The human experience is entirely linked to our ability to connect with the world around us. We’re psychologically, emotionally, and physiologically wired to bond with one another. 2020—marked by a global pandemic, economic instability, and societal reckoning with racism—has reminded us all what happens when meaningful social relationships are disrupted.
Yet, resilience finds its way. Coupled with advancements in technology, people have found new methods to connect despite the physical distance. Some examples? Love is Quarantine, TikTok cloud raves, virtual happy hours, QuarantineChat. It’s clear that technology will play a core role in the future of our relationships. To prepare for this, we must explore the degree to which technology may influence a person’s emotional, psychological, and behavioral well-being.
Working with Facebook, we brought together researchers, academics, clinicians, and technologists this past summer for three closed-door sessions and a public panel to explore this topic. Our intent has been to listen and learn.
Out of these discussions, three key takeaways emerged, and we developed a report (launched today) detailing these insights.
There is no strong evidence that indicates levels of loneliness have increased globally during the pandemic.
Despite initial expectations of COVID-19 physical distancing requirements potentially sparking an increase in loneliness, we do not have evidence that mean levels of loneliness have either increased or decreased throughout various world regions during the crisis. However, certain populations (vulnerable groups and life stages) are more likely to experience loneliness before and during COVID-19, such as younger adults, people who live alone, and people who have gone through major life events. When designing tech for people who are experiencing loneliness, precision is key. Technology companies can focus on the general population but should also consider the specific experiences of certain subpopulations when designing and developing products.
Loneliness is shaped not just by individual factors but by social constructs and the environment in which we live.
While much of the scientific literature points to the biological and psychological factors that contribute to loneliness, it is critical that we also recognize and give weight to the social, political, and economic factors in play. The question “Whose loneliness matters?” requires a deep reflection on the power structures that give rise to feelings of loneliness, particularly in marginalized communities. To mitigate the experience of loneliness requires responsibility and accountability of all stakeholders, such as governments, civic institutions, and tech companies. Technology is one piece of the puzzle, and tech solutions should be developed in concert with other key stakeholders. One role technology companies should play is in considering how power dynamics may manifest in the products they design and build to help people navigate feelings of loneliness. The same technology that can help people in times of loneliness can also simultaneously alienate them (e.g., the use of online comments to bully others).
The impact of social media on loneliness demands further study.
Scientific evidence of the causal impact of social media on an individual’s subjective well-being, such as feelings of loneliness, is sparse. There continues to be significant questions around metrics and measurement tools as well as gaps in data, which has challenged the efficacy of certain results. The research picture is incomplete. To build better digital tools, further investment in research must be made, both financially and collaboratively.
Questions certainly remain, and we consider this effort a complement to existing research. The aim is to catalyze a community of interest, and influence the design and build of products, tools, and services that support human well-being. Dive into our new report, Lessons in Loneliness, and see what Facebook is up to in the related space of mental health. Also, tune into the Action Forum to End Social Isolation and Loneliness on Wednesday, October 14, at 11:30am ET. We will host a panel featuring tech innovators who are researching and developing in this space. Next up, Aspen Digital and Facebook will host a second series of roundtable discussions to go deeper with international experts.
Virtually Alone: The Future of Human Connection
An in-depth conversation on the future of human connection and the potential impact of technology on meaningful relationships.
hi everyonemy name is vivian schiller and i’m theexecutive director of aspen digitalwhich is a programof the aspen institute if you’refamiliar with aspen you would probablyknowthat no aspen institute event iscompleteif we did not quote from an ancientgreek philosopher so let me notdisappoint youthis is from aristotle manis by nature a social animal anyone whoeither cannot lead the common lifeor is so self-sufficient as not to needtoand therefore does not partake ofsociety is eithera beast or a god so thank you toaristotle for that althoughi actually prefer the way maya angelousaid itinstead she wrote we need joy as we needairwe need love as we need water we needeach otheras we need the earth we share so as youprobably knowwe are here today to talk aboutlonelinessand social connection and itsintersection with technologyfor good and sometimes for illespecially during these times ofpandemic acrossthe globe we are very lucky to be joinedby someextraordinary panelists who you willmeet in a momentum so the plan for this hour is to hearfrom themum we will then have a conversation iwill ask them some of my burningquestionsand then we want to hear yours if youlook at the bottom of your screen youwill seea q a button please at any time startingright now you can click on that q abuttonand enter your question we would askplease that you add your nameand your affiliation maybe where you’recoming from umif you are comfortable doing so it justreally helps uh give us thatcontext so again please drop yourquestions into the qa at any time not in the chat functionthat is forsort of instructions and links soum i want to uh mention that this uhthis uh this program that we’re part ofright now that you’re part of is theculminaryculmination of a series of reallyamazing meetings that we designed andhosted togetherwith facebook facebook has a team manyof them are with us on this uh webinartodayfocus specifically on the issuesof loneliness and well-beingit is staffed by executives andacademics dedicated to solutions wefound in them kindred spiritswho are looking for as we are long-termpursuit of understandingof the future of social connection andthe role that technology playsi should also note that we will bereleasing a full reportin uh the coming weeks so be on thelookoutfor that so with that we are now goingtouh let me introduce our our panelistswho you will meet momentarilywe will be joined by dan buettner he isan explorer national geographic fellowjournalist and authorhe discovered the five places in theworld that he has dubbedblue zones those are places where peoplelive the longest healthiest liveshe now works in partnership withmunicipal governments employers andhealth insurance companiesto implement blue zone projects we