Navigating the Rising Tide of Isolation & Loneliness

Rebuilding Connection in a Disconnected World

In a blink of an eye, we’ve moved into a whole different social experience. What's at risk, and what's the antidote?

Let’s admit it. Human interaction these days has become more difficult.

Smartphones, Social Media, the Covid pandemic, and always-advancing technology have radically changed us in a short amount of time.

There have been some perks, but I’ve been experiencing and observing some tough inter-relational changes, down to the level of friendships and interactions with people we meet.

The problems we face are like a rising tide; unfortunately, most of these appear to only be increasing in intensity. Isolation and mental illness sweep our countries, addictions to phones, pornography, all things internet… we’ve gotten into some murky water, and I’m noticing that we’re inevitably changing with it.

I want to pinpoint some of the changes we’ve gone through since the internet/social media boom and how we may be showings symptoms of it. The antidote (or at least one of them), lies in some of the most simple and precious things we have, our friendships.

First, let’s explore some of the elements of this rising tide that is up against us.

We watch people all day, but don’t interact with them

One of my observations is that eye-contact, small-talk, and simple interactions are on the decrease. Have we become more skittish in our face-to-face interactions?

What’s ironic is that we spend more and more time looking at people, watching them, instead of learning how to interact with them ourselves! Instagram, Tik Tok, Youtube, and all our streaming platforms get us hours and hours of looking at people, yet not connecting with anyone. This disconnect is an odd one!

Ideas are only getting more polarized

I remember being stunned as I watched the Social Dilemma, in many different moments of the documentary. One of the surprising problems addressed was algorithm bias. Big data is trained to learn your bias and only recommend more content that affirms it.

What happens with the different opinions being formed and reinforced is that people subconsciously assume everyone has the same ‘feed’ as them. Then, we are appalled when they think something contrary... “has your head been stuck in your ***?”.

If this intrigues you, I found the 3 minute youtube clip of this idea in the Social Dilemma here.

With the fast-paced world of posting, different viewpoints are diminished to the most emotional triggers. This constant idea war we see online threatens to keep our circles close, and keep our relationships to those which are as like-minded as possible.

There’s way less need to be face-to-face with people than before.

• You can pick up your groceries from the parking lot

• You don’t go into the bank anymore to manage your finances

• Less of us go to church or religious gatherings

• Millenials/Gen Z are phasing out of school, which was all-day connection

• We can just text/call our family and friends to stay connected

• An increasing amount of people work from home

• Loneliness can be augmented artificially through social media and make us less inclined to go out and connect with others

Woah, this all happened really fast.

How is this affecting us? How is it affecting you? Your sense of connection and friendship?

The list may be long for this category. Comment some others below that come to mind for you!

Rebuilding Connection

Now let’s get talking about the wholesome stuff that makes all the difference.

The antidote for these issues lies not only in more connection, but better connection, which requires some bravery, intentionality, and hope that this is possible. We must come back to the central truth that we were made for each other, not to live or suffer alone.

Mother Teresa put it in such a lovely way: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other”

So, it may be true, that interacting with others feels harder than it used to. We all could use more solid friendships, calm atmospheres of conversation, and listening on both sides.

I want to offer several suggestions for how to increase connectedness in your life with others: both current friends and new acquaintances.

For Your Friendships

Lower the threshold for reasons to be together

Is it just me, or did the ‘anti’ get ‘upped’ for what makes a worthy hangout?

Over the years, time with friends has included more and more restaurant bills, bar tabs, and airbnb costs. Even a humble coffee date goes for $13.50 for two lattes, tax, and tip!

When I was a young boy, we knew the numbers of our friends in the neighborhood. All it took was a quick call, asking, “can you play”? And that was enough reason to come over. As adults, we’ve time spent together has gotten much more formal, purposeful, and often, more expensive.

The nature of how we spend the time together has changed, too.

I saw an instagram reel from James Matthews, a guy who helps entrepreneurs, who articulated this change accurately! He said, “What adults get wrong about friendship: we don’t get wasteful, lazy, unproductive time together… it’s always scheduled, ‘you catch me up, I’ll catch you up.’” It’s in those unproductive, unhurried times that our real self can come out.

Perhaps we’ve gotten too formal, too flashy with our friendship time. I propose we lower the threshold for reasons and opportunities to be together. It may be a bit childlike, but give it a try for a bit.

“Can I come over?”

“Want to go for a walk together?”

“Want to have breakfast at my house tomorrow?"

“I have to go grocery shopping later today. Want to join me?”

“Want to come over sometime this weekend?”

