#114 Noreena Hertz: The Crisis of Loneliness

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/33ff440ce0ef3183

One of the positives that has come out of our sharet experience is
is that we are talking about loneliness.
much more today than we were in the past. And we should be, because
uh the scale at which it's affecting us
Is
Immense
Rich, poor, young, old, male, female.
Are lonely people.
And and of course
The
East as well as the West has been becoming
Mo
uh neoliberal.
More individualism.
Molenines.
More neoliberalism, more loneliness, and um
The West doesn't have the monopoly now either.
Welcome to the Knowledge Project. I'm your host, Shane Parrish.
This podcast sharpens your mind by helping you master the best of what other people have already figured out.
If you're listening to this, you're not currently a supporting member.
If you'd like special member only episodes, access before anybody else, transcripts and other member only content, you can join at fs.blog slash podcast.
Check out the show notes for a link.
Today I'm speaking with Nerena Hertz, who's been named by Vogue as one of the most inspiring women and called by other outlets one of the world's leading thinkers.
This episode is about coming together in a world that's falling apart.
We talk about loneliness, what it is, how to recognize it.
The health implications.
The shame around admitting it.
and what we can do about it for ourselves, our friends, our community, and our kids.
It's time to listen.
And learn.
How is it you came to write about loneliness?
Yes, it wasn't the most obvious topic for an economist, but what happened was
I was teaching at university, I'd been teaching for many years and
I was very struck by the fact that an increasing number of my students were coming into my office in office hours.
and confiding in me how lonely and isolated they felt,
And this was a new phenomenon. I'd been
teaching university for over a decade and I hadn't seen this before.
And the other thing I've noticed with my students was when I was assigning them group assignments
Increing numbers.
seem to find it quite challenging to interact in person face to face.
And I actually raised it with a colleague who runs one of America's most prestigious universities, and he said to me
We're seeing exactly the same thing here. In fact, it's so bad here that we're having to run remedial how to read a face in real life classes.
for our incoming students because they're spending so much time on their screens.
That when they're face to face
they're finding it really hard to interact. So
thought gosh, this is interesting. At the same time in my academic research
I was looking at
at the rise of right wing populism across the globe. And I wanted to better understand the drivers for it.
Um
Economic drivers for sure, but also
w were there emotional drivers for it as well. And as I started interviewing right wing populers
in France, in Germany, Trump voters in the United States
What came across time and time again from their stories was how lonely and disconnected they felt.
So I thought okay, loneliness playing out in this political sense too.
And then the third thing, and these things were all happening at roughly the same time, which is uh which was kind of like the stars aligning, telling me I had to do this book. Um, the third reason was that
I had bought an Alexa.
And I apologize in advance if
You have one and it's gone off now. And I I noticed how
Attached, I was increasingly feeling.
To my Alexa.
And it got me thinking about
what I've come to call the loneliness economy, and whole economy that has sprung up
to alleviate.
the loneliness that we feel our collective state of disconnection and isolation. And it was those three things really together.
my students being so lonely,'cause when when we think of loneliness we often think of it of it being something
That's mainly the elderly, but
Three in five.
eighteen to thirty four year olds feel lonely often or always three in five, one in five millennials
don't have a single friend. So loneliness real epidemic amongst the young.
The rise of right wing populism
making me kind of think about how loneliness was shaping our world, not only our interactions.
And then I was really intrigued by the fact that the market had stepped in or was stepping in to address this. And what did that mean?
You can also be lonely in a marriage or in a relationship. What's the difference between being alone and sort of feeling alone?
That's a great question, and you're absolutely right. There's probably nothing more lonely than being in a

Or a bad marriage. Um
Being lonely, the
has a sense of powerlessness attached to it.
It's a sense uh you lack agency, it's about wanting.
To feel connected to
Typically we think of loneliness as being wanting to feel connected to friends and family, but I actually broaden it to include also feeling.
wanting to feel connected to your government, wanting to feel connected to your employer.
So loneliness for me is about feeling
disconnected in a much more existential state about
Feeling the
You're not cared for, that you're not
supported, whether it is by those closest to you, but also whether it's by your government or your workplace. And is it technology that's causing us to feel lonely, or do we go to technology because we feel lonely and we we seek out sort of technology as a way to feel connected or find people like us?
