#114 Noreena Hertz: The Crisis of Loneliness

Acclaimed economist and author Noreena Hertz breaks down the world’s loneliness crisis, and what it means for the well-being of our minds, bodies, economies and democratic institutions. In this episode we define loneliness and how to recognize it, its mental and physical health implications, the shame around admitting you’re lonely, what we can do to help alleviate the crisis for ourselves and our kids, and so much more. Hertz has been an Honorary Professor at the Institute for Global Prosperity at University College London since 2014 and she’s the author of five books, including the 2020 release The Lonely Century: Coming Together in a World that's Pulling Apart. -- Want even more? Members get early access, hand-edited transcripts, member-only episodes, and so much more. Learn more here: https://fs.blog/membership/ Every Sunday our Brain Food newsletter shares timeless insights and ideas that you can use at work and home. Add it to your inbox: https://fs.blog/newsletter/ Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  One of the positives that has come out of 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 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 more neoliberal, more individualism, more loneliness, more neoliberalism, more loneliness. And the West doesn't have the monopoly now neither.

• 0:54Shane Parrish?

  Welcome to The Knowledge Project. I'm your host, Shane Parrish. This podcast sharpens your mind by helping you master the best 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/podcast. Check out the show notes for a link. Today, I'm speaking with Narina 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

• 1:37Shane Parrish?

  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.

• 1:56Shane Parrish?

  How is it you came to write about loneliness?

• 1:58Speaker 00

  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 at 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, increasing numbers seemed 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

• 2:41Speaker 00

  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 I thought, gosh, this is interesting. At the same time, in my academic research, I was looking at the rise of right wing populism across the globe. And I wanted to better understand the drivers for it. Economic drivers for sure, but also were there emotional drivers for it as well? And as I started interviewing right wing populist voters

• 3:26Speaker 00

  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, which was kind of like the stars aligning, telling me I had to do this book. 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.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  And whole economy that has sprung up to alleviate the loneliness that we feel, our collective state of disconnection and isolation. It was those three things really together. My students being so lonely, because when we think of loneliness, we often think 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, a 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.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  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?

• 4:57Shane Parrish?

  You can also be lonely in a marriage or in a relationship. What's the difference between being alone and sort of feeling alone?

• 5:05Speaker 00

  That's a great question. And you're absolutely right. There's probably nothing more lonely than being in a bad relationship or or a bad marriage. Um. Being lonely has a sense of powerlessness attached to it. It's a sense, you lack agency. It's about wanting to feel connected. 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 that

• 5:47Speaker 00

  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.

• 5:55Shane Parrish?

  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?

• 6:07Speaker 00

  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.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  A real gold standard of a study where they had three thousand 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 and since then, there've 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.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  We've all done it. We've all been in a room with our partner or our family, heads on our phones, 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 a 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 net is making us feel less connected to each other, although I'm actually quite optimistic about the role that

• 8:14Speaker 00

  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 were holed up, isolating, self-isolated, saying, "I would be feeling so lonely if I hadn't found a companion in my LEQ." And we, and of course, we know from Japan,

• 8:59Speaker 00

  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.

• 9:09Shane Parrish?

  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.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  Here's your report.

• 9:48Speaker 04

  Oh, thanks, Jane. I wish I could hire someone just like you.

• 9:51Speaker 03

  Try LinkedIn Hiring Pro. It's more than a job board. It's like the recruiter you always wished you had. Hiring Pro uses real-time insights to match your role to LinkedIn's unique network of professionals and delivers a shortlist of best-fit candidates. You'll spend less time sorting applicants and more time talking to the right people.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  Let's do it. You're irreplaceable, Jane, but another you would be great.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Hire right the first time. Post your job for free on LinkedIn today at LinkedIn.com/quality.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  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.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  But what does this mean for society? Because if we choose to hang out with our Alexa rather than Alexis, if we um choose to spend time with Ellie Q rather than Ellie Anne, we're we're not going to invest in our human. There are dangers 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 see it as a cure for loneliness at an individual level,

• 11:16Speaker 00

  I do worry about the ramifications for society should we wish to migrate our friendships to um social robots and virtual assistants.

• 11:26Shane Parrish?

  I I want to 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?

• 11:39Speaker 00

  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

• 12:19Speaker 00

  is that we are talking about loneliness much more today than we were in the past. And we should be because the scale at which it's affecting us collectively is immense. Rich, poor, young, old, male, female.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Are lonely people.

• 12:39Shane Parrish?

  Is this a Western Eastern culture thing too? Like, does this transfer across all these cultures?

• 12:44Speaker 00

  It does, even though the more individualistic society is the lonelier it's likely to be. And also, I argue that the neoliberal capitalist mindset, so the dog eat dog, me first, self-interest first mindset is also inimical ultimately to a world in which we feel connected to each other and feel part of a community. And of course, the East as well as the West has been becoming more neoliberal and more individualistic. You even see this in pop song lyrics.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  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 as an hour supplanted by words like I mean my. And this is even going on in China fascinatingly, where you're seeing a lag, but you're also seeing this trend. So more individualism, more loneliness, more neoliberalism, more loneliness. And the West doesn't have the monopoly now on either.

