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Meaningful connection in a hyperconnected world

Published on September 30, 2024   34 min

Other Talks in the Series: Workplace Wellbeing

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0:00
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.

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