BuddyHub: The Membership Community Just For You

9 min read

What makes BuddyHub different? What is it about the way we operate that sets us apart from other friendship clubs? Unsurprisingly, these are questions we ask ourselves regularly!

Not just because we’re always trying to provide a better service and improve the member experience. But also because we’re genuinely committed to engaging members in the ongoing development of BuddyHub’s community.

Let’s take a look at what we mean by this.

Our vision is to create a better-connected world where anyone can make meaningful new friendships and find greater personal fulfilment.

We are an intergenerational friendship club. And believe we are unique in this respect. We want to give adults of all ages living in London many opportunities to meet people with shared interests, build and sustain their social circles and experience a deep sense of community. 

Enabling them to make new friends and enjoy new experiences. Helping them to feel a sense of purpose in uncertain times. Providing a welcoming environment for people who may feel marginalised in the community for whatever reason. Creating space for friendship with people you might never meet in the normal course of life. 

That’s all very well, you might say. But how do we actually translate these fine sentiments into the real world?

We’re glad you asked! There have been conversations about what we mean by ‘participation’ and ‘engagement’ in our sector for a long time. A key theme is that ‘audiences’ don’t actually exist. Rather, people exist, working together to find creative solutions to the challenges they face. So, the question we’re asking ourselves and our stakeholders is:

How do we create an intergenerational friendship community built on kindness and purpose by tapping into people’s knowledge, enthusiasm and commitment?

The beauty of this approach is that it offers people the opportunity to help deliver our collective vision, build community engagement, and help us, in our own small way, to make the world a better place.

Hearing your voices

Our starting point is that most people recognise the importance of friendship in their lives. What they don’t always know is where to find it. Or how to go about making it happen in a way that works for them. 

And, let’s be honest, making and retaining friends can be difficult. It takes time and effort to get to know people, develop deeper emotional bonds, and make the space in your life to sustain those friendships. That’s assuming, of course, you have the opportunity to meet the right people in the first place!

Perhaps this is why research indicates that 20% of those under 34 have only one or no close friends. A slightly troubling statistic, I think we can all agree!

Given these challenges, it’s not surprising that a variety of friendship solutions and communities have sprung up over the years. Some offline, some online. However, many offer limited value. evolving around a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn’t suit many people, or a narrowly defined niche that suits even fewer.

To move beyond these limitations we want to make our members feel valued. Using our unique Friendship Finder, our Friendship Wheel service matches members who we feel will likely click. To oil the wheels of friendship we make initial suggestions around where to meet and what to do, based on shared interests, beliefs and values. But then it’s really all about empowering members to enjoy new experiences with their new friends. 

We are also inviting members to co-design our newer Friendship Clubs service, and take the lead on the management of the Clubs at a community level once we’ve helped them develop a momentum of their own. 

We want people to feel that they belong to something that belongs to them. We want people to feel passionate about BuddyHub. We want the people BuddyHub serves to shape BuddyHub’s future.

We make the road by walking

This means going beyond a default transactional focus on growing membership numbers or extending our geographical reach beyond our current areas of operation to looking more broadly at how we add value to people’s lives and help them thrive.

It means developing a deep understanding of what members want, seeking out local community knowledge, and recognising that people have different perspectives, with every individual bringing their own unique experiences to the table.

It means marrying our understanding of the social science behind friendship formation to a willingness to let go of preconceptions about how best to develop our unique service model at a community level.

It means making space for members to participate in the way they want to participate, allowing them to bring their skills and experience to bear, and allowing us to learn from the wisdom of others.  

It means recognising that we’re all different. Some people are natural extroverts. Others are natural introverts. Others sit somewhere in the middle. On top of this, many people experience social anxiety. And find turning up to events on their own or when they don’t know anyone challenging. So, we design our services to meet differing social needs. We address social anxiety issues in various ways, through, for example, our ‘Meet the Host’ bios and short video calls arranged ahead of an event so you know who you’ll be meeting. We’re continuing to develop additional support in this area, based on member needs.