• 13:57Shane Parrish?

  That's really interesting to think about how this will play out. And I mean, we can anticipate some of the consequences. 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 asks like, who's your emergency contact or who's your next of kin? What's your response to that?

• 14:21Speaker 00

  I think we have come to see the family as 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 are viewed as meaningful as ones where we have blood ties. And that ideally we should be moving to to a whole system 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 people didn't just have

• 15:07Speaker 00

  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 um but also if you were able to take time off to help out a friend in need. Um help out a neighbour, 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, oh, 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.

• 15:52Speaker 00

  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 to nurture, relationships don't just happen on the fly. So we're partly culpable, of course, too.

• 16:14Shane Parrish?

  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 overstimulated, 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.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  Uh definitely. I I was just going to build upon that because I I 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. Flying around 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 neighbourhoods

• 17:22Speaker 00

  in a way that I hadn't really realised 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 too. And that's really important moving forward, you know, whether it's really committing to shop 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. It's about showing up at community events if they exist in our areas

• 18:06Speaker 00

  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 blinkered, headphones on, rushing by. Um. So so much we 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.

• 18:49Shane Parrish?

  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 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.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  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 Ottawa 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.

• 19:49Shane Parrish?

  Is there a particular way that we can use technology to better connect with people that we were not doing or exploring?

• 19:56Speaker 00

  A 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 synchronize with each other, which they need to do in order to feel empathetic and connected. So some of it is to do with just really something as simple as our internet connection speed. But, but I think the way that, um, the way that these, the way our screens are currently designed, and if there are people listening who are in this space,

• 20:37Speaker 00

  maybe you can fix this. We don't look at each other when we're on Zoom typically.

• 20:43Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  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

• 20:59Shane Parrish?

  Yes.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  all at once. And so, so I think there are some ways maybe that, that that technology could be tweaked. And, and I think also, Now, when we have choices in a world in which our choice of how we interact has been seriously constrained over in recent times, but where we have choices, I think it's also about remembering, do choose to meet someone face to face if you, if you can, and if it's in a socially distanced way, and if that's possible, you make that choice, because it's actually really good.

• 21:30Shane Parrish?

  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.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  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, essentially we go into fight or flight mode. Our 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

• 22:29Speaker 00

  in that it's all these physiological features telling us, get connected, go to a tribe, find a tribe, hunt with others, gather with others. 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 loneliness, it turns out, is if you're lonely, 30% more likely to die prematurely.

• 23:11Speaker 00

  Than 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.

• 23:26Shane Parrish?

  Oh, that's so interesting. The way that you you phrase that made me think of something. 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 how lonely your 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 parish. And I wonder if you have any comments on that.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  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 had a great um network and strong support system. But um people who live on their own on average are 10% 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,

• 24:39Speaker 00

  through you, membership of a trade union, membership of a church. I mean, part of the reason, of course, we're lonelier today than we were in the past is just that we do less with each other, less than we 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.

• 25:02Shane Parrish?

  How does it affect our our role in democracy and maybe the trade off between self-interest and community?

• 25:08Speaker 00

  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 are different to us, people of so different socioeconomic 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 of those. And those exchanges don't only make us feel less lonely, but I argue that there are also ways that we practise democracy. Even if you're in the supermarket, wheeling your trolley rather than ordering your food online,

• 25:50Speaker 00

  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, skills around recognising other people. And so one of the reasons that democracy is being challenged in today's lonely century is because we're just doing less with other people, especially with people who are different to us. And so we're, we're not practising also things like respecting others' ideas when they're different to ours. Really important for inclusive democracy, of course.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  But the other reason why loneliness is threatening democracy is because of the link between loneliness and populism. That my research has kind of made really clear. Populism, whether on the right or on the left, in increasing numbers, people are seeking, feeling lonely, feeling marginalised, feeling disconnected from each other, but also from the government, craving connection and finding this community in populist politicians, many of whose tenants are antithetical to an inclusive democracy.

• 27:11Shane Parrish?

  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 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 effectively are insulating ourselves in these gated communities. And the more, the less socio-economically 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,

• 27:55Shane Parrish?

  but not empathizing with our community and not being in touch with what's going on in the world.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  Here's your report.

• 28:31Speaker 04

  Oh, thanks, Jane. I wish I could hire someone just like you.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  Try LinkedIn Hiring Pro. It's more than a job board. It's like the recruiter you always wished you had. Hiring Pro uses real-time insights to match your role to LinkedIn's unique network of professionals and delivers a shortlist of best-fit candidates. You'll spend less time sorting applicants and more time talking to the right people.

