"I'm often at home all day by myself and it does get lonely," the 23-year-old university graduate from Castle Hill said.

"There's no one to talk to. Sometimes I think it would be good to walk out the door and have a chat with someone but that just doesn't happen."

Like most young people who have grown up in the digital age, he stays in touch with his circle of close friends via SMS or the Facebook Messenger app.

"The majority of the time I would send a text," he said. "The only person I call regularly is my girlfriend. I do call her every night and have an actual conversation."

Mr Nelson-Shine is typical of his generation according to new research which shows young people are increasingly reliant on digital communication to keep in touch with friends but feeling greater rates of social isolation.

A national survey of 1200 people by Galaxy Research found 16 per cent of millennials felt lonely every day, compared with 7 per cent of generation X and 8 per cent of baby boomers.

Millennials were much less likely to pick up the phone for a chat than older generations, according to the data, but 42 per cent of younger respondents said they did make face-to-face gatherings a priority.

James Wright, chief executive of the Red Agency Group Australia which commissioned the research, said the millennials' hyper-connected lifestyles may lead to higher levels of loneliness.

"We traditionally associate loneliness and social isolation with older age groups," he said.

"While it's true that older people may have smaller social circles than young people, the older people would appear to have more meaningful friendships. Younger people are more connected on social media and yet they feel disconnected from society. That sense of disconnection seems to be fuelling these high levels of loneliness."

Michelle Lim, a clinical psychologist at Swinburne University's Social Connectedness Laboratory said feelings of loneliness are related more to quality of relationships, rather than quantity.

"Loneliness does not discriminate across the life span," she said.

"Younger people and older people are two groups which are quite vulnerable. With younger people, loneliness is more to do with their ability to make meaningful connections. They have a lot of friends. They can have 1000 friends on Facebook and still feel very lonely."

Popular digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter do not alleviate feelings of loneliness and may contribute to them.

"The platforms that young people use just don't facilitate meaningful relationships but that is the way most young people communicate," Dr Lim said.

"We haven't quite found a way within these digital platforms to build strong, meaningful relationships. We have to get there because we're becoming increasingly reliant on digital communication rather than face to face interaction. How can we reduce loneliness in the digital world? That's the big question."