Finally, it means recognising that members want to feel safe when using BuddyHub services and interacting with other members. Everyone who joins our community is required to verify their identity with photo ID and a proof of address which we check at an in-person meeting.

Investing in your wellbeing

Importantly, our mission is underpinned by our legal structure. As a social enterprise and community interest company we are committed to reinvesting a majority of any future profits to grow our reach, achieve sustainability and deliver our social mission. Community benefits and member needs drive what we do.

We want to encourage experimentation, learn from what works and create a channel for new ideas about how to deliver our mission to build community engagement. It’s a shared journey where we all contribute to the betterment of our collective physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.

We want people to take ownership of their social lives and create the conditions for more rewarding life experiences. Experiencing a greater sense of community participation. And exploring opportunities to find deeper fulfilment as human beings.

Why do we do this? Because friendship matters! It matters to us. It matters to you. Take a look at our website to find out more about how we can enrich your social life. Or contact us at hello@buddyhub.co.uk if you have any questions. 

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Reflections on BuddyHub’s New ‘Connecting Through Questions’ Events So Far!

6 min read

As an organisation, BuddyHub has always been intrigued by how friendship works. Not just the positive stuff. How we find a common spark and try to make sense of the world together. But the things that get in the way. The barriers that make cultivating connections with new people difficult. And the mechanisms that we can use to bypass them or knock them down. 

It’ll come as no surprise, then, that we’ve been trialling an event since the beginning of the year that takes a close look at exactly what helps people to connect. When conceptualising these events, our aim  was simple: design an evening where people who don’t know each other meet for the first time and feel connected to each other by the end of the session.

Sounds easy, huh? Not quite! 

For sure, we’ve had our own experience of connecting people through our Friendship Wheels. To begin with, these were predominantly intergenerational, though age-peer friendships often developed within them as our initial operating model enabled Buddies to meet up and get to know each other too. 

We also had the feedback we’d gathered from co-design sessions we undertook last year with Professor Robin Dunbar, a leading expert in the social science which underpins friendships. It’s been a privilege working with Robin. And the sessions gave us the opportunity to identify the things that helped people connect effectively. One key insight was that people felt most connected to one another only when the social anxiety of being in a room with new people had subsided. The most effective way to do this? Make them laugh! 

As you might expect, there was no magic formula to underlay the design of the sessions. But what became clear was we could encourage participants to take ownership of this opportunity to get to know each other and make one another laugh by priming them with a set of  questions. Constructing them in an open-ended style meant people could think about their answers whilst also giving them the opportunity to pass or pontificate on their answer. The questions ranged from the light-hearted, through the obviously silly, to deeper questions that facilitated self-disclosure.

The beauty of this approach is that good quality questions encourage people to open up about themselves, talk about what makes them tick and discuss what they value most. Participating in these sessions, you can’t help but listen with open ears as your curiosity is piqued about the other people in the group. Especially, if you find things that make you laugh! In the process, you start to move beyond the superficial (and often painful) interactions that tend to characterise first encounters and start to build something authentic together.

Building a shared reality

At our successful first event, we found out about people’s past, their hopes, dreams and fears, and their favourite way to eat ice cream! 

By the time the next event came around, we had gathered a larger group. Ranging from women in their 50s to men in their early twenties, coming from various parts of the world. They all had their own perspectives on life, formed by their different life experiences. But they also had something in common: the desire to connect meaningfully with other like-minded people. 

And we took the opportunity to reflect on some of the biggest challenges facing the world today, including toxic masculinity and the war in Ukraine. Subjects that, without the space for discussion, go on living in our heads, not always to our benefit. The crucial thing was that we tackled these often difficult topics in a spirit of enquiry, in a compassionate way, reflecting respectfully on each person’s contribution.