So when I started my research I was
agnostic about the role that technology and social media played in today's loneliness crisis. But the more I dug into the academic literature, and there's by now of course a vast body of this,
The more I came to believe that technology was
Net a problem.
Here.
Up until about a year and a half ago, it was hard to actually establish definitively
Whether
It was just
Correlation.
That
people who were lonely were spending more time, for example, on social media.
Um or was it causative?
And there was a landmark study that was carried out by Stanford University about a year and a half ago, a real gold stand of a of a study where they had three thousand um participants, fifteen hundred in a control group, and the other fifteen hundred
were expressly charged
To go off.
In this case Facebook.
The results were very clear. The group who went off Facebook for two months were significantly.
Less lonely.
significantly happier.
and interestingly spent significantly more time
doing things in person.
with friends and family, so it wasn't that they just migrated
um onto um other platforms. And since then there have been a few other studies which have supported this, saying that showing that social media
Actually
Makes people feel
more lonely, but e even our devices
play a part here. We've all done it. We've all been
in a room with our partner.
or our family, heads and our fans, not even really hearing them.
um not present with them. And there was a study
which where they put a smartphone on a table between the couple, even when the smartphone was turned off, even when neither person was touching the smartphone.
The couple felt less empathetic towards each other,
and less connected. And so there's lots and lots of research on
why technology
N
Is making us feel
less connected to each other, although I'm actually quite optimistic about the role that
social robots
And um
virtual assistants will be able to play
In alleviating loneliness.
And in my research I've kind of looked into this a lot, and one example is
uh an Israeli startup. It's a company called LEQ. They have a social robot specifically designed uh for elderly people.
And
During the heights of the Covid pandemic, they shipped thousands of these um LEQ robots.
to the United States and the stories of um people who are
Hold up.
Isolating, self isolated, and
Saying
I would be feeling so lonely if I hadn't found a companion in my LEQ.
And w and of course we know from Japan where this has been going on for much longer that people can be really become very attached to their robot friends and carers, even even knitting bonnets for them in elderly people's homes. So it doesn't it doesn't mean that we need to
have a relationship with people to feel less lonely.
Go deeper on that.
So
That's
A very interesting and important question.
How I see it is that
On an individual level.
Social robots technology can help alleviate our loneliness, for sure.
But what does this mean for society? Because if we
Cheers.
to hang out with our Alexa.
Rather than
Alexis.
If we um choose to spend time with L EQ
Rather than Eliane.
We're n we're not going to invest in
our human well the danger is we won't invest in our human relationships. Moreover,
The danger is that we'll get very used to having relationships with
Essentially.
servants who
do what we want and laugh at our jokes and
are much more submissive than any human relationship would be. So
Whilst I do say it is it
Cure for loneliness at an individual level, I do worry about the ramifications for society.
Should we wish to migrate our friendships,
to um social robots and virtual assistants.
I I wanna come later to a little bit of the implications of loneliness on society with or without robots, but it seems like one of the major problems with loneliness is that there's so much shame in admitting that you're lonely. Why is that?
There is a stigma.
Um it's
I'd say especially nowadays when
popularity when the market for popularity has never been more visible and again
Social media clearly playing a role.
in that it's you know, you scroll on your feeds and everyone looks like they have more friends than you and is having more fun than you and is more popular than you. And so it's easy to believe that others are more popular than you and there's something that feels quite shameful about feeling
Like no one wants to be your friend.
So I think there is a stigma. I do think something
one of the positives that has come out of the our shared COVID experience
is that we are talking about loneliness.
much more today than we were in the past. And we should be, because
uh the scale at which it's affecting us, um, collectively is
Immense, rich, poor, young, old, male, female.
Are lonely people
Is this a Western Eastern culture thing too? Like does this transfer across all these cultures? It does.
Even though
the more individualistic society
Is
The
Lonelier.
It's likely to be.
And
Also, uh I argue that
the neo liberal capitalist mindset, so the dog eat dog
Ah me first
self interest first mindset.
Is also
Inaimical.
ultimately to a world in which we
Feel.
connected to each other and feel part of a community.
