The Connection Conundrum

I think for many people, this pandemic has crystallised the difference between solitude and isolation. “One is connected and one isn’t. Solitude replenishes, isolation diminishes.” So said American best-selling author Henry Cloud. I suspect the absolute novelty factor of being instructed by our employers earlier this year not to come into the office evoked fantasies among many of remote Zen-like spaces, where they would beaver away calmly and productively, free from irritating, interfering colleagues and wittering water-cooler chats. Before the dream became a reality, the notion of working from home was similar to the anticipation of that first alcoholic drink as a teenager. You imagine it’s going to be the best thing ever, but in fact it just makes you feel tired and grumpy.

It turns out that a lot of people feel tired and grumpy working from home. Like alcohol, it morphs from stimulant to depressant pretty quickly. According to a survey by Mental Health First Aid Ireland (MHFA), carried out in July, one-third of those interviewed felt isolated working from home, while just under a third were not happy with their work-life balance. Forty per cent, meanwhile, said they were experiencing poor wellbeing as defined by the WHO-5 Well-Being Index. Interestingly, almost half of respondents also reported more aches and pains in their neck, shoulder and back, as well as greater eye strain. The remote-working hangover is real.

Although we didn’t fully realise it at the time, the insignificant interactions of everyday office life – discussing Bake Off on a Wednesday morning, moaning about train delays caused by the unexpected autumn phenomenon of fallen leaves, doing a coffee run – made working 9-5 much more than simply eight hours of tackling designated tasks. Those sparks of conversation gave us connection, and a picture of the people we worked with that went deeper than anything you might read on a CV. It’s tricky to translate that over Zoom.

Donal Scanlan, manager of MHFA Ireland, predicts: “...we are facing a significant increase in mental health and wellbeing problems as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.” Research in the UK tells a similar story, although findings there suggest that far more women than men are reporting mental health problems. Ben Ethridge, study co-author and economist at The Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, explained to The Guardian that this is because, “Women are more likely to report multiple numbers of close friends.” Remote working aggravated by lockdown has left them feeling isolated and alone.

There’s no vaccine for loneliness, and the worry is that this will be the next epidemic to send the county into a tailspin.

Indeed, an American gerontologist told The New York Times earlier this year that isolation among older people “Is a public health crisis that should be recognised.” In the same article, Dr Ken Covinsky, a geriatrician at the University of California, San Francisco, stated that: “Isolation is a real risk.” It’s associated with significantly higher chances of heart disease, stroke, depression and anxiety, the article revealed. In the same way that Covid-19 has spread from the over 75s to the under 45s, so too has the feeling of isolation, which that generation suffered while cocooning. Solutions to this epidemic won’t be found in a laboratory, but we do need to find tangible ways to manage the seismic shift that’s happened in both our professional and personal lives.

So how do we begin to replace isolation with solitude? Telephone and Zoom calls, FaceTime and Skype have fallen far short of filling the void left by office closures and social distancing – of course technology was always going to be a poor substitute for human touch. In fact, there is evidence of such a thing called the “loneliness paradox” wherein tech and social media, which are supposed to make us feel more connected and included, can actually increase a feeling of aloneness. But right now, they are all we have, and so it’s worth rethinking how we can use digital spaces in a way that might help to relieve loneliness in a material way. In the US, Living Room Conversations has been hosting topical discussions between small groups of strangers since 2010. But since moving online after social restrictions were put in place, the platform has continued to facilitate connections and conversations that otherwise wouldn’t have happened, and as a result is experiencing a surge in interest. Co-founder Joan Blades told The New York Times that she considers the spike in traffic to be a direct result of social isolation.

So why is this “living room conversation” more helpful than a Zoom call with friends? Apart from Zoom fatigue, which will be a key catchphrase of 2020, the reality is that digitally touching base with friends, who you would have always usually met in person, can leave you feeling deflated, hard done by, and more detached from them than ever. The loneliness paradox immediately sets in: you should feel better but in fact you feel more frustrated. Engaging with a new community of individuals about subjects that matter most to you right now is an unexpected bonus at a time of restrictions and social isolation, and is something you can accept for what it is rather than comparing it with some pre-pandemic version of itself.

While we’re most certainly not in control of our circumstances at this moment in time, we are in control of how we frame those circumstances.

I read an article in O:The Oprah Magazine, in which a former solitary confinement prisoner explained how when he changed his “mental environment” by spending time writing, his sense of physical space changed too. “It went from ‘I’m in solitary’ to ‘I’m on sabbatical writing a novel, being catered to, having my meals brought to me three times a day.” That’s one resilient human being, and for me it put lockdown into perspective. We can still go for walks whenever we want, and pass the time of day with other ramblers, albeit from two metres apart. Yes, it’s much more difficult than it used to be to connect with people, but at least we can keep trying.

Language is also a powerful tool in reframing our perspective on the situation we’re in and helping individuals to move towards a state of solitude rather than isolation. So to begin with, physical distancing instead of social distancing. The latter suggests an emotional separation, the former only a geographical one. An article in the Harvard Business Review called Virtual Meetings Don’t Have To Be a Bore suggests choosing words that convey warmth and making a point of indulging in small talk when attending virtual meetings. Yes, it feels awkward and unnatural to begin with, but so did wearing masks, and now many of us own capsule collections. Fashion is always a great ice-breaker (former British Prime Minister Theresa May is quoted as saying her statement shoes were a great conversation starter), so make your Zoom shirt a talking point as a way of lightening the atmosphere and sparking the kind of banter that was customary in the office.

And what else can we do? Reach out to others, perform random acts of kindness, because we don’t all have it in us everyday to go for a wander, to pass the time of day, to be the one who energises a Zoom call. Some days, we all need to be alone, but we don’t have to be diminished by that; being on your own doesn’t have to feel lonely. Just like bringing down the Covid-19 infection numbers, each of us has a part to play in combating the isolation epidemic.

The Connection Conundrum

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