At the most recent session, we had an incredibly stimulating conversation which culminated in the discovery that all attendees shared a common thread. They were all artists. One still early in her journey, painting landscapes as she learned about colour theory and approached retirement. Another a seasoned artist who spoke of the nuances required in painting pet portraits and capturing the reflection of the owner in their eyes. We talked about the process we took to create the art and what the essence of creativity is all about.

What strikes us as fascinating in all of this is how we can use our exploration of things beyond ourselves to help strike up a rapport with people we’ve never met before. As the American poet E.E. Cummings said: “Always the more beautiful answer, who asks the more beautiful question.”

We’re certainly looking forward to our next session on 5th April. Who knows what we’ll find out about one another! 

Why not sign up? Join us by following this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/opportunity-for-friendship-and-connection-through-questions-tickets-587703435797?aff=Blog 

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How Our Personality Affects the Way We Approach Friendship

5 min read

People differ immensely in how they handle the social world. Put simply, some people find making and sustaining friendships significantly easier than others. 

This can be partially related to our personality type, which can be thought of as something we either have or don’t have, or viewed as a ‘dimension’.

Introversion and extroversion personality types, to take one example, are generally regarded as dimensional.  It’s thought that most people sit at one end or the other of this spectrum. Though some, known as ambiverts, sit in or around  the middle, switching between the two states depending on their mood and the social circumstances they find themselves in. 

Unsurprisingly, our personality type influences how we behave in social situations.

Extroversion tends to be manifested in outgoing, talkative, assertive behaviour whilst introversion is characterised by more inner-directed, thoughtful, reserved behaviour. Generally speaking, extroverts enjoy sociability, seek out excitement, and like being the centre of attention. Introverts, by contrast, are typically most comfortable relating to other people in small groups and in one-to-one relationships and are energised by spending time alone.  

If you’re wondering which category you fall into, why not try this quick quiz?

It’s interesting to consider how the different ways introverts and extroverts appear to approach friendship affects the dynamics of those friendships. 

A fascinating article in Psychology Today considers whether introverts make better friends than extroverts, because they invest more in each of their fewer friendships? Or whether it’s the other way around, because extroverts are better at reaching out to others? 

The writer believes that it doesn’t really matter. Provided there’s an element of give and take, accompanied by mutual respect. Ultimately, what matters is the identification of ‘common ground, what both introverts and extroverts need in their lives: people who get them.’

But wherever you sit, it’s important to factor in and consider the different needs that people have when socialising with others. And, as many of us are familiar with the terms, we find it’s a useful way of assessing how you are likely to interact with each other in the BuddyHub community. It also helps us to continually design our services to best reflect different members’ needs. 

What does this mean for you as a member of BuddyHub?

We know some of you are shy and might also suffer from a degree of social anxiety. This can be very challenging in a society that places a premium on being outgoing and having a large personality (from school to the workplace and on into wider society). 

But these things aren’t fixed in stone. People tend to get more extroverted as they get older. This is probably something to do with our experience of socialising with people as we go through life. Developing greater confidence about how to handle social situations, becoming less inhibited and caring less about making a fool of ourselves. That said, particularly as we age, we may be less motivated to get out and about meeting people. It can seem easier simply to stay at home and enjoy your own company!

And wherever you think you’re placed on the introversion/extroversion spectrum, don’t let it hold you back when it comes to getting involved in BuddyHub activities. Because we’re always thinking of ways to make people feel more comfortable meeting new people. We’ll help break the ice. Support you through the introduction process in whatever way we can. And steer you towards activities that suit your particular needs and circumstances.

Meeting people who get you

As you’ll have gathered, BuddyHub is very interested in what makes our members tick. If you decide to join our community, we will ask you a set of questions about your interests, hobbies and beliefs. This helps us get to know you a little better and find the best matches possible. It also means that we can continue to design our services around the varying needs of our members.

