We Are Lonely
Follow four twenty somethings on their search for connection. It might not surprise you to hear that people in Australia have never been more lonely. Half of us will feel lonely this week. The UK has a Minister for Loneliness and the US Surgeon General has declared loneliness a health epidemic, but it might surprise you that young adults are lonelier than the average person in Australia. If we learn to manage and minimise loneliness, it’s no more than a healthy human emotion. If it becomes chronic, it can have the same impact on us as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Over this six-part reality documentary podcast series, four young people meet with mentors and experts who will help them build strategies to reconnect. Through their stories, we understand the reality of loneliness in Australia experienced by a generation that theoretically has never been more connected. Each of us will connect with different parts of their stories and resonate with different strategies and advice from our mentors and experts. We are lonely, so let’s reconnect.
Episodes
Grief is something we will all experience, but it’s also something that can feel very lonely. Supported by Medibank, ‘We are Lonely’ is a podcast that seeks to demystify loneliness and this bonus episode shares participant Charity’s experience with .css-1t8gq41{border:none;background-image:none;background-color:transparent;box-shadow:none;color:#2F3133;cursor:pointer;font-size:inherit;padding:0;-webkit-text-decoration:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;width:-webkit-max-content;width:-moz-max-content;width:max-content;}.css-1t8gq41:hover,.css-1t8gq41:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;}
We’ve had a chance to get to know our participants pretty well by now, but they still haven’t met each other. So we do the thing that is most practical when it comes to loneliness - bringing people together.
Charity, Tim, Aleks and Holly all head to Melbourne to meet and share their experiences with each other.
Host: Jemma Sbeg
Participants: Charity, Aleks, Tim and Holly
It’s pretty common to blame our blooming loneliness on technology. In this episode we tease out that theory and look at the ways technology is both helping and hindering our connection with other people.
Tim also meets with a psychologist who is part of a gaming research program to talk through the impacts gaming has on our brains and how to control our relationship with technology.
Host: Jemm...
Reaching into where you feel joy, where you feel accepted and happy is a powerful way to build connection. Holly does something she would never have faced just months ago and heads to a yoga retreat alone. Tim reignites his passion for drag and Charity steps into the world of study.
Sometimes connection doesn’t have to be with people just like us, it can be with people who like the same things as us.
How does our relationship with the world and the people around us make us lonely? And how do we fix it? Aleks, Charity, Holly and Tim are getting ready to step into the world, and find their people.
During our 20’s our relationships are changing a fair bit. Only a few years ago we were at school, we each had our school identity - sporty, academic, musical, popular. Then we left school and the world felt a...
What does your relationship with yourself have to do with being lonely? When you think about loneliness it’s easy to focus on how many friends you have, how connected you are with the outside world. But loneliness isn’t that simple - you can feel lonely in the company of others and you can feel content alone. In this episode our participants and their mentors take a moment to look inwards and work out who they are, and...
Why are we lonely? Holly found herself in a habit of being alone after experiencing years of illness; Tim moved into a studio apartment in Melbourne just as the second lockdown hit; Charity is working through generations of disconnection forced on her family through Stolen Generations; and Aleks finds the pressure of managing a multi-faceted career and study life can overtake his downtime and peace. We join our partici...
It seems as quickly as we’re filling this planet we’re each becoming more isolated. One in three people in Australia are experiencing high levels of loneliness. The UK now has a Minister of Loneliness and the US Surgeon General has declared loneliness a health epidemic. And whilst it can seem like a simple human emotion, loneliness can have serious health implications. Being consistently lonely can be as bad for us as ...
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