Ending the Epidemic of Loneliness
Original Medium Post HERE
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Full interview available now on Youtube
“Let me just say one other thing about loneliness, which is that lonely people tend to have self-defeating thoughts and behaviors. . . . And so public education about some of these characteristics of loneliness is also important.”
Recently, Carolina and Justin caught up with Prof. Rick Weissbourd, Senior Lecturer on Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and one of the leading thinkers on moral development and adolescent and young adult mental health, the founder/ co-founder of several hugely impactful initiatives, and widely acclaimed author. This wide-ranging conversation will inform our strategy to increase community joy and support our children. We hope it will help you too in your pursuit of a life of purpose and connection. Thank you again to Prof. Weissbourd for your work — and for taking this time with us! This is the second of two posts; the first focused on purpose.
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Relationships are a pillar of our community joy work. Your report found that “Forty-four percent (44%) of young adults reported a sense of not mattering to others and 34% reported loneliness.” If you were leading work to increase connection at a community level, what would you prioritize?
So I think things that connect people to other people in meaningful relationships can be very important. I think working together on a common cause can be important, both the purposefulness that comes from working together on a common cause and the sense of belonging and the group camaraderie that can come from working on a common cause.
And the other thing that I would say is that, you know, a lot of people need support, need therapy. But for a lot of people, what’s really therapeutic is helping somebody else. It’s really getting outside of yourself and feeling valuable and like you matter and are meaningful to somebody else.
You know, in our data, about 44% of young people also said they don’t matter. They don’t, or they matter very little, to other people. And so, you know, I think part of this is also getting high school students, young people engaged in service, engaged in helping others, mattering to other people.
That can take many forms. It can be visiting someone in a senior center. It can be tutoring a younger child. It can be helping out somebody in your family, which many kids are doing already. But things that get you outside of yourself and feeling valuable to others, and like you matter to others, can be very helpful.
There’s a lot of talk about service. Service comes up a lot. But it really has to be thoughtful service and high-quality service. When you look at service around the country, you look at what high schools are doing, some of it’s pretty crappy service.
And, you know, if kids don’t have choices about what they want to do, if it’s not well structured, if they’re not going to have impact, if they don’t have time for reflection or supervision, it’s much less likely that service is going to be meaningful or purposeful for them.
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East Boston Social Centers leads programs for people of all ages. We have a significant amount of programming with our young learners — including Welcome Baby visits; cross-community work to help all children enter Kindergarten ready to learn, joyful and thriving; early learning and school age programs; teen programming; older adult programming; and parenting supports. When we look at the worrying trends your report found among young adults (and worrying trends in teen mental health), how would you advise programs like ours to think about supporting mental health and preventing loneliness, depression and anxiety before it arises?
Well, one thing I would say about loneliness is that, you know, people often associate loneliness with the elderly, with senior citizens. And there are high rates of loneliness among senior citizens, but there are much higher rates among young people, 18 to 25, significantly higher rates. So part of the loneliness challenge is figuring out what to do with particular populations of people.
But there’s a lot of things you can do at a community level to help connect people to each other. There’s city planning, how you plan parks, whether you put outdoor tables or places in public spaces where people can congregate. When you’re going to a community health center, a doctor or physician asks you whether you have friendships or not. And if you’re lonely, connects you to groups either online or in person, better in person, but sometimes online groups.
And it’s also just our looking out for each other. You know, that if you’re doing OK, try reaching out to somebody who may not be OK, who may be feeling lonely for some reason.
But it can be many things. It can be joining a team, it can be joining a faith-based community, it can be joining a book club. But I think we have to be more proactive about connecting people to each other.
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Let me just say one other thing about loneliness, which is that research suggests that lonely people tend to have self-defeating thoughts and behaviors. They tend to be more critical of themselves. They tend to be more critical of other people. These things can cause them to withdraw and become more lonely. And so public education about some of these self-defeating characteristics of loneliness is also important.
You need to be talking to lonely people about these self-defeating behaviors. That if you’re feeling like that, you’re probably exaggerating the degree to which other people are critical of you and there’s a good chance you’re too critical of other people and you should be aware of that. And it can help diffuse those self-defeating behaviors.
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What brings you Joy?
I love my work. I love my students. But what I really love is my family. I just love my kids, my granddaughter. I get such joy spending time with them. I get to spend six weeks with them in Mexico City. So I’m very excited about that.
This is the 44th post about boosting joy the only way we can: in community. Please share, subscribe, and join our movement by emailing me or supporting East Boston Social Centers. Stay joyful, East Boston.
Prof. Rick Weissbourd