EXPLORING LONELINESS: THE HIDDEN EPIDEMIC

In this episode of Stories, Labels and Misconceptions with Val Barrett and Dr. Jeremy Anderson, we delve into the silent epidemic of loneliness. We discuss how factors like where you live, age, and even gender can influence feelings of loneliness. 

The conversation explores the role of societal changes, the fragmentation of communities, and the impact of technology on social connections. We also examine the psychological and health consequences of loneliness, the rising rates among younger generations, and effective social initiatives in places like Seoul, Korea, and Scotland. 

Join us for an in-depth discussion on understanding and combating loneliness.

📧 Email us: storieslabelsandmisconceptions@gmail.com

🎵 Music: Dynamic
🎤 Rap Lyrics: Hollyhood Tay
🎬 Podcast Produced & Edited by: Val Barrett

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Transcript

VAL: [00:00:00] Loneliness is one of the quietest epidemics in our society. Where you live, your age and even your gender can make a big difference in how lonely you feel. Why is loneliness higher in some parts of the UK than others? And what can be done about it. 

Welcome to Stories, Labels and Misconceptions with Val Barrett. 

DR JEREMY: I'm Dr. Jeremy Anderson. Welcome yeah. We often think of loneliness as a personal issue. But I think the data shows that there's much more to it than just that. It's why don't we dig into the numbers? I was thinking about the psychology of loneliness and how it affects people.

The evolutionary psychology answer is that the idea of, if you think of our history back when human beings were largely in small groups of hunter gatherers, if you were alone, you were in trouble.

You probably weren't going to [00:01:00] survive. It was dangerous to be alone, lost, separate from the group, shunned. And so the idea is that just biologically. The people who really like to be in a group and be social were more likely to survive.

VAL: Yes. 

DR JEREMY: Even though we don't live in a society right now where, you're going to starve to death if you're alone. Being alone is a very stressful experience. As far as your brain is concerned, you're in danger. It's distressing to be alone. It'd be interesting to think about ways in which we're alone in, in modern society, because we're around a lot of people. Especially if we're in an urban environment, but we can still be alone. 

VAL: Of course, I don't know what it was like in Canada, but back in the 70s when I was growing up, you found that on one street you'll have grandparents, the parents, the grandkids, the great grandkids, the aunts, the uncles, [00:02:00] the cousins.

You'd find that family always lived close by. I'm telling you the truth. We never locked our doors. People open the door. Hey, it's me. And they just come in, food was shared. We were small knit community. We knew on our street, every single family where we lived back in the seventies.

And nowadays you very rarely get to know your neighbour things have changed, you'll have instances where, people are moved from London to the North, away from people they know and love, away from, their support system. To a place they've never been before.

So there's this fragmentation of the family unit. Even though there's more people and technology, and we have quote unquote Facebook friends, who weren't really friends. Let's face it. But the [00:03:00] way that society is today in the UK, I can't speak for anywhere else, families are dispersed. Everyone is spread across. 

DR JEREMY: I think that can happen in Canada as well. Canada is geographically larger certainly there's communities where families have lived for generations and don't move around a lot, but there's other places.

Where people move around quite a bit. My own background. We moved a lot. I never spent more than two years in the same school until the last years of high school. My father was part of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They move around a lot, like the military.

He would get transferred from place to place. We moved around quite a bit growing up. Even after I left home I moved around going to university and different places. In the modern era it's entirely possible for people to constantly be moving. And live in a place that's separate from your family I'm from Canada, I moved to Europe in [00:04:00] 2010. And in modern society, people move around a lot and it requires people to put some work into developing friendships and long term relationships. That maybe in an era where people didn't move around a lot, you might just have a kind of automatic family and closeness and relationships and, you were never alone. In the modern world, it's possible to be very alone, more than we're used to. It's an example of how our culture. Changes faster than our brains can adapt. 

VAL: Haven't you noticed how, as human beings, we have changed, our attitude has changed? When my family came from Jamaica in early 60s. 

Speaker 4: Yeah. 

VAL: They went to a small town, dominantly white. They integrated. People spoke to people then, my godmother's white, there wasn't [00:05:00] this fear of the unknown there's a difference now when people don't know the person next door.

We knew the whole street even the next street, because there was more of a community feel Yeah. Even though Margaret Thatcher that time said there was no such thing as community. We had street parties. I remember 1977, the Queen's Jubilee. We had a street party. Waving our flags. 

DR JEREMY: The street that I live on, we routinely have a street party. Now, even now. Yeah. Even now. Yeah, we, that is nice. We have a really nice community my neighbor, a fellow Canadian actually is really community minded.