The unproductive, unhurried time together is where friendship gold comes from. I’ve been practicing this with my neighbors across the street, Barry and Venda, farmers in their 60’s. It’s been a blast. Every couple of days, I’ll give Barry a ring and say, “Heidi-ho neighbor! Ok if I come by tonight for tea?” It’s a bit bold, but the hours of lazy time we get together each week are so good for all of us. The more we carry the conviction that connection is what we’re made for, even though it can be hard, its certainly better than more doom scrolling for the evening!

Balance out the dialogue

My brother Jon pulled me aside a few years ago and told me, “I love hearing your stories and all your accomplishments, I do…but sometimes I feel a lack of interest to how I’ve been, and teasing stories out of me too!”

That feedback hit me hard.

Jon has taught me since, that both over-talking and under-talking/shifting-from-the-attention can both be forms of defense or control mechanisms. His thoughts on that struck a cord with me, as I tended to over-talk, to avoid awkwardness, or perhaps felt it was ‘helpful’ to a shyer personality.

If you tend to over talk, practice shortening your ideas and think of more questions to ask, that tease out stories and the truer, deeper things of your friends!

If you prefer to listen and keep the attention on the other person, practice sharing more of your own thoughts, questions, and stories.

Who you are is a blessing, and you’re worth listening to!

Make regular calls with friends that are important to you

One of the biggest assumptions we all make is that our friends are too busy, wrapped up in their own lives, and perhaps even getting estranged to us, when distance and time take their course.

But some of those friendships are worth the upkeep, wouldn’t you agree?

This is your reminder that calls to friends are the coolest. Don’t let time, distance, or assumptions get the best of that. At the end of the call, I can already guess they’ll say, “Hey- thanks for calling, that meant a lot to me”, or, “this made my day!”.

Cheesy Small Groups or real talk time

I used to have a small group of high school guys that met once a week. It was normal at the time because that’s just what church kids did, but I didn’t realize how rare that kind of stuff was, and especially now today.

It’s not that enticing at first, but real time to be together and connect on real-life hardships, questions, and stories is so healthy for adults to keep close.

Even something as cheesy as ‘highs and lows’ can be a great way to understand how your friends are really doing. It’s good for the heart to know my friends understand my great moments and my difficult ones too. Knowing others and being known is critical. Use your house, your friend’s living room, or even a roof to watch the sun go down. Having something to drink/bake/cook together is helpful!

We all need real talk.

*If needed, a group call can accomplish this too*

Body Language includes our phones now

Simon Sinek has some brilliant and impactful thoughts on phones and friendship. Check out his two minute youtube video How Cell Phones Impact Our Relationships if you want to learn more.

For People You Meet

The Lost Art of Eye Contact

Looking people in the eye, in my experience, was a skill I needed to learn and practice when I was in grade school. It’s pretty advanced stuff! It certainly was much more ‘comfortable’ to look elsewhere, and it took being brave to keep eye contact with people - strangers, acquaintances.

I have a sense that it’s been harder to keep that up in these last years- and more times I watch it be difficult for others. Have you experienced this too?

What’s your name?

Going around in public, we can interact with lots of people without getting their names most of the time. I don’t like it… especially when there is conversation, some form of service, etc.

Getting someone’s name is that it helps you ‘see’ them more. They become of more substance in our minds, and I believe that it helps us to see more of their value and understand they have their own full life of experience, hardship, and they are just as real as those things are for us.

This is of course a very simple idea. Get people’s names more often, share yours. And if/when you see them again, and you remember theirs, it’s a subtle but meaningful moment of “you matter”.

This became more and more important to me with interactions from people in any service industry. They can be treated like less-than-human and it’s sad to watch or hear about. Make someone’s shift easier and more fun by being a great guest, and get to know them if time permits.

Be a friend to someone new

Wise brother Jon told me many years ago, “Many of us walk around, waiting to be tapped on the shoulder, invited along, chosen. The irony is that everyone is waiting to be chosen, and no one is willing to be the chooser.” Another assumption we make, especially in isolation and loneliness, is that ‘everyone else has their relational bases covered except for me’ . But my friend, that’s just not true.

Perhaps you’ve thought before, “no one is intentional with me”. Maybe that’s true.

But what if we’re all feeling that?

If we flip it on its head, ‘being a friend’ to someone may actually gain you one as well. Don’t forget that you are a blessing to those around you!

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There are many things to focus our efforts on these days. But I’m finding that solid relationships and loving others seem to outweigh the rest.

I hope these tips are an encouragement to you in your journey. We’re tired of our attention being gamed by tech and money - and I do believe we will see a resurgence in community, friendships, and real life.

Let’s fight this tide together.

-Josh Caliguire

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Please comment below what resonates with you, or what you’re learning these days about building and maintaining relationships!

If this topic has been relevant for you, and you’d like to explore this deeper… we’re going to plan a future zoom call to talk about this topic together. Send me a message or comment, if you’d like to be included in that!