willhear more about that from him in aminuteuh brittany cooper is co-editor of thecrunk feminist collection and anassistant professorat rutgers university she is the authorofeloquent rage a black feminist discoversher superpower and many other booksand essays ruth fairhair is a clinicalpsychologist the co-developerof the friendship bench program and alsoworks as a psychotherapist her researchfocuses on accessible and affordablecare for common mental disorderscommunity-based interventionsgroups of pure support and thewell-being of the counselorsuh who who work with those individualsand finally we will be joined byrobin hewings he is the director ofcampaigns policy and research at thecampaignto end loneliness he leads a team umwith a presence ofa presence across the uk driving actionon loneliness through researchconvening and influencing and robin whowill be joining me on camera right nowis going to bekicking us off with some baselineresearchin loneliness from his work in the ukkeep in mind his focus is onolder populations though ourconversation that will followwill be more broad so robin thank you somuch for joining us and we lookforward to hearing from you now thefloor is yoursare muted there we gouh so i’m just sharing my screen so thatyou cansee my slides umand hopefully that has now workedum so thank you for that introduction ithink thatum that encapsulates who we are reallyreallyreally nicely um i’m just going to coverbrieflyum a bit about um who we arewhat what loneliness is and why itmattersuh and finally some reflections on theimpact of covert 19and some idea of the way in whichtechnology has beena real help during this time umso um so as vivian said we’ve we’ve hada focuson older age uh which i think reflectshow this issuestarted where initially people were veryworried about lonelinessin in older people and we’re formed of acoalition oforganizations interested in lonelinessand older people butum we’re going to be moving to uh anall-ages approach recognizing that weneed to think about learning thisthe live course so in terms of whatloneliness isand what it isn’t um learning this is asubjectivefeeling it’s when there’s a gap betweenthe social connections wewant and those that we have umand it’s something which is differentfromsocial isolation so people can be happybeing by themselves and havingrelatively few social connectionsum but equally umpeople can be lonely in a crowd and it’sabout making sure that people havethe connections that they need andsometimes those might be the connectionsclosest to usum our kind of closest friends andfamilyand sometimes people can feel lonelybecause of that kind ofbroader network um say hello to peoplein the shop people you vaguely know andchat toand the gap can be in either of thoseum in terms of why it matters wellthe first reason for why it matters isthat there’s a lot of itso around one in five people uhusing surveys from both the uk uhand also surveys from the us show thataround one in five peopleare chronically lonely and that meanspeopleanswering yes to a question that theyfeel lonelyuh always or most of the time andum the first reason for why this issomething which isis serious is that um it’s kind of shownin the quote here thatthis is when people feel loneliness andlack of connectionis something that go right to the coreof our well-beingand so when um when we’re lonely this issomething which is immensely importantin its own right but also it hasa significant impact on other areas ofourlife has an impact on our physicalhealthum through particularly uhcardiovascular disease andthe epidemiological work would suggestthat its impact on mortality can be seento becomparable to other major health riskfactors that you might think ofsuch as lack of physical activity orsmoking umyou know you can get into veryinteresting arguments about whichprecisely is more importantum but i think that it’s clear and ifthis is something which has beenrecognized byum governments here that it’s somethingwhich isserious enough that it’s something thatwe should definitelytake action about um in terms of whypeople are lonely um there are a numberof risk factorsum transitions are a big oneum and the most the most important ofwhich isbereavement but equally becoming illbecoming disabledretirement um losing becoming blind orlosing um other types of sensoryloss can also be significant and i thinkthat we canquite easily imagine why umwhy that would be the case um and peoplecan be lonely at anyperiod in their lives and people havethose transition there’s a particularcluster of transitionsin younger people as they movefor education or for work or becausetheir friendship groups are changing alotand becoming a new parent can be adifficult time for loneliness andin later life not so much kind ofpeople in their 50s or 60s but as peoplemove into their 70s 80s or 90sa lot of those risks can can clusterum but reflectinguh dan’s work um a lot of it can also beabout where we live so there are somevery obvious things aroundtransport if you can’t go go to placesor there are places to go toum that can be a real issue somethingwhich people highlight in the uk quite abit ispublic toilets and particularly forolder people this is really important tomake sure that they cango out and engage in their communityfear of crimebeing in a place that where thepopulation is changing can be a realissueand um and so that’s people and as canbenot living it near your family and againi think that thereasons for why that would impactloneliness i think are probablyuh really quite intuitive but i thinkum what we think is also reallyimportant and we released a report onthislast month is that psychological factorsare really important in loneliness sothere is a two wayrelationship between mental healthproblemsand loneliness so learning this is not amental health problem it’s a reallyimportant part of ourwell-being but it’s not a diagnosablemental health problem buthaving mental health problemsparticularlyparticularly depression is a real riskfactor for lonelinessand the key thing really is thatloneliness can become a downward spiralwhere it affects how we think about oursocial relationshipswe think about them more negatively wethink aboutgoing into social situations with morefear and more anxietyand that can mean that people get stuckin loneliness and thisthis is the situation that we need to bemostworried about that’s when we startgetting into those really seriousimpacts on our well-being and on ourphysicaland mental health and uh we think it’san important area thatwe need to be needs to be addressed bothin some psychological specificallypsychological workum but also that when we think aboutwhat we need to do about lonelinesswe need to think about the psychology ofit as welland so finally um i wanted to reflectbriefly aboutsome of what we’ve learned about theimpact of covert 19on loneliness um in the uk we’ve had alargestudy tracking people’s um psychologythrough um through the period of thepandemicand what it’s found umis that people with the risk factorsthat i was just talking about umhave um their loneliness has becomeworseum people who don’t have those riskfactors who have often becomeless lonely because they’ve been able tospend more time with their childrenfor example um that they’vegot good social