Yeah. And has put together a regular street party to try to encourage people to form a community. It's been great. 

VAL: Don't you think messages from certain politicians make people [00:06:00] afraid? Of other people, who are different.

Yes. Whether they are different to you or they're newly moved in and you just don't know them and automatically. have this fear of this person because someone that's given a speech or whatever have said certain people that look a certain way are a danger to you. Do you see what I mean?

There's a lot of that going on now, but even before the sense of community had changed, which is why I understand at times why people, when they come here from whatever country. they automatically go to an area where they know people like themselves. Like the Bangladesh community in one place, the Pakistani community, the Caribbean community in Notting Hill.

If you can imagine, just like yourself, you've moved from [00:07:00] your own country to a country that you've never been before. And to survive and feel safe, you go where your people are. The English do that when they go to Spain. They are no different. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. When you travel abroad, it is easier to form a community with people who share the same language.

Before the UK, I lived in Paris for several years. And, although I speak a little bit of French, I wasn't by no means fluent and certainly culturally I was not a Parisian. All the unspoken things I just didn't get. You couldn't speak, 

VAL: you couldn't, could, were you able to go into a shop?

DR JEREMY: I could go into a shop, but I couldn't break into the social scene, I didn't develop. Close personal friendships there. It was very closed. 

VAL: Yeah. 

DR JEREMY: In that sense. 

VAL: So language was a barrier

DR JEREMY: language was a huge barrier. And my wife is French Canadian, [00:08:00] but the French in Quebec, is different from the French in Paris. She had to change the way she spoke French. 

VAL: Yeah. 

DR JEREMY: In Paris, Parisians would routinely correct her French, which she was not a big fan of. 

VAL: Okay. Before we move on to the facts, about a week or a couple of weeks ago. Robert Jenrick went to, Handsworth. In Birmingham. I used to go there a lot back in the day. And Hansworth is, I think Pakistani, or Indian I'm not a hundred percent sure, but it's one of those, okay. People think they're all the same, but they're not. You've got Pakistan and India, two different countries, cultures. . . And he's there with his camera. Because he's trying to be Nigel Farage point two, and he's trying to say, I've been here for 90 minutes and I haven't seen a white face. Now, would he had gone to the Cotswolds and said, I've [00:09:00] been here for 90 minutes. I haven't seen a person of colour. I doubt it. But he seems to forget that when certain groups moved into an area, white people moved out. Especially coming from Wolverhampton, where Enoch Powell was, and where they tried to get the law changed.

People of colour couldn't buy homes there. So he hasn't done his homework because everything is put on the person that has immigrated into the country. Especially when they do have a particular skin colour. And he seems to forget. White people moved out. Look at the East End. They moved to Essex or Spain. But it's easy to blame us. 

DR JEREMY: It is an easy narrative to just say, oh these immigrant communities don't integrate. 

VAL: Yeah. 

DR JEREMY: You miss the fact that people who [00:10:00] lived here before didn't integrate. 

VAL: Because it works both ways. Integration works both ways.

They'll move to Spain and form their own communities. Do they learn Spanish? Some do, a lot probably don't. But do they integrate as much as they're saying that we should integrate here? It works both ways. People didn't just come to this country and say, okay, we're going to live here.

You people move out. That didn't happen. One house was up for sale person of colour would purchase at home and move in. There were things said like they brought the value of the properties down, some white people would move out. And therefore, another person of colour would, purchase that property, then eventually you've got what you've got today. Whether it's Leicester, Handsworth [00:11:00] some parts in the North, this is why we have it. 

DR JEREMY: Everyone, moving around, going to different places, breaking up the sort of traditional bonds of family and community. People try to form a community wherever they are to combat loneliness. It's easier to form a community with people who are like minded, share the same language and if the people if the locals are not welcoming, this is no surprise you would form a community of people Of course, 

VAL: because you want to feel safe. 

DR JEREMY: Of course. 

VAL: Move to the facts.

DR JEREMY: Okay. 

VAL: The national picture says 7 percent of adults in England Say they feel lonely, often or always. 

DR JEREMY: Only 7%. I expected that number to be higher. 

VAL: Let's look at it by region. 

DR JEREMY: Okay. 

VAL: In the North East, above average loneliness rates, South East, lowest rates around [00:12:00] 6%. Loneliness often higher in urban, deprived areas. 

DR JEREMY: Interesting. Higher rates of loneliness in an urban setting. Lots of people around, but people are feeling lonely. 

VAL: My experience, coming from a nice town, where people would just say hi on the street, hello, Might not know them, but you just say hello.