In practical terms, BuddyHub has already been designed to cater for different social needs. Our Friendship Wheels are perfect for developing one-to-one or small group friendships. While our Friendship Clubs provide the opportunity to meet other members, often in larger groups, and develop friendships around a common theme or activity.

On a broader scale, our community platform on Circle allows members to engage with each other online. This can be a great way of getting to know other members before meeting up face-to-face, which some people can find a little daunting until you’ve got to know the person first.  

Horses for courses

In all of this, we recognise that different cultural environments can appeal to different people in different ways. Some of these differences of cultural expression are socially conditioned. And some may reflect different cultural origins. 

Walking is an activity that has across-the-board appeal. To reflect this appeal, BuddyHub has launched a Nature Club where walks based in your area are a popular feature. Interestingly, it turns out that the need to synchronise your walking pace with another person releases endorphins. They not only stimulate relaxation and improve our mood but yes, you’ve guessed it, also help people bond. All the more reason to join! 

Singing also has wide appeal. And it’s believed that the fastest way for a group of people to bond together is to sing together. Perhaps this is why we find examples of group singing in all cultures. So watch out for some upcoming singing opportunities with Culture Club. 

We believe that we’re all individuals with different social needs and will find some activities more congenial than others. As such we aim to design our services around what you want. 

Whatever your personality, why not come and find out how BuddyHub can immeasurably enrich your social life and perhaps give you a more positive outlook on the world.

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Why We’re Happier When We’ve Got Friends

10 min read

According to Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher, ‘Man is by nature a social animal.’ He regarded friendship as an essential constituent of both a good society and a good life. Sitting at the heart of a good society because of its contribution to civic democracy. And at the heart of a good life because it nurtured wisdom and happiness.

Fast forward to the modern day, and evolutionary biologists believe primates developed large brains to both manage their social relationships as well as navigate a hostile world. Using their increased cognitive ability to develop social skills and maintain positive relationships within the group to improve shared chances of survival in the face of ever-present predators.

Deploying greater social awareness helped us to cooperate with others. Developing language and culture helped us foster closer social bonds. Ultimately, civilisation developed because of our capacity to live and work together in increasingly large social groups. Identifying opportunities and facing challenges together to create the complex societies that developed in Mesopotamia, Egypt and elsewhere in early human history.

But it’s not just about improved cooperation. Numerous medical studies published over the years have shown that effective friendships offer multiple benefits to both mental and physical health.

Friendships can help keep your mind sharp. Support you through tough times. And help you live longer as you manage stress better.

They improve mental health by providing a strong sense of companionship, mitigating feelings of loneliness, and boosting self-esteem.

Friendships also reduce the risk of contracting many medical conditions, reducing the risk of high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, various cancers and an unhealthy body mass index (BMI).  

Put simply, we live longer as friendships make us happier. There’s even a neurological basis for this: regular social interactions release feel good chemicals in the brain. Which means we do it over and over again to get that dopamine rush!

The limits of technology

On the face of it, our increasingly connected technology-based world appears to offer greater opportunities to interact with people on a social level. In reality, for all its benefits at a general economic level, nothing could be further from the truth.  

As an article in the Independent reported, ‘our reliance on social media can have a detrimental effect on our mental health, with the average Briton checking their phone as much as 28 times a day.’ While many people benefit from the increased social interaction offered by social media platforms, using them too frequently can lead to a rise in unhappiness, social isolation and anxiety. It can also generate FOMO, affect our sleep and impact on our ability to concentrate.  

The renowned Italian author Umberto Eco sums it up rather neatly in a fascinating piece in CubaDebate: ‘The Internet is one thing and its opposite. It could remedy the loneliness of many, but it turns out that it has multiplied it. The internet has allowed many to work from home, and that has increased their isolation. And it generates its own remedies to eliminate that isolation, Twitter, Facebook, which end up increasing it…’ (Translated from the Spanish original.)