networks and they’ll beable to use technologywell to keep in touch with people um ithink justbriefly reflecting on the role ofgovernment we have aminister for loneliness uh and theloneliness strategy and i think that hasbeen helpfulin making sure that the governmentthinks about loneliness umthrough this period that has obviouslycreated real issues forour social connections um and finallyum i’m reflecting on the bigger themesofuh of this of this webinar um we’ve beendoingquite a bit of work about technology forsome timeand i think that what we’ve found isthat it has beenfor those people who have good access totechnologyum which means partially about havingthe skillsand partial having the equipment umand also about having the financialresources tokeep to have access to technology wefoundthat um that havinghaving the data on your uh on your phoneum can be a real barrier to peoplebroadband packagescan be really expensive and that cansimilarly bea really significant barrier and wefound thatto some extent municipal governmentsand local community organizationshave been able to find workaroundshelping more people get onlinehelping more people get access to thetechnologyand we’ve also seen some real dynamismand creativity ofother ways of of reaching people umthings like um kind of community bingoor uh doing choirs in the streets to beable to maintain social distancing butstillthose things have been useful uh but notenoughto uh kind of completely mitigate theeffects that we’ve seenso and that’s the picture that we’ve gotfrom the ukand i look forward to the rest of thediscussionthank you robin that was really a greatway to kick us off andthe uk is certainly globally a leader intaking the issues of lonelinessvery seriously um at the at the nationalum governmental level which is reallyimpressive i want to drill downjust to ask you a follow-up question anddrill down into the last point that youmade aboutum access technology i understandlook i i completely understand there aresocioeconomicum barriers where people might not haveconnectivitythey may not have access to the devicesthat is clearly a huge problem andparticularly for older generationsthere are the digital skill sets but i iwant to ask you sort of the flip sidefor those who dohave the risk factors from lonelyloneliness orself-report as experienced feelings oflonelinesswhat kind of technology or device orinternet interventions have you seenthat have been effective at mitigatinglonelinessum so i think that umit is the ones that enable us to bestkeep in touch with peopleso people have really valued umvideo calls such as this um andthese can be relatively basictechnologiesum just cell phones and these areand we’ve seen um good evidence thatmore and more people haveuh learned how to use these devicesand people have been um often with olderpeopleum they’re helped by neighbors oryounger relativesand they’ve been helped to to use themum for people whoare the oldest and whothe least um contact with digitaltechnology there are someuh interesting innovations where ratherthanhaving to kind of fiddle around withwith with phones some of which areum if you have uh it’s a little bittechnical butif you’re of older people they losesensation in their fingersand it means that the touchscreentechnologies don’t work so welland that can be really quitedisempowering for people but there’ssome innovative ways whichhave really really simple devicesum which you just turn on and you canhavevideo calls that way um and so i thinkthat we’ve seen someexamples of general technology beinguseful but also somespecialized technology for people whoare the furthestfrom uh using day-to-day digitalthanks robin i want to begin to bring inthe rest of our panelistsand and ask them some questions as welljust a reminder toeveryone the q a button we’re startingto see some questionscome in please don’t forget to justclick on that if you want to ask aquestionclick on the q a button add youruh add your question please list yourname and your affiliationif you’re comfortable doing so that’sreally helpful and we’ll get to those inumjust a little bit i want to um turn itnow over to youum ruth can you describe a little bityour work at friendshipuh bench and how it relates toloneliness and social connectionyes of course thank you vivian thank youfor having me on thisamazing call so with friendship bench weareum we are delivering a very easy accesspsychological intervention for commonmental disorders like you said in theintro which are depression anxietystress related disorders and we hadpre-culvert a very simple techniquebasically where we set on a bench that’swhat’s called friendship benchoutside clinic premises in zimbabwe sothisthis originates here in zimbabwe andwe have figured that a lot of the peoplewho come toprimary healthcare clinics how we callthem here are actually suffering fromdepression and anxiety and in in thelanguage in zimbabwe it’s calledthinking too much so the zimbabwean orthe shona language calls itkufungi which is sort of the theexpression for in the western context wewould call depression so all symptomsand thatand so people would also often umpresent with somaticproblems so if you think too much youget a headache and that’s why you go toa clinicand that’s why we think it’s soimportant to educate people aroundmental healthissues so that they can be addressed sothat peopleare not given the painkillers and homesso we totally believein the power of connection so this iswhat it isour counselors were trained andsupervised are lay peopleand interestingly enough whoever maybehas heard about the french avenge manyof our councillors are elderly womenwhich termed the like current the termum grandmothers for our intervention andwe all have this association of agrandmotherhaving the time having the patiencehaving that ability to just be presentandlisten non-judgmentally just hold thespace basically for someone who comesand talks andin a context and i think that probablyis all over the world where mentalhealth issues arestigmatized this holding a safe spacewhich where it’s literally safe enoughto open up and talk aboutfeelings and exploring what that meansto talk about feelings isis the key to creating meaningful humanconnections we feeland you’ve been you’ve recently startedto use uh mobile phones as part of yourintervention so which is obviously quitedifferent thanphysically sitting next to somebody on abench but maybeuh left more safe during this time ofpandemic say a little bit more about howthat worksyes okay so that was really coming outof the restrictions that were related tothe covet 19 in zimbabwe soso obviously we felt this sitting on thebench is a great thing we stillcompletely believe itand we can’t wait for the moment when wecan all sit on benches againbut we felt we have to protect ourgrandmothers obviouslyand we have to protect clients so weextremely quickly try tore-work this train the counselorson phone counseling which is a littlebit different because we oftencan’t do video calls i actually hardlyever dovideo calls because of what you said aswell robin about costsavailability of smartphones connectionsall those things in our setting and inother lower middle incomesettings are probably even worse when itcomes to this so it istext-based call based umoften we get