When I first moved to London, on the tube, I started conversations with people. They thought, who's this mad woman? And I thought, why isn't anyone saying hello to me? I found it strange, but they also found me strange. And it's like, everyone just minds their own business. There's this protocol of the tube where you don't really look at people, talk to people. You just don't. 

DR JEREMY: That reminds me of a point [00:13:00] back when I was in Canada. Do you remember when the iPhone first came out and people were wearing their white headphones for the first time.

VAL: Yeah. 

DR JEREMY: People would start wearing them on the bus. I remember people commenting everyone's wearing these white headphones and no one's talking. That was a change. In Canada, people would frequently Talk to each other on the bus, once smartphones and headphones became ubiquitous, all of a public transit just became a silent space. Was it always fairly silent and people didn't talk here? Even before all that? 

VAL: Experience in London. 

DR JEREMY: In London. But where you were from before people would talk to us.

VAL: You wouldn't talk to a stranger. When I was on, I introduced myself. I told everybody where I was. I look back and think, why did I do that? Why the hell did I, Oh, I'm from Stafford and trying to get a conversation going. I don't know what I drank.

DR JEREMY: Were you lonely? 

VAL: No! You had just moved to [00:14:00] London, did you feel lonely? No, I wasn't then, I was just Being a Midlands person. 

DR JEREMY: You're outgoing and open. 

VAL: That's what we do. We say a lot. Probably lucky I wasn't arrested, but it's what we do. Even the other day me and my son were shopping, this elderly Jamaican man said, you're from the Midlands, isn't it? I said, how did you know? He said, there's something about you and your son, how you're talking when you went to pay for your goods, you were having a conversation with the person because she was new. She was getting flustered because somebody was trying to rush her. And I was saying, that's okay. Take your time. It's always someone's first day. I was trying to keep her calm because the more some people were getting annoyed with her, she was getting more, more flustered. So eventually she started to smile, started to laugh and we're [00:15:00] all having a joke. And that's when the man said it, because I don't think there's. A reason for somebody to have a go at anyone in their workspace, 

DR JEREMY: yeah. You 

VAL: know he noticed we were different. Like you are not from here says a man of color to another person of color but we know what it meant. .

DR JEREMY: Midlands, is that northeast or north of London,

VAL: no, we are not the north. No. The north.

DR JEREMY: You're not the north. Oh, okay.

VAL: No. We are in the middle. That's the worst in the middle. The Midlands. Okay. You need to travel, you need to integrate.

DR JEREMY: I do travel , I don't think of anywhere in Britain as being north. If you're below the Arctic Circle, it doesn't feel north to me. 

VAL: Londoner 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: Would say anything past Watford is north. Me, I'll be in the Midlands and anything past Manchester. That's my North. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: Londoners, [00:16:00] everything's North. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. I grew up next to Alaska. So 

VAL: really? 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. Vancouver, which is near the border with the US. You drive nine hours north and you hit a place called Prince George, which builds itself as a northern town, but you would drive 20 hours north to where I lived.

VAL: And 

DR JEREMY: Prince George was the southern town. I had gone to this urban Mecca in the south of Canada called Prince George. So when I'm in the UK nothing seems like the north to me. 

VAL: But our accents are different. Haven't you picked up on that?

DR JEREMY: Oh, definitely. The accents are different. Yeah.

VAL: Our dialects, however you want to say it, completely different, but to some Londoners we're all the same. Even the London accents are different across West, South, Southeastern North. And they don't even [00:17:00] realise that, that accents are different.

DR JEREMY: Yes. 

VAL: It tell us where we're from, anyway, let's get back to the stats. It says younger adults aged 16 to 24 report the highest levels of loneliness. I'm not surprised. I was watching the news one day and there was this young woman said that when she goes shopping. She goes into the lane where there's a cashier, so she's got someone to talk to. And she's, yeah, she stalls a bit, spends more time, so she can have a nice chat. 

DR JEREMY: She's lonely and seeking human contact

VAL: once she goes home, there isn't anyone there.

DR JEREMY: Do you think this is a new thing where young people are lonely, or do you think this has come about more recently? Is this a generational thing? 

VAL: I think there's always been a sense of loneliness. 

DR JEREMY: Okay, among young people, do you think young [00:18:00] people generally are lonely? 

VAL: Yes, I think when you look at certain areas, probably certain part of Wales, where it's isolated, there's only a few of you.

Probably yes, or right top of Scotland. I don't know, but I don't know because you can be in a full room of people and still feel lonely. It's a feeling. It really is. And there's no way that we can say it's because there's a hundred people in the room. Or there's no one in the room. That person will feel the same amongst 100 people versus no one.