Um
And and of course
The
East as well as the West has been becoming
No
uh neoliberal.
and more individualistic. You even see this in pop song lyrics. So there were studies done with pop song lyrics which show that in general in the West pop song lyrics from the nineteen eighties
to today.
have become increasingly individualistic with words like we us and are supplanted by words like
I mean my
And this is even going on in China, fascinatingly, where you're seeing um a lag, but you're also seeing this trend. So
More individualism.
Molenines.
more neoliberalism, more loneliness, and um
The West doesn't have the monopoly now either.
That's really interesting to think about how how this will play out and I mean we can anticipate some of the consequences. I I just want to go back a little bit more to the individual and acknowledging loneliness. And I was talking to a friend about this and
You know, she said simple things like filling out a form made her feel lonely when it asked like who's your emergency contact or who's your next of kin.
What's your response to that? I think
We have come to see
The family
Uh
as the all important support network in our lives
And I would argue that we really need to
redefine support networks for the twenty first century so that friendship networks
Yeah, are viewed as meaningful.
As
ones where we have blood ties.
And that ideally we should be moving
To um
t to to a whole system where by this whereby we're able to invest in our friendships
As much as
in our blood relationships and
You know
Wouldn't it be fantastic if at work the
People
Didn't just have
Mothers.
And fathers increasingly now
Getting
um paternity and maternity pay when they have children, but also if people were allowed
Not only to take off paid time to care for an elderly relative, and some companies are pioneering this, but
Um
But also if you were able to take time off to help out a friend in need.
Um
Help out a neighbor, do something for your community.
So I think part of our
challenge and part of the reason your friend probably felt so lonely is because
She
You don't really think I w
I'll put down my friend as a next of kin or as my emergency contact, and yet
And yet how great would it be if we could, but of course
In order to do that, it's not just about
companies doing things, it's also about us prioritising our friendships more ourselves and
It's hard to do that because we're
Many of us are so busy.
Working all hours.
so overstretched and
Care takes time, but
sí
Nurture relationships don't just happen on the fly. So
We're partly culpable, of course, too. I like to think it is, you know, part of real wealth is actually the the people around you, the good company that you have around you. You can buy company, but you can't buy good company.
And to have good company you have to invest in it. You have to constantly water the grass between you and them.
And I think that it it's increasingly hard to do that when we feel
over stimulated, over busy, we don't reach out. And the longer you don't reach out, the more it becomes harder to reach out. And then it just sort of spirals from there.
Uh uh definitely. I I was just going to build upon that'cause I I I s I so agree with what you're saying and
And it it's also about nurturing our local
environments and our local neighbourhoods. And this is something that
really, as I was researching my book, it became increasingly clear to me that my
kind of conception of myself as a global citizen, you know, as the kind of person who was on a plane every couple of weeks and
flanger and the world and quite proud really of how unrooted I was
Um, as I was
writing this book and researching it.
I came to realise the importance of our local neighborhoods in a way that I hadn't really realized before. And of course, being forced to spend
um most of um a big chunk of time due to Covid in my local neighbourhood, I came to realise
This even more and
And so in the same way that we have to nurture our friendships, I think we have to nurture our local neighbourhoods.
two, and that's really important moving forward. You know, whether it's
really committing to sharp at our local
Shops.
Um
And trading off that
Convenience.
That yes we can get from
Online retailers.
for the community that needs nurturing.
Um spot.
showing up at community events if they exist in our areas or if not actually initiating them. It's about taking that pause as you're walking down the street and actually saying hello
to the person who's walking their dog and not just blinked headphones on rushing by.
Um so much weak.
can do.
Once we're once we're conscious of it. And and it also pays off. There's research that shows that even a
Thirty second exchange in a cafe.
with um the server.
can make a huge difference to how connected you feel to others.
And how lonely you feel or otherwise. So it doesn't
only have to be deep interactions with your friends. Even these what I call micro exchanges can make a huge difference to how we feel.
I think that's a really important aspect to the mosaic of life that many of us don't appreciate until it's it's too late. It's one of those things where you you develop this hindsight that you should have been more more involved in your community.
uh but you don't it's really hard to see that in foresight, but it is a it's an aspect that connects you to something larger than yourself. And I think that's part of what
what m we miss these days in a non political way is just being connected to our neighbors, our community, being a part of that community together.
