Protests at colleges and universities over the war in the Middle East are dominating the news cycle. The sheer ferocity of the protests is alarming to spectators on and off campuses, and it raises the question of whether the student mental health crisis and growth in loneliness have sparked the fervor with which students have latched on to this cause.

Although many on both sides have deep personal or political ties to the conflict, the majority of college students do not. Groupthink feels like an easy solution to the struggle for connection to other people and to a greater cause, but it just as easily can turn into a destructive force raining chaos on campuses.

In 2022, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released a report and conducted a national campus tour called “We Are Made to Connect” about the loneliness epidemic. The report, updated in 2023, detailed the negative physical effects of loneliness: increased risks of heart disease, premature death, strokes, and dementia. The psychological effects include significantly higher risks of depression and anxiety.

The answer? Social connection. Murthy likely did not envision student protests as the ideal form of social connection, but uniting on political fronts is an age-tested method for bringing people together and, dangerously, pushing other people out.

Loneliness affects more of the U.S. population than just college students, but young adults’ rates of loneliness increase each year. They are twice as likely to be lonely as seniors. The seriousness of this problem is evident, especially given the fact that symptoms of poor mental health have nearly doubled in college student populations over the last 10 years, to the point that over 60% of students had at least one mental health problem during 2020-2021.

Mental health struggles are tied closely to lower academic success and dropping out of college. Students are not only fighting their own minds to survive but doing so without the social connection needed to support their struggles.

For much of American history, religion connected people to one another and to a purpose, as observed by Harvard professor Arthur Brooks, who studies happiness. Brooks notes that religious practice brings “social capital and moral guidance” as well as “a sense of meaning and a sense of placement in society.” Yet, fewer people are engaging in religious practices and more are turning to other sources for connection and meaning. Or are they?

In 2022, Helen Lewis wrote an article for the Atlantic on social justice as a new religion. She observes, “In the U.S., the nonreligious are younger and more liberal than the population as a whole. Perhaps, then, it isn’t a coincidence that they are also the group most likely to be involved in high-profile social-justice blowups, particularly the type found on college campuses.” Protests are about more than political statements.

Joining a greater cause is a way to establish social connection, but passion can also overwhelm good judgment. Loneliness does not give license to break windows, injure security guards, and yell antisemitic slurs, nor does the intensity of a protest signal more effective change.

Yet, we must face the reality that there are too few avenues for genuine connection, which has rendered activism even more attractive. Uniting against a common enemy may feel like a genuine connection, but in the end, it is just another dehumanizing form of polarization that inhibits the real connections needed for a pluralistic society to function.

Too often, protest only provides the illusion of making a difference. And students, hungry to participate in something bigger than themselves, too readily follow the loudest voice on campus. The Israel-Hamas war offers a highly visible way to identify with a larger social group and take a strong moral stance.

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For students who are desperate for connection, struggling with anxiety, depression, and stress, and constantly inundated with global news through technology, protests might feel like the answer. However, we must ask: Are protests being engaged with as an effective method of influencing policy? Students supporting the protests were unable to answer basic questions about the Middle East in a survey from December 2023 sponsored by a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Or, are protests, regardless of the side the protesters are on, a connection to a bigger community with a greater purpose? The two are not mutually exclusive, but if the desire for meaning is the root of the frenzy behind the protests, college administrators would be wise to consider solutions that address the heart of the problem, rather than just the symptoms.

Rebecca Richards is the associate director of the Fund for Academic Renewal, the philanthropic advisory service of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.