DR JEREMY: Yeah, it's possible for people to feel excluded. Other people might have friends, a friend group, but if you're not part of that group, you can be in the same room. 

VAL: Still have a friend group and feel that. Especially if there's no connection [00:19:00] because if you're just attached and you're not aligned there's nothing you really have in common. 

DR JEREMY: Not close. 

VAL: You're going to be lonely. You need a connection. With people. You need more than I've walked into a room and there's people there because anyone can walk into a room and there's human beings there. But are you connected to those human beings, it goes beyond the amount of people. It's about connection. Animals go in packs, 

DR JEREMY: Yeah 

VAL: Wolves go in packs, 

DR JEREMY: human beings are social creatures. Animals are social animals. We're one of them. 

VAL: But we need it. The internet is more dangerous than we think, because if you're lonely at home, locked in your room as a young person, And you've got that influence coming across in your ears and you [00:20:00] believe they have your best interests at heart and they're your only friend. It's only going to get worse. 

DR JEREMY: So you have young people reporting high levels of loneliness. What do they do when they feel lonely if they're not connecting to the human beings around them? 

VAL: Exactly. 

DR JEREMY: They go online, call social media, but it's not very social.

VAL: When we were young, we had gymnastics club. We went to Brownies every Thursday. I remember the day. We had I went swimming with friends after school. There is, we were never in, especially in the summer holidays. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. We had something social, 

VAL: but there was no mobile phones. So there wasn't this fear factor that parents had Oh God, they're going to get kidnapped. We'd go out, have our breakfast. We're back for dinner. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

VAL: And we all did it. It was just how it was. 

DR JEREMY: It's the difference that a psychologist Jonathan Haidt.

Talks about the difference [00:21:00] between a play based childhood versus a phone based childhood. And I think, we shouldn't be surprised that younger people are reporting high levels of loneliness if they have a phone based childhood where they're developing skills on how to scroll on a phone.

If it takes away from their ability to make friends and make connection, it's no surprise that they're feeling lonely. 

VAL: Older adults age 75 plus often report less frequent loneliness, but when they do, it's more severe. 

DR JEREMY: Men are less likely to report loneliness than women because of social expectations men don't seek out friendships in the same way women do. So even if a man might've been somewhat lonely as a younger person, but you get married and. Men tend to rely on their spouse for their social relationships. Women foster relationships, but if the relationship [00:22:00] ends, right. Now You don't have your spouse, your friends.

If you have kids, you may not have access to them. Older men get profoundly lonely. Even if the relationship lasts, women tend to live a bit longer than men. and tend to marry men a bit older than them. So even with, successful long term relationships, when death does you part, women in their, in the twilight of their lives tend to be alone.

VAL: Yes, but women find it easier to form groups,

DR JEREMY: form groups, yeah, they may be somewhat lonely. after his post dies, but women manage it better. Men don't have those skills to make a human connection once their main relationship's gone.

VAL: What can loneliness do to the brain?

DR JEREMY: Being alone is just by definition, as far as your brain is concerned, that's a dangerous situation. That's a fight or flight response going on. Your brain is trying to protect you and keep you [00:23:00] alive. It's very stressful to, to be alone. So your brain is flooding you with stress hormones. And some of the side effects of that is it can I don't have a specific research study in front of me but there's the idea that chronic stress reduces immune function and causes stress related diseases.

It could shorten your life expectancy I think it's particularly important. I just wanted to add, this whole topic of loneliness is apropos. Yesterday, I discovered A family friend of my wife's family was found dead.

And when I think of him, I think of one of the loneliest people, someone who was just desperately lonely for a relationship. He was a gay man I have another gay friend who talked about, gay relationship years as being like dog years, one year equal to seven years. What are you saying? Saying the relationships tend to be shorter, right? This is not my joke, it's his joke. My friend this family acquaintance who [00:24:00] died. Always wanted a relationship and was happiest in a relationship he would seek relationships with foreign men who used him for a visa.

And then when they didn't need him anymore, 

VAL: And 

DR JEREMY: He spent his life seeking relationships because he was a really nice guy and very close with my wife and then he's died this week and I think he died alone and I think that's really tragic. And so I was looking at the stats on loneliness amongst gay men and I think particularly where Transcribed If you live where being gay is stigmatized it's especially difficult, even when things are good, I think gay men tend to have relationships or social networks that are less stable, 

VAL: yeah 

DR JEREMY: If you have a friend group or what they call a chosen family. those tend to be less stable over time. And so people can be prone to loneliness. [00:25:00] 

VAL: But going back to COVID and the lockdown.