the information though thatpeople would like to have a firstface-to-face meeting and then continueon the phonebut nevertheless we seem to be reachingclientele who would otherwise go to theclinic and meet thegrandmother there and now is basicallyon the phone with a grandmother withinthe same communitybut we also offer something which isreaching out a little bit morenationally and internationallyand the what we get is that peopleare feeling they’re heardthey are um having that space where theycantalk but again it is of course verylimited whenyou see whatever you your data runninglow or your money running outand and we have a lot of challenges interms of people not having the privacythey live in crowded livingcircumstanceswhere they have maybe they’re sharing aphone so that can be an issue if youtext with someone and someone else picksup the phone because they want to make acallor they get a call so so this is allsomething that has to be mitigated asnot aseasy as it could have been maybe in a ina safer environment aroundthe bench so with with those limitationsof course coming againback again to those socioeconomicconditions and restrictions umnonethelessuh using phones might be able to giveyou sort of broader access socertainly a double-edged uh double-edgedsword there britney i want to come toyou youyou’ve been you’ve been such a wonderfulcontributor to to our some of ourprevious discussions that we co-hostedwith facebook and you’ve pointed outthat systemic conditions drivingfeelings andloneliness are particularly acute forcertain communitiesunderrepresented communities can youexpand onon that from your research i’m sure sothank you viviane thanks to all of youone of the things that made me begin tothink about this was when we sawthe uprisings over the summer in theearlier part of the summer in the latespringwe saw so many young people of color outin the streets even though we were undercoveted restrictionsand it was clear to me as i watched thekind of movement out into the streetsthatat least one of the things motivatingpeople beyond our outrage over thekilling of george floydwas a social isolation that we hadisolation fatigue and that peoplereally needed to be connected and sothere was a way thatum there was a kind of efficacy of beingable to go out into the streets seepeopleprotest feel like you were doingsomething to respond to the momentso that’s one of the things that helpedme to recognize that there was a kind ofsocial aspect to protestum but the other place that we came todeal with this problem of loneliness andmy field in the academyuh was in 2010 when we started the cronkfeminist collective blog which is acollective of women of colorum hip-hop generation feminist we writeabout popular culture and feminism andall of those thingsbut we did it to combat this deep senseamong people of color particularly youngwomen of color coming through theacademythat were isolated in various localesdidn’t have a sense of community and sowe built an online communityin part because i was living in alabamaat the time andi was a single black woman living in afairly isolated placeuh and even though alabama’s fairlyracially diversethe university space is not particularlydiverse and so this became a way for meto connect with other women of color whowere in that journeyand we found that we built a reallypowerful community in a way to actuallyspeak to people’s concernsand so in that way we began to build adigital toolwhere folks could come find people whowere like-mindedand express their opinions and feel likethey were heardi think that one of the things thatdoing that work though has taught meparticularly about how to buildplatforms like and we built a platformacross facebooktwitter we used some old i mean tumblruh we used ning back in the day a kindof older toolbut um i also wonderand worry about the way that on the onehand what digital tools allow us to dois connect to people whowhen we feel like we can’t find ourpeople digital tools allow you to findyour people and we spend a lot of timein my work talking about the importanceof having a crewto navigate whatever whatever placeyou’re in the other thing thoughis that i also find this curious thingparticularly in the social justicespaces in which i live and movewhere people are both intenselyconnectedbut are also always talking about how noone understands themand they feel so silenced by the processand so in a moment whereeveryone has access to the platform thatfacebook allows many of us to have atwitterinstagram all of that at the same timeit doesn’t seem to beum combating people’s deep sense thatthey are misunderstoodand they if they are not unheard thatthey are unheard and that they want tohave a voice in the world and that theywant that voice to be valuedand so i both think that it has combatedone part of the problemand also also introduced this other partof the problem which is this hierarchyaboutwho then gets to be heard in particularspacesso i’ll give you one example and theni’ll stop iwas dealt with some harassment in theearly part of the summer because ofcomments i made in my political work anduh so i had to reach out to some teamsat facebook to help me with safetymeasures and so they gave me one ofthose blue check marks that says youraccount has been verifiedand so now every time i’m on twitter orfacebook and you know people see theblue check mark i get all these commentsabout how do i get a blue check markrightand so there’s even a sense that thatverification gives my voice more valuein the space uh and so even when i’mjust having conversations with peoplethey’re like well who are you and why doyou get a blue check markum and i wonder about that because itsuggests to me that even in the placeswhere we feel connected people stillhave this acute sensethat there’s a hierarchy and that in amoment where everyone cancould ostensibly have an opportunity tospeak that there are stillstructures that are built in to say thatcertain voices have more valueand there is a lot of hand-wringing andanxiety about thatyeah do you have a hypothesis in yourwork about whathow to mitigate that effect umyou know i don’t yet i’m i’m thinkingaboutabout this in some ways i just try tocall it out for peopleone of the things that i think is a bitof a dangeris that see the when we combatloneliness through connectionsometimes sometimes our the the basis ofour connections can be unhealthy thoughsowe see one of the reasons that you knowsocial media is having to spend a lot oftimecombating like misinformation and all ofthatis because people are connected by theiranger and their fear so they’recombating lonelinessbut we’ve also got to then figure outhow to mediate like the unhealthyemotions that sometimesundergird the basis of the connectionand that that is a problem i’m thinkinga lot about becauseanger and rage can bring us together butthere’s both righteous rage andunrighteous rage right and we have aproblem in our politics right now wherewe’re not distinguishing very wellbetween righteous rage and unrighteousrage and we’re all trying to find thepeople who are mad about the same thingsthat we’remad about and so then we find ourcommunitiesbut then sometimes the way that folksact outtheir sense of i’m not isolated i foundmy groupi found my people is that they thenswarmpeople