• 28:50Speaker 04

  Let's do it. You're irreplaceable, Jane, but another you would be great.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  Hire right the first time. Post your job for free on LinkedIn today at LinkedIn.com/quality.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  Absolutely. And 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. 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, 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 passersby in the street. Um, there's even cases in shopping malls in the United Kingdom

• 29:45Speaker 00

  where in order to keep out undesirable youths, 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, to the cells in our ears, I learnt. Um, as we get older, which mean 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,

• 30:26Speaker 00

  um, even ones that are ostensibly set up to have some elements of social housing, where those on low income literally, um, excluded examples in my books from the playgrounds, from playing, from their kids playing in the playgrounds that the richer inhabitants have.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 30:45Speaker 00

  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, Deed Site. Journalists got very concerned about the growing political divide in Germany,

• 31:29Speaker 00

  the growing sense of fragmentation. And they decided to initiate this scheme called Deutschlandsprich, Germany Speaks, where it was like a political Tinder, was what they called it in-house, where basically they matched 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,

• 32:09Speaker 00

  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 very different to them, to be actually much more similar to them than they realised. 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 two hours. Other kind of bigger schemes that have taken place, um, government-led, have um, led to kind of more material, longer-lasting, um, more entrenched results, whether it's Rwanda's practice of imiganda where

• 32:55Speaker 00

  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 ro- role in reconciling the society. In France, President Macron has trialled civic service for community service for young people. He put, did a pilot project, fifteen to sixteen-year-old boys, they lived together, um, worked together, did voluntary work together, had to negotiate,

• 33:35Speaker 00

  you know, who's going to do the meals, who's going to 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. And there are so many ways we could engineer um, more interactions between people of different trust. But so important is of course that we protect these shared public spaces where people can come together, like libraries, like community centres, like youth clubs, places that really since two thousand and eight 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.

• 34:15Shane Parrish?

  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 speck in, if you will. But what can we do about loneliness? 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?

• 34:40Speaker 00

  Start with putting our phones down more, be more present with those around us. So when we're actually physically 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, focus, these are the kind of traits that have really been valorized in recent years.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  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 coworker, 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. You know, really think about it, especially in these more challenging times. Is there someone who might be feeling lonely? Prioritize them on your call sheet, you know, pick up the phone, do give them a call or at least a text.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Volunteering is a way that we actually can feel less lonely ourselves. So it's a win-win. We can help others, but also feel less lonely and it's got a great health benefit. Researchers showing 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. As they think about how to rebuild the office post pandemic. And 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.

• 36:48Speaker 00

  This comes not only to toll to their own mental health and physical health, but it also has a huge business cost. We know that lonely employees much less productive, much less engaged, much more likely to leave a company. So really put alleviating loneliness at the heart of a corporate mission moving forward. And there's so many, you know, 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 offices um actually make people really socially withdraw. Maybe not that surprisingly, so panopticon, um so noisy, people tend to withdraw, communicate more on email.

• 37:33Speaker 00

  And a lot that governments can do too, whether it is about investing in the infrastructure of community, whether it is about putting alleviation of loneliness actually at the heart of their economic mission as Jacinda Ardern, 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 wellbeing. And also helping us be able to care more for others, whether it is our friends or our family. Helping us to be able to do that, to be able to take out the time to do that.

• 38:18Speaker 00

  That's really important too.

• 38:20Shane Parrish?

  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?

• 38:28Speaker 00

  So. It's important firstly to recognise that there's a really good chance that your child is feeling lonely because we know that the numbers are, you know, 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

• 39:11Speaker 00

  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 they're all terrible, terribly poignant stories of from teenagers who I interviewed. One Peter, a fourteen year old boy, told 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. Or Claudia, his friends had told her that they weren't going out after school and then she was scrolling on her beads and saw them going out without her.

• 39:57Speaker 00

  Or another where a parent told 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 kid's 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, de-stigmatising loneliness within your own household. And then also, and then encouraging your kid to find a community around the things that they're genuinely interested in and passionate about. 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.

• 40:39Speaker 00

  Um. So every week, and it's something I try and ring fence in my diary, however busy I am, however kind of 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 filmmaking or chess or reading, and they could find some like minded people to interact with too?

• 41:09Shane Parrish?

  I'm curious as to what lessons you've learned from improv that you've applied outside of your classes.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  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, Noreena, here's a present for you. I would say, yes, 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 always building upon it. So that's just kind of it's a pretty good lesson 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 most mindful.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  Because 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.

• 42:14Shane Parrish?

  Well, thank you very much, Dorina. This has been a great conversation.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  I've really enjoyed it. You're very welcome to join my improv group virtually whilst we're doing it.

• 42:24Shane Parrish?

  I might take you up on that.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  Thank you. Bye, Shane.

• 42:29Shane Parrish?

  Hey, one more thing before we say goodbye. The Knowledge Project is produced by the team at Fernham Street. I want to make this the best podcast you listen 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 [email protected] or follow me on Twitter at Shane A. Parrish. You can learn more about the show and find past episodes at fs.blog/podcast. If you want a transcript of this episode, go to fs.blog/tribe and join our learning community. If you found this episode valuable, share it online with the hashtag The Knowledge Project or leave a review. Until the next episode.