Speaker 3: That's a whole other thing, 

VAL: but you know what helped a little bit? Technology. Imagine if we didn't have Zoom. WhatsApp. Imagine that with lockdown. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah, the lockdown presented issues with loneliness. People didn't have social contact they were used to and craving.

And so technology was helpful in that instance. But there were lots of other problems I knew people who were stuck in a bubble with a spouse who was abusive or that they were, they wanted to divorce, their only supposed social contact was someone that they hated or hated them, or It was just a horrible relationship, right?

VAL: A lot of people, adults and kids, were locked up with their abusers. 

DR JEREMY: How lonely was that? 

VAL: But then you had this insurgent of people that did positive things in lockdown. I [00:26:00] remember these three friends. Elderly ladies. They thought, okay, we're going to move in together.

DR JEREMY: Okay. 

VAL: They were having parties. They were like, we are going to enjoy ourselves, and they were ordering drinks and everything. I don't blame them. Make the most of it because with lockdown, you couldn't meet your friends, couldn't go out.

So they decided as a trio to move in together. Some didn't have that option. The only saving grace was when they left the house to go out, social groups, bingo. Bingo is on the rise again.

DR JEREMY: Really?

VAL: But when the lockdown happened, it made people realise. We do need social interaction. Technology only does a tiny bit. Nothing like [00:27:00] human connection face to face. Nothing can beat that. 

DR JEREMY: No. And thinking about how we tackle loneliness. A lot of the loneliness people experience, we label that as a mood problem or depression or a mental health problem. But we're medicalising an otherwise just normal human experience, right? I'm going 

VAL: the Jo Cotts commission brought the issue to national attention in the UK and the NHS, they have the social prescribing scheme where they link people to community activities. Then you have the chat benches, men's sheds, community cafes, examples that rebuild social ties, and Digital literacy programs for older adults. That's all well and good, but I think the [00:28:00] community cafes is good. And local councils were using WhatsApp. We all went overboard on Zoom. Whoever invented Zoom was this is their time, but I'm sure there's other initiatives, but let's quickly look at what's going on. 

DR JEREMY: Okay. 

VAL: In the Seoul solution. Am I saying it correctly? Yeah. 

DR JEREMY: Seoul, Korea. 

VAL: Yes. 

DR JEREMY: Okay. 

VAL: Okay. Yeah.

So it's a city of bright lights, late night and millions of people, but many say they have never felt more alone. In Seoul in Korea, is it in Korea? 

DR JEREMY: Why are people lonely in Seoul? 

VAL: Let me tell you what they did. 

DR JEREMY: Okay. 

VAL: In Seoul, loneliness has become a public health issue. The city opened mind convenience stores, small spaces in local [00:29:00] neighborhoods. They look like your normal corner shop, but inside there's soft lighting, massage chairs, hot drinks, and friendly faces who listen. People can drop in, make a cup of noodles or chat with a volunteer counsellor. No appointment, no stigma, no cost. For many who live alone, especially older adults or young professionals, is the only real human contact that day. 

DR JEREMY: That's really fantastic. That just passive social contact is fantastic.

VAL: But haven't you noticed when we talked about, I can't remember what it was last week. And I mentioned Scotland when it came to knife crime, when they labelled it as a public health concern. It brought it down. 

DR JEREMY: It brought it down. It's interesting you mentioned Scotland because we travelled to Scotland for a trip and were looking for a place to [00:30:00] eat and came upon a little community cafe.

VAL: Yeah. 

DR JEREMY: It was super cheap. There wasn't much on the menu. Everyone kind of gets the same thing. It was run by women, coming from domestic violence they maybe hadn't worked for a while.

And so all the staff preparing the food were older women rebuilding their lives. And the cafe was great for them to give them kind of recent work experience, but also it was really great for the community to have a place where people could come in and and get a meal for cheap.

And yeah, I think it was soup on the menu, but it was Scotland, so it was cold grey and rainy. A bowl of soup was quite delicious. And warming. That's a great example of a social initiative that helps people who were lonely

VAL: I think there's somewhere in North Kensington. Community lunch or something. Yeah. 

DR JEREMY: Just a place that's warm and friendly. 

VAL: Yeah. 

DR JEREMY: That's going to de-stress you. 

VAL: Let's look at, this, disturbing stat for school [00:31:00] age 11 to 15. Around 17 to 18%. Report feeling they often felt alone or had no one to talk to. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: Says a lot. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: Impressionable age. 