Yes, and virtual you know, we've been doing our best to do this virtually, of course.
And yet
I think after months of
That being the only way we often could connect.
I think there is a collective sense that it's
Not as good.
It's not as good as the face to face in person interactions. And even though it's wonderful that I'm I'm in London and you're in Otter and we're speaking and chatting and even looking at each other on screen as we're doing so, it's not the same as if we were in the room together.
Is there a particular way that we can use technology to better connect with people that we we're not doing or exploring? Part of the challenge actually is the latency effect of kind of slow internet
speeds and as technology gets better, um
I think I think some of the the jerkiness of our Zoom calls and the you know, which just kind of doesn't help us our brains be able to synchronise with each other, which
they need to do in order to feel empathetic and to connected. So some of it is to do with just really something as sim simple as our
Internet connection speed.
But
But I think the way that um
The way that
these s the way our screens are currently designed and if there are people listening who are in this space, maybe you can fix this
We don't look at each other when we're on Zoom typically. Um
You know, our eye lines aren't looking at each other because of the way it's set up. And in fact, all too often we're distracted by the pictures of ourselves on our screen, turning our interaction as a kind of quasi performative one in which we're
actor stroke participants all at once. And so so I think there are some ways maybe that that that technology
Could be tweaked and
And and I think also
No, when we have choices in a world in which um our choice of how we interact has been seriously constrained over
um in recent times. But where we have choices I think is also about remembering
Do choose to meet someone face to face if you if you can, and and if it's in a socially distanced way, and if that's possible, you make that choice.
'Cause it's actually really good.
What are some of the health implications on the individual? I I noticed in your book, I think you said that it's like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day or a week or something, you know, the the equivalent impact on your
overall health. Talk to me about some of the other health implications and why that is.
So we think of loneliness often as being something that affects our mental health only, and of course it does. Loneliness is linked to increased levels of anxiety, depression, stress.
But
What's less known is that it also really seriously affects our physical health. And why this is, is because when we're lonely what happens is
Um essentially we go into fight or flight mode.
Uh blood pressure.
goes up, our levels of cortisol, our stress levels in our body go up.
Our cholesterol levels also go up.
And it's a reaction which is a kind of evolutionary reaction.
Which
Absolutely makes sense in that it's all these physiological features telling us that
Get connected.
go to a tribe, find a tribe, hunt with others, gather with others. So it's all these solid evolutionary reasons. The trouble is
When we don't
Act upon them.
We remain in this state of high alert.
For a sustained period, it's like if you were driving your car
Put it in first.
gear, that's the right thing to do initially, but stay in first gear for a long time, well, that's terrible for your engine. And that's what protracted periods of loneliness are doing to us. And that's why
leanliness, it turns out, is
If you're lonely.
thirty percent more likely to die prematurely than
Then if you're not
And what's worrying is that even relatively short periods of loneliness
So even periods of loneliness.
Under two years.
researchers have found can significantly
increase your likelihood of an early death. Oh that's so interesting. The way that you you phrase that made me think of something w we I come across uh I'm sure most people come across this
online sort of thing where single people are more likely to die earlier than
married people, but maybe it's really not single versus married, and it's really just the the how lonely your pr your perception of loneliness
It is. You can be single and have a huge friend network and not feel lonely at all. And you can be married and feel lonely
In that marriage, and I wonder if you have any comments on that.
Yeah, I think I think that's I think that
absolutely makes sense. And
The research on
People who live on their own.
does show that if you live on your own of course not everyone who lives on their own is lonely. I lived on my own for many years and knew how to
great um network and s strong support system. But um
People who live on their own
on average are ten percent likelier to feel lonely than people who don't. So I think
Bad relationships and living on your own, you're more
Likely.
to feel lonely, but of course, in either case, you can find companionship and connection.
Through friendships.
through your workplace
True.
Membership of a trade union, membership of a church. I mean
Part of the reason, of course, we're lonelier today is
than we were in the past, it's just that we do less with each other less than we are than we did before. So we
do go to church less, we are less likely to be members of a trade union, we go less to parent teacher association meetings, all these things that typically brought us together.