Worse still, recent research suggests that using smartphones during face-to-face social interactions (sadly, all too common!) decreases enjoyment in the company of others, and is linked to greater boredom and worse overall mood.

Ultimately, using the internet is no substitute for genuine, face-to-face social interaction with a range of good friends. By creating multiple, often superficial, online connections, social media undermines your ability to engage with those people in real life who can offer meaningful, fulfilling relationships.

The loneliness of crowds

But we know it can be difficult to make or maintain friends these days, especially in the city. We live in a time when people move around a lot as they go through education, change jobs or move home. All of which makes it hard to develop and sustain relationships.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way. 

BuddyHub exists to help you make the first move and nourish your inner circle. And is being developed with the assistance of evolutionary anthropologist Professor Robin Dunbar. Dunbar is the world’s leading expert on the important role played by friendship in the development of human society and its significance for our health and happiness. 

Our innovative friendship model offers you the opportunity to boost your social networks through face-to-face interactions with people who share your interests, beliefs and outlook on the world.

It allows you to harness the emotional power provided by deep connection with others, unlocking the potential for meaningful friendships that go beyond superficial interactions.

This is reflected in our Friendship Wheels which provide the opportunity to be quickly matched with other members. Using Dunbar’s concept of the Seven Pillars of Friendship to bring people together based on the cultural factors they have in common (including hobbies, moral and political values, and sense of humour).

And is seen also in our Friendship Clubs, which provide multiple opportunities to share skills and interests with one another, open your eyes to new experiences and try something different.

We provide a weekly ‘Community Connect’ session via our online platform, where you can chat with BuddyHub’s Community Manager and make your voice heard.

In addition, we will also be hosting monthly events for new and existing members based around relationship skills-building and accelerated bonding opportunities.

In a nutshell, BuddyHub gives you the opportunity to slow down, reflect on what’s important in life and incorporate a greater sense of purpose and belonging in your social life.  

Friendship is a fruit which ripens slowly

But why choose us when there are a number of friendship agencies out there which offer introduction services. Along with online friendship apps which appear to provide a useful way to meet new people. Firstly, the agencies tend to be restricted by age, professional status or geography. While the apps are unlikely to be able to facilitate face-to-face connections. All are driven by commercial imperatives.

Of course, you can always go down the pub. Get an allotment. Or buy a dog and meet fellow dog-owners when out walking it.

But these options simply don’t work for everyone. So, what can BuddyHub offer you which sets us apart from others?

For starters, we’re a Community Interest Company, which means we operate for the public benefit.

As you might expect, we embrace diversity, welcoming members from different backgrounds, ages, sexes/genders and races. We welcome people with a range of values, hobbies and interests. All united by their belief in the power of community and their wish to broaden their friendship circles.

We are passionate about intergenerational connection and the power this has to both restore something we’ve lost in society as communities have fragmented and shift our perspectives in more fruitful directions, promoting positive emotions and human flourishing.

We are proud of the way BuddyHub provides a safe space to engage with other people, experience a sense of belonging and feel both seen and heard (in contrast to the noise and the divisiveness of so much social media).

Finally, we are interested in the depth of connection that can be made between people in the right circumstances and the powerful ability we retain as human beings to make real, long-lasting friendships.

Your new friends are waiting for you

With the fragmentation of society and disappearance of older forms of community, the decline of religion in a more secular western world, and a more individualised working experience, meeting new people can be difficult.

We can help you make new friends, feel good about both yourself and the world around you, and help you get on with your life in the way you want to. 

If you would like to find out more, why not take a look at our website, email us with any questions you might have at hello@buddyhub.co.uk or come along to one of our upcoming events. 

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How the New BuddyHub Clubs Will Improve Our Friendship Offer

8 min read

People need people. And becoming a member of BuddyHub is an investment in your own well-being as well as that of others. Giving you the opportunity via our innovative Friendship Wheels to make new local friends who share your interests. Experience the good and bad in life with like-minded people. And feel a sense of belonging in an uncertain, ever-changing world.