DR JEREMY: People not having social contact, not talking to people. 

VAL: This creep that will come to them on the phone, online make out that they're their friends. And this is where things get so dangerous for these young kids, they are still kids. If some adults can be fooled online and get conned out of their money. How do they think young kids are supposed to navigate? 

DR JEREMY: Just money, but to doing horrible 

VAL: exactly. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: How do they expect younger kids, whose brains are still developing, to navigate all of that when they think the image they see is [00:32:00] somebody the same age but is an adult pretending. How are they supposed to know? 

DR JEREMY: Yeah, or even if, you're a young person, someone who's maybe a bit older, but is like a father figure to you, right?

VAL: Yeah,

DR JEREMY: like a mentor. That's very powerful, especially, for young men. So if we don't create communities and young people are feeling lonely, there's someone out there who's going to offer them something. And of course, it could be very dangerous. 

VAL: Someone's going to fill that gap.

DR JEREMY: Someone will. Yeah. It's 

VAL: always, it's always someone you don't want to fill the gap. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: That's going to, and it is, like how they've taken away all these safety measures online, or they're not doing stuff. What is it again? 

DR JEREMY: Oh, when Elon Musk took over Twitter and fired most of the staff and content moderators yeah, 

VAL: Also on Facebook. 

DR JEREMY: Same thing on Facebook. 

VAL: Does he own Snapchat? 

DR JEREMY: Oh, do they own Snapchat? I don't know,

VAL: but [00:33:00] I know he owns instagram. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: And there's quite a few young kids on it, so they've taken away a lot of the safety measures the UK wanted. It was bad before, now it's the wild West. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: And when a child thinks they're going out to meet a friend online, they're meeting someone else. We need to protect our children at school or in person. Biggest enemy. Is the one we can't see. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: The one controlling things on the internet, telling them what they want to hear. Filling that vacuum nobody else is filling. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah,

VAL: they're filling it. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah I think the phones and social media is really easy. It's very easy with your thumb to do that and it's probably scratching a kind of itch, but it's not [00:34:00] quite right. And I think it comes at the cost of genuine social connection. So need to move away from that. Which is, we call it social networks, but they're not social.

VAL: They ain't social.

DR JEREMY: They're asocial. . They're like social, but different. 

VAL: You know what . It is not a hundred percent bad. It's good in one sense because i'm in loads of groups, connecting with business women and whatever.

And then you've got that really nasty bad side. So it's good in one sense. And then it's bad for another, because say in the middle of the night or whatever, because we're connected throughout the world, I can go in one of the groups and probably say, blah, blah, talk to someone there.

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: Do you see what do you mean? Because that is a group that I have joined. And that's more aligned with what my issues are whatever it [00:35:00] is. But because there's people in the group from other countries, there's always someone there around the clock.

DR JEREMY: Online groups can become more extreme and form identities around things that you wouldn't necessarily have in real life. If you have a really rare idea in your local, like geographical group you're probably not going to find somebody. Who thinks that so your particular conspiracy theory or whatever, but online, you'll find someone who agrees with you, right?

There's just enough people that like minded people from around the world will find themselves. What you can have, you can have groups of people I think, we're talking about conspiracy theories, 9 11 truthers, vaccine conspiracies, anorexia groups, not where people are getting support for recovering from anorexia, but people who glamorize it or people with anorexia can [00:36:00] compete with each other for who's the thinnest. People encouraging others to, commit suicide and things like that. 

VAL: But I don't join those groups. 

DR JEREMY: Either. But 

VAL: there again, if you're a young person, young people are still figuring who they are, and they're bombarded with images of what quote unquote, a woman should look like, most of us don't look like that.

DR JEREMY: No, not even the women in the pictures look like that they're going through a filter. 

VAL: They're young kids. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: Someone may come along and say, I can help you look like that. I can help you get thinner, a load of women getting plastic surgery, Botox, that's up to them.

DR JEREMY: You can really go down a rabbit hole there. 

VAL: But you can. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: It's dangerous. 

DR JEREMY: It is. And it wouldn't happen if you were talking to people around you who would just say. 

VAL: But if you haven't got anyone to talk to, we're talking about loneliness, young people that had no one to talk [00:37:00] to. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: I think there needs to be more promotion around so I know there's child line. Childline is still going on. So there needs to be more, promotion of that. There needs to be in a community, a safe place for a young person to go and talk to someone just like the cafe in Seoul Korea, where they're able to access a therapist, was it? Was it a therapist?

DR JEREMY: Cafes? They actually have a therapist? 

VAL: We have a volunteer counsellor. 