And no longer do.
How does it affect our our role in democracy and maybe the trade off between self interest and community?
So
I think democracy is affected on a number of fronts by the growing loneliness crisis.
Firstly, these micro exchanges, these interactions we have with people who
Different to us.
people of so different socio economic groups, the kind of interactions we'd have day to day, the kind of interactions we'd have, of course, in
shared public spaces, public parks
public libraries.
We're having increasingly
Less.

And those exchanges don't only make us feel less lonely, but I argue that they're also ways that we practise democracy.
Even if you're in the supermarket wheeling your troley
Rather than
Ordering your food.
Online.
even that interacting interaction in a supermarket, it's forcing you to
Negotiate.
moving the trolley, pass by somebody.
move around them. These are actually important skills. Skills about
Enabling other people to get on with their lives, skills around respecting other people, skill around recognizing other people.
And so one of the reasons that
Democracy is being challenged in today's lonely century and
is because we're just doing less with other people.
Especially with people who
different to us. And so we're
We're not practicing also things like
respecting others' ideas when they're different to ours. Really important for inclusive democracy, of course. But the other reason why
loneliness is threatening democracy is because of the link between
Leniness and populism that my research has
kind of made really
Clear.
Populism, whether on the right or on the left.
In in increasing numbers, people are seeking feeling lonely, feeling marginalized, feeling disconnected from each other, but also from the government.
craving connection and finding this community.
In
populist politicians.
Many of his tenants are
Antithetical to an inclusive democracy.
One of the things you said about going through the grocery store that sort of struck me is that we're just increasingly insulated from people who are different than us.
So if we're in our house and we're ordering food and it's delivered, we we don't see the people making the food. We don't have to walk by anybody who might be less fortunate than us or homeless or begging for money or living in a different circumstance than us. We we effectively are insulating ourselves in these gidda communities.
And the more the less socioeconomically diverse, the less diverse in every sort of way, less cognitively diverse, less ethnically diverse these communities are, the more that we see people that are sort of just like us. And I think that that's really dangerous.
For
not only not empathizing with the rest of the world, but not empathizing with our community and not being in touch with what's going on in the world.
Absolutely. And uh I have a whole chapter in my book which looks at the architecture of exclusion, really at the physical architecture of exclusion. Because some of these things that you're talking about, the fact that we don't see other people, it's because cities are increasingly designed to keep
those deemed undesirable out
W we've seen a real rise in what we might call
hostile architecture in recent years. Benches, for example, designed
so that they're sloping, um so that the skateboarding kid can't
can't skateboard on them and the homeless person can't sleep on them. But of course also the place then that the elderly woman can't sit on
and pass the day chatting to passers by in the street.
Um, there's even cases in shopping malls in the United Kingdom where in order to keep out undesirable youths of
um they emit a very high sonic
pitch sound, which only young people can hear, a very unpleasant sound. It's yes, there's something that happens to our ear to the cells in our ears, I learnt, um, as we get older, which means that there are very high pitched horrible sounds that only young people can learn. They also put um
special lights um in
the bathrooms of these malls which expose teenage acne so that young people won't want to spend time there. There is a danger that we are really creating um and of course gated communities increasing numbers of
um, exclusive communities, um, even ones that are ostensibly set up to have some elements of social housing where
those on low income sh literally
Um excluded.
examples in my books from the playgrounds.
From playing from their kids playing in the playgrounds that the richer inhabitants have.
And if we don't
connect with people who are different to us, if we don't spend time with people who are different to us.
Of course we're going to feel
be increasingly siloed.
as a society and of course we're going to be increasingly unable to bridge
across communities. Which is why
One of the things I'm really passionate about and talk about a lot in the book is
Ways that we can come together.
As a society.
And as individuals. And there are so many
inspiring things out there in the world that we can replicate. There was a wonderful initiative done by a German newspaper D Seit.
Journalists got very concerned about the growing
political divide in Germany, the growing sense of fragmentation.