online who don’t think like themright they they sort ofcome together as a group and they use itas a you know sothere’s a way that we feel emboldenedwhen we find our people that’s positivebut that newfound power can also make usact in ways that arenot particularly great for our socialfabric so i just think we have a lot ofwork to doto then a combat loneliness andisolation but then beto actually ask people to imagine what ahealthybasis for connection looks like rightrighteous ragethat’s yeah um okay soum we’re now gonna thank you brittanywe’ll come back to youup somewhere in in the in the audiencequestions dantalk to us about blue zones and how dowe find our what is a blue zone andhow do i get there as fast as[Laughter]don’t possible yeah yeahwell the idea was uh in a sense toreverse engineer longevity so onassignment for national geographic andwith funding from the nationalinstitutes on aging we hireddemographers tofind areas where people livestatistically longestand because only about 20 percent of howlong you liveis dictated by genes the other 80percent is lifestylesomething else we sought to find thecommon denominators and umi’ve been working on this for 15 yearswith a number of otherwell the number of great scientists i’mnot a scientist but i can i can i candrawscientists in um but to the point oftoday’s conversation you know we wererecognizing15 years ago that loneliness uhwas not a factor in blue zones peopleweren’tlonely and um and the you know the verymyfirst book the blue zones um we werecalling out the lack of loneliness as anexplanationfor um for for some of their longevityand andthis is only becoming coming to the foreright now and by the way i iapplaud you guys and the institute forrecognizing ituh you know if the pharmaceuticalcompany could come up with a drugthat eliminated loneliness it’d be amulti-billion dollarblockbuster drug but you know it’s it’snot something that the medical communitygenerally can address with the profit soit’s not somethinguh at their fore so why don’t people inblue zones sufferfrom lone weariness it’s not becausethey have better technologynot because they don’t suffer from thesame sort of psychological melodies thatthe rest of us doit’s mainly because of their builtenvironmentthey live in places where every timethey step out their front doorthey’re bumping into people and theseserendipitous connectionsthroughout the day and by the way thereis good research that shows that thesesort ofnon-planned light touch socialinteractionssuch as interacting with a barista oryour postman or just somebody randomlyon the streetpredicts longevity better than diet andexercise soyou cannot possibly underestimate theimportance ofaddressing loneliness but you know asrobinand by the way i thought that was aphenomenal presentationas he points out north of 20of people uh in the united states andprobably many other countries aresufferingfrom loneliness which shaves about eightyears off of their life expectancyso you say to yourself howare we going to address let me see 20percent of 330 minutes 66million people with loneliness and do itfast because they’re dyingsoon and i assert it’s taking apage from what we observed very clearlyin these longestvarious blue zones and that’s thinkabout how we design our environmentand rather than living in suburbs andcul-de-sacs where we’re isolated and iknow we have cope with it now we have tobe careful on how we socially interactwith socially distance and masking andso forthnevertheless our species evolveduh successfully because of our abilityto socially connectand cooperate and that is hardwired intoour genesand in order for us to thrive optimallywe needcities where it’s easy to walk placesit’s easy to bike places it’s safefeeling take a page from places likeboulder coloradoor portland oregon where they reportvery low levelsof loneliness and part of the reason ibelieve is because they have a greenbeltaround the city that that eliminatessprawland turns in all sort ofvitality economic vitality and socialvitalityto a a a core uh that hasyou know restaurants and streets andviking lanes and umi you know we i know it’s it’s vogue toaddresshealth problems and other problems bysome sort oftechnology solution but i’m a strongbeliever that’s not going to get uswhere we are like i enjoy talking to youguys on zoom right nowbut i would much rather be sitting faceto face with youand feel the human connection which idon’t exactly feel i’m looking at ascreen right now and i see littletiny you know matchbook size uhimages of your face it’s just not thesame i think technology is usefulto help us set up plans to connect witheach otherlater in person but i think the theimmediate most cost effective andmassively effective way to addressthis loneliness epidemic is tooptimize our built environments to bringpeople togetherinstead of letting them continue to flowaparthas it is it too early uh into thepandemic for you to have any findingsaboutuh how the global pandemic has impactedwhat you’re saying becausealmost everything you’re describing itrequires people topartake in not everything but unsafeactivities right now that kind ofgathering in person thatreally intimate human to humanconnectionyou know the the cities uhperiod well you know in our blue zoneproject citiesum take fort worth texas they’ve beenvery uh aggressive arounduh they worked with us uh for four yearswe managed to lower loneliness and wemanaged to lower their bmiuh it takes years for city planners toembrace these complete state streets oractive living plansuh get them passed through city counciland getting them in place soyou know we can be in a little bitcrouching tiger mode right nowi don’t think we should be using thecovid pandemic as an excuse not toaddressthese things again i’m talking aboutphysical changes to the environmentthese things they’re notpossible they take planning they takeyears and they take will and they takea willingness to see clearly theconnection between the dataand what works and um you know there’softenincentives that uh prevent us fromseeing clearlybut uh you know we we should be startingright now and by the wayi i live part of my year in santabarbara californiaum the all the restaurants are allfrescothe main street since cobia by the wayit’s called state streetthat has turned to a pedestrian mall sowe got the cars out of there people wearmasksso i would argue that is that is it’sbecause of combatbeen a more socially connect connectedenvironmentthan it was before so lots of greatopportunitiesi don’t think we should use colbit as anexcusewe are now going to thank you thank youso much um dan we’re now going to uhwe’lllikely come back to that we’re now goingto begin to move to your questions againa reminderq a button at the bottom please add yournameyour affiliation where you’re comingfromthat is very helpful so i don’t knowthat we’re going to be able to get toall of your questions but we certainlywant to get umto um some of them so um it’s a questionto youuh to you ruth um this is from umangie yoder maina with the green stringnetworkuh coming to us from nairobi souh do you have any experience withwhatsapp or othernetworking apps to work with the peergroups for friendship bench particularlyinterested in how this might be receivedin theafrican context right