DR JEREMY: Oh, okay.

VAL: They are still a professional.

DR JEREMY: Yeah

VAL: We need these in places, not just 9 to 5, lives are not 9 to 5. Monday to Friday, it doesn't stop whether you're a carer, at breaking point, it's the middle of the night you need someone to talk to. You're a young person. You need someone to talk [00:38:00] to. You need to change the way we design our services. That needs to change. It does. Gone all the days when I remember when I was growing on a Wednesday, when town closed half day, everything stopped. Nowhere was open on a Sunday. Those days are gone. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. 

VAL: Long gone. We need to design systems, services from the young to the elderly, basically 24 seven. We really do. We have to make sure it's accessible. Whether it's, it's cafes in the community, safe spaces online I don't know. Something needs to be done it's easy to say, let's keep kids away from mobile phones.

Really? I [00:39:00] remember when I was told, don't touch the paint. What did I do? Touch the paint, paint everywhere. Dad came home. Did you touch the paint? No, but my face is full of paint. You can't. Shut. 

DR JEREMY: Face? 

VAL: No, I was painting I can't remember the whole thing, but the whole point.

DR JEREMY: You were touching with your fingers, then you touched your face listen, 

VAL: I've tried to say . 

DR JEREMY: Okay. 

VAL: Okay. You tell a child not to do something. They're gonna do it. 'Cause the genie has already come out of the bottle. We need to educate and put more safeguarding in place. It's like saying young girls and pregnancies. There is a young guy that helped to get them pregnant, but the education only goes to girls.

Education's got to go both ways. Men need to know about safe sex, women and girls also. But when it comes to, This online thing, it is, it's big. It's only going to get bigger, [00:40:00] but we shouldn't be saying you, it shouldn't be like a ban. It's like you ban cigarettes. It goes underground. Remember when, I know I'm going way back. I wasn't born. Prohibition. The banning of alcohol. 

DR JEREMY: Yes. In the U S they banned alcohol. Did they do that in the uK as or was that just the US? Oh, I can't 

VAL: I'm not that old, but I watch movies. 

DR JEREMY: Yes. 

VAL: So when you ban something, someone will fill that gap. 

DR JEREMY: hmmm 

VAL: That's just the way it is.

It's just the way it is. Everything needs to change. with education in both ways. Adults also need to be educated with how children use social media, with what their needs are, my childhood was different. So I can't say go and do what I did. It makes no sense. So it's about adults sometimes [00:41:00] coming down. Coming off the high horse, stop dictating and try to understand. What are the dangers? And then young kids having a space where they can just say, this is why I use it. This is why I need it. And being honest, but not chastised for wanting to use it. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. As an older person. 

VAL: You're very old. I, 

DR JEREMY: I, I I'm older than the young people I work with, but it took me a long time to wrap my head around cyberbullying. The idea that some lonely kid is being picked on online. My initial response was so what? It's not real life. Just words on a page, who cares, right? I was coming from, a perspective of, if someone isn't punching you in the face, it's not bullying, because that's what bullying was when I was growing up. Someone would beat you up and take your lunch money. 

VAL: What did you get? Is this you confessing to something

DR JEREMY: no, I was not the bully. I was the bullied. The bullied. 

VAL: Were [00:42:00] you bullied? 

Speaker 3: Yes, I was bullied, but, are you over that now? 

VAL: Are you okay? 

DR JEREMY: Over that now, I just, I had no sympathy for someone who, someone told them, that they looked fat in that dress or something like that. And they thought that was bullying. I was like no, that's not bullying but I had to check myself and realise that, the experience of a kid nowadays is much different than when I was growing up. And that online space isn't, is. Can be toxic, but also important. If you're feeling lonely and your only outlet is online spaces and you're getting bullied that's horrific. 

VAL: We know there's loads of statistics. I said that, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Without losing my teeth, there are loads of statistics. I should say it again. Online , about loneliness goes by gender and it goes by age, even by region. So I just say, because we have to wrap this up.

Let's go to our labels and misconceptions. You, Dr. Jeremy. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. We're talking about stories of loneliness. [00:43:00] But in terms of, we label people as being lonely like the loneliness is part of them. Something they're doing wrong.

Or their own introversion, but really I think that's a misconception. I think there are introverted people who don't really mind being alone, but I think they're rare. Most people are more extroverted. They crave that social connection. That's why they feel distressed at being lonely.

I think 

VAL: when you said that, it reminds me of that saying, what that actress said, I want to be left alone garbo, Greta Garbo. 

DR JEREMY: Be left alone. 

VAL: I'm the old one now.