And
they decided to initiate this scheme called Deutschland Sprich, Germany speaks
Well
It was like a political tinder was what they called it in house, where basically they match up people with radically different political points of view. So people who were really anti Europe met up with people who were really pro um, they matched with people who were pro-Europe, people who were anti immigrants, they matched with
um asylum seekers.
Of course it was an opt in scheme, but basically thousands of people across Germany took part
And they met up all across the country. All they had to do was agree to meet up for two hours in a public space, in cafes, in bars, in beer gardens. What was remarkable, after just two hours
People's conceptions of each other radically changed.
They saw this person who they previously had deemed to be a
Very different to them, but
to be actually much more similar to them than they realized they were aware of all their shared concerns, interests, often shared thoughts around
family. They said that they'd be much more willing to include a person like that in their social group. That was after just

other kind of bigger schemes that have taken place, um, government led
Have um
Letter.
kind of more material, longer lasting.
um more entrenched results, whether it's
Rwandus.
Practice of
Imagina where
In order to heal the terrible
scars after the terrible genocides. The government initiated a programme where once a month
Everyone has to
Come together in the community and volunteer.
do voluntary work together. And it's a process that is seen as
Having played a huge role.
role in reconciling the society. In France, President Macron has trialed
Civic service.
for community service for young people.
He put did a pilot project.
fifteen to sixteen year old boys, they live together.
Um
work together, did voluntary work together, had to negotiate
No, who's gonna do the meals, who's gonna take out the trash, all these things, people from vastly different socioeconomic groups.
made a huge difference to how they felt.
about each other when the project ended. There are so many ways we could engineer
um more interactions between people different trust but so important
is of course that we protect these shared public spaces where people can come together, like libraries, like community centers, like youth clubs, places that really since 2008 across the globe have seen their funds slashed dramatically.
We're never going to find
ground to share if there aren't physical spaces that we share.
That's a great way to sort of connect us perhaps to people that are different from us and let us see the full spectrum of society that we are.
just a part of a a spec in, if you will.
Um, but what can we do about loneliness? Like what are what are the remedies for
on the individual level and then maybe from a policy perspective that
We can choose to explore for addressing that.
start with putting our phones down more.
uh be more present with those around us. So when we're actually physic with someone.
actually be with them, be in the moment with them.
support our local communities, our local environments. If there are if there is a local library, even if you don't even if you can afford to buy your own books, show up every so often at your local library event, you know, be part of your community.
We can value kindness more.
in each other.
Traits like competitiveness,
Determination
uh focus these are the kind of traits that
have really been valorized in recent years. But when you think about traits like kindness, caring for each other, being more collaborative, these aren't really traits that we've
really respected perhaps even in each other. So really recognizing the importance of these, valuing these more, I think is so important, whether it is in your co-worker, your friend, your partner, your employee.
I think we can also do a much better job at actively reaching out to those in our own networks who we think might be lonely.
Um
No, really
Think about it, especially in these more challenging
Times is there someone who might be feeling lonely, prioritize them on your
Cool sheet.
Pick up the phone do give them a call or at least
A text.
Volunteering?
is a way that we actually can feel less lonely ourselves. So it's a win-win. We can help others, um, but also feel less lonely and it's got a great health benefit. Research has shown that people who
Never do anything for others.
die earlier than people who do help others.
So health benefit too. So lots that we can do as individuals.
Lots that employers can do too.
For sure. Um, as they think about how to rebuild
The office post pandemic
I mean, I think putting alleviation of loneliness
It's really critical. Forty percent of office workers feel lonely at work. One in five
Um
adults in the US say that they don't have a single
Friend at work. This comes
Not only at a
told to their own mental health and physical health, but it also has a huge business cost. We know that lonely employees are much less productive.
much less engaged, much more likely.
So really put
Alleviating loneliness of the heart
Of a corporate mission?
Moving forward and there's so many
no easy things that companies can do from
getting people to eat together once we're back in the office.
Um
from ditching the open plan office once we're back in the office, surprisingly open plan office is
um actually make people
really socially withdraw, maybe not that surprisingly, so panoptic and um so noisy, people tend to withdraw, communicate more on email.
And a lot the governments can do too, whether it is about investing in the infrastructure of community.
