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You wake up, roll out of bed, brush your hair so you look presentable for your first video meeting with your team, and you pop in a Keurig pod of Starbucks coffee to get your morning started.
You jump from one virtual meeting to another, only turning your video on if absolutely required. You have lunch from your favorite local place delivered to your door.
You set your preferences to “leave at door” so you don’t deal with the delivery person.
Your allergies flare up again, so you submit your symptoms to your long-standing physician on the practice’s portal. The physician prescribes your typical allergy medicine that you have delivered.
After you finish work for the day, you go shopping … online. You have a question about your last cell phone bill, so you go online and interact with a virtual agent to get it resolved.
Finally, you have a chance to MOVE, so you go work out … on your Peloton … in your bedroom. Since it’s Friday night, you’re in the mood for a movie, so you lie on your couch and start scrolling through Netflix to find one.
Technology advancements and our desire for convenience have resulted in this frictionless life characterized by ease, convenience, and the absence of obstacles or challenges. The problem is that no friction results in no human connections.
The plethora of digital tools that are designed to keep us connected also makes us more transactional and isolated. We have become more efficient in producing an outcome and less effective at building relationships.
Today’s world of work presents more challenges than ever. And more remote and hybrid work arrangements make it particularly challenging to build meaningful, human connections.
With growing loneliness and despair in today’s world of work and the world at large, if people can find meaningful human connections, they can also find hope.
The current state of social disconnection looks like this:
- 15- to 24-year-olds spend two hours per day more at home than their counterparts two decades ago.
- Only 30% of Americans spend time socializing and communicating in person on an average day.
- 40% of people live alone today, and 20% have families that live far away.
Social isolation is an objective condition. Loneliness is the emotional state that arises from it.
Feeling lonely is like feeling hungry. It signals to your body that you are lacking something for survival.
Staying in a state of loneliness can increase the risk of premature death as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Building healthy connections is not about you, but it starts with you! Our lives are gifts that are meant to give away.
Stay tuned for proven ways to build healthy, human connections.