All as part of a growing community of purpose bonded by kindness and friendship.

But we know that the Friendship Wheels, which are based on groups of three or four people, are only part of the story. For sure, we have the closest relationships with our inner circle of friends. But it doesn’t end there.

Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar is an expert on the social science behind the formation of friendships. He’s best known for ‘Dunbar’s number’, which he defines as the typical number of stable relationships people can sustain at any one time.

Birds of a feather flock together

In parallel, Dunbar has identified what he calls the Seven Pillars of Friendship. These are the cultural factors we have in common that bring us together. And includes hobbies and interests, moral, political and religious views, and sense of humour.

Reflecting this social science in the design of our service has played an important part in deciding how to take BuddyHub to the next stage. The logical outcome was to use these findings to further improve our service and enrich the lives of our members. So, we’re developing what we’re calling ‘Friendship Clubs’.  

These are designed to give our members the opportunity to meet more people in the BuddyHub community. Bringing together anyone who is a part of our community, face-to-face, in larger groups of up to 15 members.

The aim is to cover a variety of shared interests. We currently have a few Clubs up and running. Including Nature Club, centred on exploring London’s green spaces. Pub Club, an opportunity to have a pint and a chat while sampling London’s rich pub heritage. And Football Club, which, as you might expect, will focus on the beautiful game!

All BuddyHub members are welcome to join some Clubs. And we are always on the lookout for new ideas of activities people might like to undertake collectively, to help them connect with others in their area.

We anticipate these Friendship Clubs taking place on a regular basis, which might be weekly or monthly. But this is really for the members of each Club to decide for themselves.

Jointly developed

Crucially, they’re being co-created with members. Not only does this give them an explicitly democratic flavour. It gives members the opportunity to influence their design and shape their operation.

We have given this practical expression by a series of co-design events and by:

Our main task in life is to give birth to ourselves

We anticipate the Clubs having a very positive impact on the mental well-being of members because of the amplified opportunities they provide for social interaction which mirror how we form and sustain our relationships in real life.

In this process, it’s worth noting that they are a positive illustration of the continued relevance of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. For those not familiar with the theory (not without its critics but still a very helpful tool for understanding behaviour) psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is one of the best-known theories of human motivation. Arguing that our actions are motivated by a number of defined physiological and psychological needs that progress from a basic to a more complex level.

As you might expect, the higher levels include:

Maslow later added three additional needs to his original hierarchy, including what he called ‘Transcendence needs’. He believed that we are driven to look beyond the physical self in search of meaning. In his words:

‘Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.’

That’s really rather wonderful! We wouldn’t claim that our Friendship Clubs will necessarily deliver a higher spiritual dimension. But they definitely provide the opportunity to care for others, seek greater meaning in our lives and experience personal fulfilment.     

Why not give the Friendship Clubs a try?

If you’re already a member, why not try joining a Club (or two!)? 

To find out more, you can connect with our community platform hosted on Circle, and use this to  share your thoughts and feelings, as well as stay up to date with upcoming club events. 

If you’re completely new to BuddyHub, why not join us at an upcoming event and get a feel for what it’s all about? Or, if you’ve already decided to join us, fill in your registration details here and a member of the team will be in touch. 

Whatever route you choose, this is your opportunity to find out how we can help you make new friends, feel good about both yourself and the world around you, and get on with life in the way you want.

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Why Is BuddyHub Shifting to a Membership Model? And How Might This Affect You.

Changes are afoot at BuddyHub, the intergenerational friendship club! Let’s take a few minutes to explore them. 

10 min read

When we established BuddyHub in 2014, our aim was to address loneliness and isolation amongst older people whose health or life situation was getting in the way of their social life.  

We knew we were developing a service better designed to tackle this growing societal problem than traditional befriending services. Our innovation had several strands:

The goal was a pathway to financial sustainability for our social enterprise. Avoiding the operational challenges faced by charities who are reliant on scarce grant funding which limits their growth and restricts their reach. 

