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Hello. My name is Chris Flack.
I'm the co-founder
of the behaviour change
consultancy, UnPlug,
and today, I'm going
to be talking to you
about meaningful connection
in a hyperconnected world.
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I'd like to start
with a question.
Can you name six close friends?
These are people who would
drop everything for you
if there was an emergency,
and vice versa.
I'll give you a few moments
just to have a think about that.
America's leading think tank,
the American
Enterprise Institute,
asked this exact
question in the 1990s,
and they discovered
that 55% of people
could name six close friends.
That's a healthy amount, right?
Feels pretty good.
However, the most
recent survey found
this had come down to 27%.
That's not so good.
Interestingly, in the 1990s,
the most famous TV
show was Friends,
which was six close friends.
However, I'd like you to
reflect on your own situation.
If you weren't
around in the 1990s,
maybe just think
of ten years ago.
For me, for example,
I definitely had six close
friends in the 1990s,
but when I started my research
into loneliness
around ten years ago,
I only had a few close friends
and now I'm closer to six again.
What the study suggests is that
roughly a third of us
have six close friends.
More importantly, we can see
in society that, overall,
that number is reducing.
If we look at the other
side of connection,
so loneliness,
an average of one-third
of people worldwide
are now saying they
often feel lonely.
Recent surveys in the
UK have shown that
75% of students say they
struggle with loneliness,
so there is a big challenge,
and it's one that
younger generations
are struggling with even more.
