Dougal Sutherland: How phones can help combat loneliness and isolation

Last time we talked about how your phone could interfere with connecting with people. This time I thought it would be good to talk about how our phones can help us combat loneliness and isolation. 

We hear a lot about the negative health impacts of loneliness, and yet this series of studies suggests that most of us are reluctant to reach out to old friends – even though that’s one of the fastest ways to boost our social connections. 

A new Canadian study showed that fewer than one third of people in their study sent a message (txt, email. Phone call) to an old friend even when they wanted to, thought the friend would be receptive, had their contact details, and had time and space to send a message. 

The study found that people tended to view old friends in the same way they view strangers, which contributed to reluctance to reach out. 

Things that helped with connecting with old friends included: 

- A “practice” condition (sending messages to current friends) helped more people to reach out to old friends, suggesting one practical way to warm people up to contacting old friends. 

- Imagine what it’s like for you to receive a message from an old friend. Most people were very positive about being the one that is contacted rather than doing the contacting. Putting yourself in the other person’s shoes might help reduce reluctance to be the one making the first move 

- Start with some easy wins – contact people you were close to in the past rather than more casual acquaintances. More likely to be able to rekindle those old fires. 

 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks, that'd be And.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
You know how we're always bagging on phones. We're always
saying that phones are bad for mental health. How our
social media has resulted in everyone having terribly short attention spans.
How the irony of the digital age, in which everyone
is supposed to be more connected than ever, is that
increasing numbers of people feel more disconnected than ever. Well,

(00:35):
Google Sutherland from Umbrella Wellbeing reckons that is all true,
but actually it's not a black and white equation. There
are some real positives that come from phones when it
comes to connecting with people. And Google is with us
this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Hey Google, sure, Jack, how are you?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Ah? I'm very well, thank you?

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Are you?

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Are you fizzing for the games? Are you into the games?

Speaker 3 (00:58):
I don't know if I'm fizzing for them, but I
certainly was. I certainly had them on this morning while
I was pottering about that. Yeah, cleaning up and and
I'm you know, you do end up watching diving? Sorry
I haven't seen for four years. Let's watch diving. Weird sports?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, yeah, badminton awesome? Great, Yeah it's funny again.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah, that's good. I like it.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
I think I think you're speaking for us all on
that front. Yeah, so, like I say, we you know,
we do. And I'm guilty of this breaking phones down
into kind of binary things, right, Oh, it's all bad,
it's all. But actually there are some real positives. And
I think that's a really really good suggestion, given how
regularly we hear about the negative health impacts of loneliness
and and the impact of phones on loneliness, to actually

(01:50):
focus on some of the potential positives as well.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Absolutely, And I mean if we if you think about
them phones and social media, that their purpose is to
connect us. And there was a new Canadian study out
recently that show that, weirdly, only about a third of
people reached out and sent a message to an old friend,

(02:16):
you know, somebody they hadn't talked to for a while,
even though they had the time, the availability, thought the
person would be into it, and all that only only
a third of people actually did, despite us knowing that
reaching out to old friends is actually a really useful
way of rekindling social relationships. Yeah, so, you know, but

(02:37):
it does I think point us to the fact that, hey,
this could be a way to help combat some of
the loneliness and isolation that we often talk about.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, because it is that great irony, right that in
this connected age, greater numbers of people are feeling more
disconnected than ever because there's a real shallowness that comes
with some of the technologies at our fingertips. But talk
us through some of these positives then, So, so what
are the things that might help with connecting with old
friends for example?

Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yeah, certainly doing a bit of practice that you know,
this Canadian study kind of was a series of studies
over time, and they looked at all different sorts of things,
but one of the things they got people to do
was practice sending messages just to current friends, current contacts,
you know, just reaching out normally, sending a text or
an email or whatever. And then if they found that

(03:27):
if people had been doing that to current freends, they
were more likely to then to transfer that and start
contacting old friends as well. So, you know, I think
it's one of those things that you're practicing and you're
get in the mood and I'll just text them as
well or message them as well. And that seemed to
be quite helpful.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, right, Okay, I mean that that kind of makes sense,
I suppose, although as a habit building thing that day.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, I think you're right. I think you know, you
kind of get into the habit of doing it, You
get into the groove of doing it. The second another
thing they found that that is that if you if
you are and what it would be like. You know,
maybe you're looking at your contacts or your social media
and you see, oh, there's old You know, I haven't
spoken to Brian for Ages. I wonder how he's getting on.

(04:15):
Oh gosh, wouldn't have been nice if he contacted me.
So if you imagine getting a contact from them, we
often feel very positive about that. And so imagine that
and then flip it around and go, well, if I
kind of you know, if I think it'll be good
hearing from him, he might think the same about me.
Maybe I'll just flick in a text or whatever. So
you know, put yourself in the issues for a minute

(04:36):
and and you're like pleading. You know, you're likely to
get a positive response. That was another thing they found. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Nice, Okay, Yeah, I mean that makes it. That makes
quite a lot of sense. Again, it requires a little
bit of habit building, but actually just a little something
quite simple like that. D just just trying to I
suppose it's empathy, you know, imagine what that experience will
be like. Then that helps.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, And I think the third thing
I would say is that, you know, looking through your
contact if you see something that you used to be
pretty tight wor they're probably a better bet to reach
out to than somebody that you, oh, we did fourth
form French together. Yeah, you know, which maybe a bit looser.

(05:16):
You're still going to get a good outcome. But you know,
go back to those relationships that were strong. They are
likely to be the flames that you can rekindle quite quickly. Yeah, which,
again it seems common sense. But but but the thing
is about common sense, we often don't know. We often
think it's sensible, but but we don't end up doing it,
which is the problem.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, that's exactly right. I have another one too, and
I was before eleven o'clock. I was bagging on the
family chat on WhatsApp, which was very rough of me
because actually I'm probably more insufferable than anyone on the
family chat. But actually I find that group chats are
really valuable with old friends. So for example, because it
means that you don't individually catch up with you know,

(05:59):
it's kind of like it's it's like many birds with
one stone.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
If you like.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yet I don't want to I don't want to sound
like a bird and catching up with old friends. But
you know, instead of having to reach an email for
different people, if you have a group chat and you
just say, hey, here's something, guys, and then people kind
of enter it and comment when they can and that
kind of thing, sometimes that can be a really good
way to maintain those relationships.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's good. It's a really good idea, I think.
You know, if you translate that into you know, in person,
that can be a bit outcy sometimes catching up individually
with somebody that you've seen for a while, whereas if
you go you know, as you say, if you go
with a group of people, it's like there's a bit
more banter and you know, you're not kind of stuck going, well,
so so what do you what have you been doing?

(06:43):
You know that that awkwardness gets diluted a lot because
there's lots of people contributing, and you know, it brings
back that camaraderie. I think too, It's like Arnest is great,
we're all kind of getting together. Yeah, I think it's
a great one.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
And and you don't have to, you know, if they're
saying if everyone was taking a turn to update each
other on their lives, you're not. You're just telling the
story once, you know, here's what's having made. You're not
saying like I've got to tell Tony, I've got to
tell Peter, and I've got to tell Rebecca, and I've
got to tell Justin and you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Like, yeah, yeah, very much. You can get a bit
bored with your own voice.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah yeah, and you can kind of, you know, like
you can kind of, you know, riff off each other
as we tend to, you know. Yeah, I find that
it's half in a really good way as well. So yeah,
very good. Hey, yeah, very good. You have a good
weekend and we will catch you again. Dogs Otherland. He
is a clinical psychologist with Umbrella Wellbeing.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks d B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.