thank you for thatquestionyes we are basically only using thewhatsapp platform because it seems to beexactly whatpeople here on the african continenthave access to and what works quitereliablyand so we do we do groups uh withwhatsapp andthere’s a there’s a cap how many peopleyou can have in a group though so we tryto do moderated groupsmore for our um youth friendship benchapplication how we call it and we alsosort of usewhatsapp as the the connecting bit wheni say we talk over the phone it’s allwhatsapp base and it can be like i saidtextingor calling um yeah i hope thisand it’s it’s very well received fromthat point of view if people have theright access totechnology and and all the other thingsthat you need for ityeah um this one is uh from christopheruh baranowski who would like thepanelists to talk aboutsocial media more broadly and how it mayhave contributed to lonelinessparticularlythat the limitations imposed by digitalmedia and platforms delimit the capacityfor deep emotional connectionand pose risk of social media addictionum so i think that uh he’s getting hereat what you’re talking about which whatwhat you were getting at a little bitdan which iswe’re seeing each other as little boxeswhich is not quitethe emotional um connection so i wonderif umwho would like to address that robinmaybe you have had ohokay i’ll let robin say a couple ofwords and then i’ll turn it over to youruth um so i think thatmaking comparisons about lonelinessbetween differenttimes and places is always quite trickybecause people ask theanswer the questions in somewhatdifferent ways butum would you have some data from the ukfocusing older people that would saythat it would appear thatum loneliness hasn’t gone up or downthat much and i think that’s becausewhile some things have becomemore challenging for loneliness someother other things havehelped so for example if someoneemigratedin the 1950s you would never speak tothem again if they were moving toaustralia as many people were doing fromenglandat that time whereas now you’ll be veryable to keep them quite closetouch um but i think to the question ithinkthat um so there are some ways whichtechnology and digital technology can behelpful so a solution todayone a response to loneliness is notabout finding new people but justkeeping in touchwith old friends or reigniting oldfriendships andsocial media can also obviously bereally helpful for that buti think when there’s a clear danger isaround the kind of social comparisonthat um can very much happen onparticular things like facebook everyoneelseeveryone else’s life looks brilliant andrich and in a way as brittany was sayingum the you know in terms of politicalactivism there’s a way whichthere’s a kind of social comparisonthere that can feel perhaps a littlealienatedas well so i think that in many wayswe’re kind of atthe early stage of umusing digital technologies and over timewe need to get better at it so that itbecomeshelpful for our connections andum and not something which can make usoverly compared with other people andthen that can kind of make us feelleft out and um less successful soright that is something that that thatdoes echo britney’s remarks i’d like tocome to brittany in a minute butruth first i know you wanted to saysomething on this thank you so much youyoujust prepared the ground for me becausei wanted to go on from a psychologicalpoint of view if i look atsomeone else’s great life i tend tosort of devalue myself and i create awhole lot of distressbetween people right because then nexttime i’ll post a photo it also has to beextremely great that means peoplesort of potentially move away from whothey really areand that will contribute to thisdistrust with i which i thinksort of causes a high level of sort of alow level anxiety that makes sense whichmakes usbe afraid of connections in a way and ithinkif because we we all i think we all lackthat distresstolerance like to be able to sit with itso we kind of rather sort ofmove back or whatever um and andwhat i the one thing that i wanted tosay just the difference betweenloneliness and solitude you know wherelonelinesscan become completely dysfunctionalafter a while but inin the beginning it should just be asymbol for or a signal for move forwardfind someone you’re longing you want toget create belonging go for it rightwhere solitude which i think in the pastwasis actually another word for the sameconcept was seen as something whereyou’re turning inward and you’relearning from yourselfright and and if i’m lonely and i reachoutin a way i’m also just patching upsomething i need to practice solitudethat’s that distress toleranceand i need to learn to sit with what’sgoing onand be with myself and i think that’ssomething we allshould practice more in some form orother and not maybe not immediatelyreach out andand make this feeling go away so thatwas just my questionyeah that’s an excellent point brittanyi want to justcome back to you on this as well becauseyou were you were speaking earlier abouthow this sense ofinequity can sometimes people canexperience that the why don’t i have ablue check markwhich will use that as a metaphor forsomething muchmuch larger do you also get the sensethat thiscauses people to um toeither withdraw or to pretend thatthere’s somebody that they’re not andhow that might exacerbate feelings oflonelinessyes i think that there’s a whole newkind of economy aboutself-value that has emerged in the wakeof people being on social mediaand having as ruth points out thesehypercurated cells and so we are constantlyin a mode of self comparison and part ofwhat that means is thatpeople forget even though we arepersonally all curating which pictureswe sharewhich thoughts we share we forget thatother people are also making those kindsof choicesand that they’re typically showing ustheir best selves and not their worstdays and soum so i think that inin among social activists there is a lotof conversation about silencingabout um about how people likeagain don’t understand them and they’restruggling to come to voiceand it’s always shocking to me assomeone who grew up right on the digitalcusp soi remember word processors and you knowlife before the internet and then iyou know as a teenager you know learnedwhat the internet was and got to use itand so it’s been a part of my life forlonger than it hasn’tbut even my formative years not beingrooted aroundinternet and social media shifts yourperspective and so whenwhen i talk to folks and i’m like but wehave an unprecedented level ofdemocratization of access toconversation to voice and the ability toshare our opinionsbut people want to be heard and at thecore offeeling lonely is the sense that there’sno one in your life that is a witness toyouyour life and the things that are goingon no one that is thereto hear you and understand you uh andand sort of like reflect you back toyourselfand so i think that the um i think thatsocial media can be a very tough mirroruh and i think that we have to figureout how to create communitieswith each other that are so that are lowrisk because the other thing that’s achallenge toois that when you share part of yourselfon social media or on digital toolsthere’s a sense that there’s always atrail always a trace so you can’tum you know so you can’t uh makemistakes