Later on, we realised we were still rooted in the standard charity paradigm of an older person/younger volunteer model. Saying to older people we would be matching them with local volunteers had always felt a bit awkward because of the two-way nature of friendships in real life. Having one party to the friendship considered a volunteer also made it sound transactional with one side giving and the other side taking. And reinforced the prevailing, ageist narratives about ‘old people’ as passive recipients of external help.

The pandemic brought into sharp relief the social pressures people face in today’s uncertain, ever-changing world. And has prompted many younger people to look at ways of building up their friendship circles so as not to experience loneliness and social isolation. Not least as evidence builds of the importance of having robust social networks that we can fall back on when we experience challenging episodes in life.

The experience of creating hundreds of friendship matches has taught us how much the usually younger people we matched with our older members were benefiting from these sometimes life-changing friendships. That helped them cope with the uncertainties of life whilst often living far from home and family. And provided an opportunity to meet people outside their often narrow social bubbles and gain new perspectives.

Without change, there is no innovation

Last year, we had a light bulb moment! The time had come to move away from the artificial separation in Friendship Wheels between usually older, core members and their ‘volunteer’ Buddies to create a universal model that places everyone on an equal footing as a member, with equal rights and equal responsibilities.  

The traditional charitable model clearly works well in a variety of settings. But, as a social enterprise, our mission has always been to establish something completely new. Which empowered people by giving them the opportunity to take control of their lives. 

Having said this, we also understand that many of our Buddies identify strongly as volunteers (particularly as many found us via volunteer platforms). Precisely because volunteering offers opportunities to provide a sense of purpose, often missing in today’s society, as well as develop new skills and have fun. So, we’re pleased that our new membership model retains the often transformative benefits that younger people can expect to experience by becoming a member of BuddyHub, including:

We firmly believe this holistic approach will:

What does this mean for you?

Everyone who joins BuddyHub as a member going forward will be on the new subscription model of the same monthly membership fee plus a joining fee, regardless of age, as we move from an original subscription scheme where older members pay a monthly fee and younger Buddies pay nothing. 

Existing Buddies are being offered a free trial rate during Spring giving them the chance to experience our new in-development Clubs service. The monthly rate will then be £15 or the same as any discounted rate available to new members on the website. At the same time, we will start a campaign to attract Community Sponsors to fund free memberships for older people in financial deprivation. 

We recognise some Buddies, who joined under our original subscription model, will not welcome the shift but we need to be honest and direct with members. And we hope the rationale for the change is clear:

The crucial point is that our new subscription model is designed to provide us with a sustainable business model over the long term. This will allow us to grow the organisation, attract and pay our staff fairly, expand our reach and provide our services to a much wider group of people. 

It also sits well with our status as a Community Interest Company (CIC), meaning we are here to benefit the public. The majority of any profits we make (currently none!) are invested back into the business to maintain our services and fund expansion plans.

Finding personal fulfilment

Whilst making these changes, our core values remain the same.  Friendship, connecting to others, having fun, respect and compassion drive everything that we do. Our offer hasn’t changed; it’s been improved with the new Clubs service.

Personal fulfilment remains at the heart of BuddyHub’s social purpose so it’s been interesting to see the results of some research we undertook recently with members. This clearly shows many of you are actively seeking greater meaning in your lives. Looking to have deeper connections with people. And hoping to develop friendships in new arenas that are linked to a sense of purpose. 

Becoming a member of BuddyHub is an investment in your own well-being as well as that of others.

What happens next

We’re excited by the new friendship opportunities we’re creating. 

If you’re already a member, we hope you’re reaping the rewards and are very happy to talk to you about any questions you might have.  

If you’re not a member, come and join us and find out how BuddyHub can benefit you!

