digital social dependence was only exacerbated by pandemic lockdown — when what little in-person socialization Gen Z had was largely forced online.

Cox’s research found that younger Americans were most likely to report losing touch with friends during lockdown.

Some Zoomers say the isolation even degraded their social skills. Erik, a 23-year-old in Indianapolis, didn’t realize just how much the pandemic affected him until he finally reunited with friends post-lockdown.

“Less than a year prior, I had essentially zero social anxiety, but my social skills were so rusty that I forgot how to interact normally,” he recalled.

And younger Gen Zers who were locked inside at even younger ages may be hit the hardest, like 17-year-old Brooklyn-based high school senior Abigail Singh. She was just 14 when her life was first turned upside down in spring 2020.

“The pandemic was just very hard to go through,” she told The Post. “I was isolated from everyone and everything. I felt like I wasn’t establishing any social emotional connections.”

She says her even younger friends are the worst off: “Going back to school, I’ve seen that a lot of the freshmen and the sophomores aren’t as communicative with their peers. They’re just like 7th graders stuck in a 9th-grade body. It’s like a year and a half was shaved off.”

Teachers and parents are taking note of Gen Zers struggling to catch up and reconnect post-pandemic, too.

“I see the symptoms of loneliness compound in a spiral with earbuds in, hoods on, masking, and faces in screens,” Matt Sumpter, a California high school teacher and dad of two teen boys, observed.

For a generation that was already turning inward — refusing driver’s licenses, partying less and having less sex — lockdown may have been the final straw that made us collapse in on ourselves and succumb to record-breaking loneliness.

Yet many Zoomers continue to live under the illusion that online connection is a substitute for the real thing. Texting friends and watching influencers might hold us over, but it’s like some sort of social Splenda that leaves a funny aftertaste. 

Gen Z’s raging loneliness epidemic proves we’re only fooling ourselves.

As Freya put it: “These influencers and social media companies are offering a sense of connection and a way to solve the loneliness epidemic — but they’re actually making it worse. It gives you a superficial hit of connection without a genuine human relationship

“I think we need to sit back and realize this is actually kind of dystopian.”