because it can be thrown inyour face at any time that sort of thingand so we’ve got to figure out like whatis a low stakes mode of connection andthe digital seems to promise that it’s alow stakes mode because you’re in yourhouseyou don’t actually have to have fleshand blood meetings with peopleand then you realize that there’s arecord and a trace of the things yousaid did the pictures you shared all ofthose thingsand so then all of a sudden the stakesshift again umand so i think we have to figure thatout um andwhile i’m talking let me offer oneadditional thing i was listening to danand thinking about blue zones andthinkingthat’s super useful but also thinkinglike a lot of those places dan otherthan fort worth texas which is fairlydiverseare super white they’re super whitewhite and fairly affluent and i wonderaboutblue zone living in places where youhave people of color you knowwhere you have you know where you haveblack folks where you have folks thatare sort of poor becausei’m thinking about portland which is alovely place and there’s a great foodscenebut it is mega white it is super duperwhiteand i’m like i would never move toportland like if that’s my only twooptions here in the usyou know um and so so part of what i’masking is whether whitenessor the the fact that in some of theseplaces is not americanpeople of color is that the thing thathelps them to be blue zones becausethere’s access to wealth affluence goodfoodlack of food deserts you know you canchoose to live in the center of townbecause you can actually afford toyou know i wonder you’re thinking aboutthat with regard to blue zoneswell just to be clear aboutuh blue zones the the original bluezones are inokinawa japan sardinia italynicoya peninsula costa rica which islatin america among the seventh-dayadventists in lomolina californiaand ikaria greece uh separatelyi i have a or organization that helpscities that decide they want to gethealthier by changing their environmenttheir food policy their builtenvironmentand certifying their restaurants grocerystores workplaces etcand that we we are completely agnosticas to what cities we go into we’reinvited in by mayors we’recurrently invited in by austin texas inorlandoalso very uh racially diverse andwe work in cities where the thepublic sector wants it and pledges tomaking the changeand we can get private sector fundingwhich is usually from insurancecompanies and hospital systems soum our interventions are are agnosticand wegenerally are of the attitude that ifyou create a built environmentthat is safe that nudges peopleout from behind their steering wheelunder their feet bumping into peoplethat is going to help them no matterwhat their race color creator sexualorientation isand that’s sort of our our um ourapproachwhen it comes to um social media there’svery good research that shows thelonelinessthe loneliest demographic right now aremillennials and not coincidentally theyare also the ones using the most socialmedia and incidentallytheir loneliness started to peak rightafter about 2011when this thing handhelds came on as asbeing ubiquitous soum you know it’s a correlation but i istill argue thatuh at least with the current technologylooking for an answer to loneliness andsome gadgetuh is misguided well i’m sure there’smultipleuh points of view on that certainly ofcourse i’m the i’m the congregantwould argue differently uh and i wouldargue differently in my ability to stayin touch with themum then actually you that was a perfectsegue intosome other some questions otherquestions we’ve had frompeople who are um watching and listeningto us now around adolescence there’s iwill read both of these questions ithink they pair nicely togetherum the first one is from emily welbornwatkinsemily woolbourne with the watkins museumof history in lawrence kansasshe asks how do you believe thispandemic will affect adolescent socialdevelopmentin the long term and how can localinstitutions domore to help um the secondquestion related is from steve um asherfromduke university who has been nice to uhnice that you’re with us steve he waspart of one of our other um roundtablesthat weposted with facebook who asked comparedto older peoplea much smaller percentage of childrenadolescents and college studentsreport high levels of loneliness orchronic lonelinessbut still that is concern when it occursand it might be of special concern foryouth who miss a lot of schoolfor health reasons disabilitiescaretaking of siblings etcare you aware of efforts to usetechnology to helpyouth in these circumstances todaytogether so againtechnology to help youth uh connectnow that they’re in isolation from thepandemic and what local institutionscan do um to help robin you may want totake on about the the socialinstitutions i know you focus mostly onthe elderly populationbut i know you’re branching out now intoother demographicsuh yes that’s right i think that umwe we did some work about how technologycan help to tackleloneliness and umthere are some ways in which the examplei use with adolescents who areout of school for a long period of timeand there are some devices that can helppeoplestay in touch with uh with their friendsum it’s a device where you have a itlooks a bit like a robot that goes intoa classroomso people can still connect fromhospital for exampleinto um into their classrooms they canstill feelsome of that kind of connection thatthey uh might have umit’s not a very cheap device so if ithink it’s not something which is goingto beuh really really rolled out but i thinkit makes a point thatin terms of what can local institutionsdo um i think awareness of thisand understanding of the importance ofconnectionand finding different ways of sustainingit as i say there’sthere’s a kind of a funny robottechnology type thing that can beuseful but there can other ways in whichpeople can stay in touchum a nice example that we’ve had duringcovidthat my children have been involved withis umwriting letters to care homes um so thisis a way in whichuh young primary school-aged childrenum so children are kind of seven eightnine tencan keep in touch with older people andhave an interesting kind of conversationbetween the twoso um and that’s i suppose somethingwhich is partially about physicallywriting letters so it seemsquite uh you know old school as it werebut also it’s a way in which people canis actuallythe way which actually made it happenwas very muchthrough uh all of the kind ofadministrative tools ofuh modern digital technologyum great while i’ve got you i’m justgoing to ask you a related a questionlooking back at the older populationthis is a question from patty david withaarpdo you see uh this is just a short onebut you see social online gamesuh game playing impacting loneliness inany wayum or is it the same barrier of fear ofthetechnology or inability to use itum so i think that umthat can be a great because that can bea way of bringing people into beingonline and people whoare gamers talk a lot about how it canbe and there’s really striking examplesofum uh people playing people don’t wantto besits at opposite each other eyeballingeach other doing things that they findenjoyable together can be great andthere’s someintergenerational examples of that ofyounger people and older people playingtogetherbut absolutely