Whether it is about
Putting alleviation of loneliness actually in
at the heart of their economic mission, as Jacinda Ardem, the um Prime Minister of New Zealand, has done. She's put alleviating loneliness and other metrics of wellbeing right at the heart
of the country's economic
policy. So not only looking at metrics relating to GDP, but also to alleviation of loneliness and enhanced
Well being.
I don't see
helping us c be able to care more for others.
Whether it is our friends
Or our family.
helping us to be able to do that, to ha be able to take out the time to do that.
That's really important too. W what are the signs as a parent that your your teen or your child might be feeling lonely and then what are the steps that you can do to help them?
So
It's important firstly to recognize that there's a really good chance that your child is feeling lonely because
We know that the numbers are
Yeah, over sixty percent of young people are feeling lonely.
Pretty much all of the time. We also know that periods of lockdown and isolation have exacerbated this, particularly amongst the young.
Think about their social media usage. Um this is one of the interesting insights that
a head teacher brought to my attention, he said, look, it wasn't that children weren't excluded in the past.
They were, but the difference is now
That whereas in the past an adult in a child's life
could typically see this was going on, so you'd see your child wasn't being invited out.
with others. So a teacher would see a child not being asked to sit with others
at school today because so much of their social lives is happening.
on their phones.
On their screens.
The adult in their lives.
often isn't aware that they're not being invited to things and being excluded. So you know be aware that this might be going on.
Um and there
Um
Terrible, terribly poignant stories of
from teenagers who I interviewed one
Peter, a fourteen year old boy.
Tell me about how
He would post um on Instagram and then wait, wait, wait, hoping for somebody to like his post, and when they didn't, asking himself, what am I doing wrong and saying how invisible he felt all Claudia, his friends had told her that they weren't going out after school and then she was scrolling on her feeds and saw them going out without her.
Another where a parent tell me that their kid came home and everyone was sitting
in the times when everyone was still sitting round with each other, but they were sitting round together
And everyone's phones pinged with a WhatsApp message.
um inviting them to something and their kids' phone didn't ping and she had to pretend that it had pinged. So I think being aware of being aware of that, having these conversations with them, destigmatising loneliness within
You're in household
And then also and then encouraging
Your kid.
to find a community around the things that they're genuinely interested in and and passionate about. And this isn't only kids who should do this. We all should be doing it. I mean I, for example
I'm part of a weekly improv group.
Um, so every week and it's something I try and ring fence in my diary, however busy I am, however much work's going on, I try and ring fence this two hours where I'm gonna meet up with my improv friends during the pandemic. We migrated to Zoom, not as good, but better than nothing for sure. So
you know, does your kid have something they're interested in, whether it's music or drama or film making or
chess or reading and they could find some like minded people to interact with too.
I'm curious as to what lessons you've learned from improv that you've applied outside of your classes.
So one of the very basic rules in improv is yes and. So you build upon a scene. So if
You say to me
Hi, Norina.
Here's a present for you.
I would say
Yes, I
And it's a box of balloons. And you would say yes, it's a
box of balloons with sprinkles on them. So you're you're always building upon it. So that's just kind of it's a pretty good lesson um for conversations.
for interactions for group for group discussions.
I think improv is also for me really about being in the moment. It's probably the most zen thing I can do I do in my life. It's the most mindful.
'Cause you your attention is really focused on the other person. It really helps you be a better
Listener
and be in the moment. So I think improv
Helps me listen better and also be more now.

Well thank you very much, Rita. This has been a great conversation.
I've really enjoyed it. You're very welcome to join my improv group virtually whilst we're doing it. I might take you up on that.


Thank you, five shame.
Hey, one more thing before we say goodbye.
The Knowledge Project is produced by the team at Furnham Street.
I wanna make this the best podcast you've listened to, and I'd love to get your feedback.
If you have comments, ideas for future shows or topics, or just feedback in general, you can email me at shanefs.blog or follow me on Twitter at ShaneAParish.
You can learn more about the show and find past episodes at fs.blog slash podcast.
If you want a transcript of this episode, go to fs.blog slash tribe and join our learning community.
If you found this episode valuable, share it online with the hashtag The KnowledgeProject or leave a review.
Until the next episode.