DR JEREMY: Yeah, I think it's not necessarily that lonely people don't have social skills or they're. Introverted. It's really people who, enjoy social contact, who are distressed at being alone. It can happen to anyone [00:44:00] for reasons beyond their own control. A man in a relationship who his wife dies and now he's alone. Right? Or the relationship ends and now he's alone and has few friends because he was relying on his wife for friendship. So I think that is a misconception. 

VAL: Apologies for jumping in when you said a young man might, or say an introvert wants to be, does it mind being lonely?

But I think they want to be left alone, but they, I'm sure at times they will feel lonely because being left alone and being lonely. are different I'm sure you want to be left alone to work. 

DR JEREMY: Sure. When I was thinking about that, I was thinking more like you think about a hermit, right?

There's a few people who really just plain prefer to be by themselves, but those people are rare, right? 

VAL: Howard [00:45:00] Hughes, wasn't he a hermit? 

DR JEREMY: He was interesting strange guy. I think he was pretty severely ooc d developed 

VAL: he did, didn't he? 

DR JEREMY: He was a social recluse, 

VAL: As usual . Sure. We go off topic. Yeah. Yeah. It is so strange. But I love it still. I love it.

DR JEREMY: What's your story label misconception?

VAL: As you talked about technology some adults or children will have, I think technology connects us. So loneliness wouldn't exist. How can you be alone? You're talking to your friends online,

DR JEREMY: that's a good example, the idea of the Facebook friend. That's a label but are they really a friend ? 

VAL: Him calling it that has given us the illusion the subconsciousness they are my friend. subconsciously. Do you see what I mean? Words as a psychologist, words have an [00:46:00] impact and how it makes us feel.

So calling it Facebook friend has made us feel safe. It's made us feel that the person we're talking with on Facebook is our friend. In reality, they're not really your friend. They may become friends. You may visit them, but that's rare, 

DR JEREMY: it's a different framework, right?

VAL: Social media amplifies comparison and isolation rather than connection. Digital contact isn't the same as emotional closeness. So you can Zoom, Zoom all day and chat. When you've left that Zoom room you're lonely.

What are you left with? No emotional connection because the person's on the screen. This is why it's important to have community cafes, more community activities, counsellors, volunteer counsellors [00:47:00] in communities.

DR JEREMY: Yeah, I was thinking a related And the other topic, maybe we should think about this for a future episode, is the whole idea of online dating. There's a certain kind of, loneliness. I've never been on these websites where you swipe left or right, but I'm sure there's got to be some people who who get no connections.

That is, people online who just look at their picture and say, I want to connect with you in real life. And then there's other people who must have 10, 000 requests 

VAL: I hate online dating. I was going to try it now. I'd get everyone swiping, whatever. Let me get my misconceptions.

DR JEREMY: Should talk about that in a future episode. It's tapping into something, giving us something. that scratches a kind of itch but again, it's not the same as real life. 

VAL: No, not. So my misconception, we've mentioned it before, that once you make friends, it goes away. But in [00:48:00] reality, it doesn't because loneliness can fluctuate. It's not a one time fix, but an emotional signal that needs ongoing attention. like mental or physical health. As all roads lead to health. 

DR JEREMY: Absolutely. 

VAL: We said, okay.

DR JEREMY: Okay. 

VAL: Loneliness doesn't always look lonely. Sometimes it's hidden behind busyness, social media, behind smiles. But the truth is connection is what makes us human. Dr. Jeremy, nice to see you again. Nice to have a chat with you again. Listen to this.

Follow us on our socials, please. 

DR JEREMY: Yeah. Let everybody know about us. If you're affected by loneliness but i'll leave a link. Write in or chat or. Yeah. Or click the link and let us know what you think about this episode. 

VAL: What I'll do I'll find a national line and put a link in the description. 

DR JEREMY: Contact us and let us know what you think

VAL: contact Dr. Jeremy. He is our resident psychologist. [00:49:00] I will give you his personal phone number. 

DR JEREMY: Don't be giving my personal phone number out on 

VAL: Oh, I never heard that. We never heard him today. 

DR JEREMY: No he's upstairs. I'm lonely today. 

VAL: Please. 

DR JEREMY: Is not with me today. Who is he with? He's upstairs. He's upstairs with my wife. He's probably the better half of you. The sun is, yeah. My better half. The sun is shining where we are right now, so I assume he's. Probably searching for a sunbeam to sleep 

VAL: Yeah. 

I know a song about sunbeam, but I don't think I'll risk it. Okay. See you next week. 

DR JEREMY: Okay. Bye.