it can old peoplecomplain to playuh online games together and that can beuma great way of connecting because in away people don’t go to the lonelinessclubpeople combat loneliness by doing thingsthat they findinteresting and fun and meaningful andabsolutely game playing can be one ofthe ways in which people canstay in touch with each other comingback to adolescence before weleave that because like sorry i drew youall the way back to the other end of thespectrum there for a minute i want toask our otherum panelists about anything inparticular that you’reseeing uh in terms of risk factors foradolescentsand risk of uh loneliness or socialisolationum during the pandemic uh ruth i don’tknow ifuh if a friendship bench uh focuses onthat demographicuh we do soyeah thank you we do focus on thatdemographic but i i also must sayum in our context there is not as muchphysical isolation as maybe in yourcountriesum i think it’s just it’s just notpossible for peoplewho live in a township kind of scenariototo be locked up at home and people haveto go out and get waterpeople have to go out and get foodpeople have to somehow struggle fortheirhand-to-mouth job in a day um soso i don’t see that as a point um what isee in in zimbabwe though is that forinstance school hasn’t really happenedfornow almost six months for a lot ofpeople and i have heard from kenya forinstance that they have just saidthe whole school year is written offeverybody has to repeat the school yearso i am i see a lot of children playingon the streets i see a lot of activityumi’m not worried about children nothaving social connectionsin our context and i suppose any or manyotherlow and middle income countries um whati dosee though is if children see theirparents struggle extremely because ofthethe effects of the covet and thebreakdown ofsocio-economic networks and stuff umthat children will suffer from that andum we already have high levels ofinterpersonal violence happening in oursetting and and this isand i like i think we get data from allover the world that this is happeningmore and more and i thinkthat’s um that’s that’s an issue that’sthat definitely is a problem if peoplelack coping mechanisms because they justhave never been trainedthem and they’re now put in intosituations wherethe fear of something invisiblechronic is just constantly around themwhich our brains are not madefor that will that will seek some wayout you knowand then um aggression is one way andbrittany you you describe that alsoquite well umhow people will will show emotions whichis good in a way but again if that’s notchanneled in the right way can bedestructive we are really living througha massive global social experiment thati think will take years to reallyunpack and understand we’re coming up ontime so i want to justgive dan an opportunity to speak againand then brittany will give you the lastwordparticular focus on young people riskfactorsand opportunities for young peopleduring a time when their lives areso disrupted dan i’ll i’llstart with you and then we’ll go tobrittany yesso what this is slightly tangential buti think it’s really importantum it’sto to take some time to do an internalinventory to knowwhat you’re good at what you’re likewhat you like to doand and what your your gifts are whatwhatan outlet for those are and also takingstock of your socialcircle we know that if your three bestfriends areobese and unhealthy there’s 150 percentbetter chance that you’ll be overweightuh alcohol use um drug use and evenloneliness is contagiousso this when we’re imploding in ourhomesum it’s a a ideal opportunity to umuh to take that that inventory on bothpurpose and yoursocial network and by the way i was alittle hasty at writing off technologyi do think technology can work i justthink the most immediate answerright now at scale is looking to ourbuilt environmentyeah well certainly the answer lies inin umin in that blend um brittany um just thelast wordum uh since we’re really running out oftime i would just love any thoughts thatyou have particularly aroundyounger generations of course which youare part ofand and uh andand the uh and the and the and the risksand the and the opportunities there andunfortunately ihave to ask you to leave it keep itpretty short yesum so i’ll just say this quick thingthat gave me a lot of hopei’ve been doing some organizing in thelast few weeks around the case of a 15year old black girl named gracethat’s our pseudonym who was locked upin michigan she was on probation fromlate2019 and then when the pandemic hitshe has a disability she has adhd andshe wasn’t doing her homeworkand that was a condition of herprobation so a judge locked her up andput her in a facility a juvenilefacility in the middle of a pandemicwhichwas against all of you know the sort ofpractices thatthat medical professionals hadrecommended there in michigan so therehad been a groundswelluh propublica reported on it and then wewe did activism and organizingthis week she was she was released twoweeks ago and then taken off ofprobationthis week and i had a chance to meetwith the two 17 year old black girlsthatdid a bunch of organizing on her behalfand they were super inspiringbut what we just need to be reminded ofis that young people are having a rangeof responses to what it means to be inthe housefor some young people it’s a breath offresh air particularly if they weredealing with bullying and socialisolationin school for kids who really foundtheir communitiesat school being pulled out of thosecommunities has been veryincredibly hard for them to deal withand many of them have like gone back todoing sports even though it has beenum again you know not good for theirhealth uh to do that because they’redeeply in need of social connectionbut there are broader structuralconstraints when people are dealing withloneliness and dealing with isolationand disruption of routineand when we’re talking about black andbrown youth sometimes what that means isthat they have social consequences thataregenerationally far-reaching andtraumatic so we do have to think abouthow to give young people the tools tostay connectedin ways that feel life-giving for thembecause it isn’tfor adults where they can simply adjustand figure you knowprocess and figure out what they needthey don’t have the same tools we haveand so we have to advocate for them buti’m very happy thatwe use technology we used instagram weusedback channel old school organizing andwe used a letter writing campaign forgracein order to help her to get free and tohelp young women who organized on herbehalf found their voiceand i think that that story illustratesall the wonderful things about whattechnology can do for usbut also reminds us that it hasfundamental limitationsand that as dan pointed out earlierwe’ve got to think about technology as aconduit to connectionand not merely as the me the sole meansof connectionbrittany i could not have scripted amore perfect finale for this umsession that was absolutely spot onthank you so much to you thank you torobin and ruth and dan thank you to uhfacebook for being such great partnersand we’ll see uh look for a recording ofthis later onum aspen digital twitter feed and ourreport coming out later thanks very mucheverybody bye-bye
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