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Why the Collapse of Intergenerational Living Has Increased Loneliness

Erica Young’s excellent website The Reliants Project pointed us towards an explanatory article that strongly chimed with this founder’s thoughts on the potential vulnerability and fragility of the modern nuclear family. Particularly when buffeted by physical or mental illness, bereavement and other factors that can lead to fracture or breakdown. In The Nuclear Family was a Mistake David Brooks traces the shift from living in close extended families to living in small nuclear families. 

He cites the work of Jane Jacobs, journalist and urbanist, in her 2004 book about North American Society called ‘Dark Age Ahead’. At its core is the idea that families are ‘rigged to fail’ because the structures that once supported the family no longer exist. For millions of people the shift from big and/or extended families to detached nuclear families has been a disaster. It certainly was for my family. 

David Brooks traces a 150+ year journey of how we got here. Though based on America, the forces at work are very relevant to UK society too. 

The extended family might once have comprised parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, great-aunts, great-uncles and grandparents over three or four generations. Over time, whether to pursue a better home or job, extended families have completely decentralized so that by the 1960s the nuclear family became the norm: typically a father and mother and two children. Multigenerational gatherings first gave way to smaller families spending time together around the TV. More recently, smart devices have usurped even this time together as each person has their own screen. The big interconnected family of siblings and extended kin, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, has fragmented into ever smaller and more fragile forms. In many sectors of society, nuclear families have further fragmented into single-parent families and, for some people, chaotic families or no families. 

During the period from 1750 to 1900 the numbers of extended families living together about doubled. These extended families offer resilience as more people can share unexpected burdens. If, say, a parent dies, siblings, uncles, aunts and grandparents are there to step in. However, extended families can also be exhausting and allow little privacy or choice as you are forced to be in daily intimate contact with people you didn’t choose. Greater stability comes at the cost of freedom to make your own way in life. By contrast, a detached nuclear family provides an intense set of relationships among, say, four people. If one relationship breaks, there is nothing to cushion the blow: in a nuclear family, the end of the marriage means the end of the family life as previously understood.

As Brooks points out, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as factories opened in big U.S. cities, young men and women left their extended families and rural farm life to pursue the American dream. Finding city life lonely, they started to marry sooner and started nuclear families: the decline of multigenerational cohabiting families mirrors the decline in farm employment. By 1960, 78% of all children were living with their two parents, who were married, and who lived apart from their extended family. The nuclear family seemed to flourish between 1950 to 1965 as divorce rates dropped and fertility rates rose. This was a stark change from the way humanity lived during the tens of thousands of years before 1950. And since 1965 the essential fragility of the nuclear family has been revealed: now only one-third of Americans live in a nuclear family (vs. 43% in the UK).

From 1950 to 1965, economic and societal conditions supported the nuclear family. It thrived because disempowered women, often excluded from better quality jobs in the workplace, spent hours as homemakers raising children. Nuclear families, in suburbs, were also more connected to other nuclear families than they are today, forming a support network that operated much like an extended family. The postwar period saw high church attendance, unionisation, social trust, and mass prosperity which all correlate with family cohesion, creating ideal conditions for family stability. 

The bonds started to fray

However, new forces began to stress the nuclear family. From the 1970s, young men’s wages declined, putting pressure on working-class families in particular. Society became more individualistic and more self-oriented with people putting greater value on privacy and autonomy. As feminism rose women started to achieve greater freedoms to live and work as they chose. By the ‘60s and ’70s, there was a cultural switch to putting self before family, a move away from the ‘family first’ attitudes of the 1950s. Baby Boomer culture stressed liberation and the culture of marriage shifted to be more about adult fulfillment than childbearing and rearing. 

As marriage became a love match, staying together made less sense when the love died. The trend of rising divorce and resulting family breakdown began long ago as divorces increased fifteenfold from 1870 to 1920. By 1950 27% of marriages ended in divorce whereas 45% do today (33% in England & Wales). This trend was helped by families generally having fewer relatives around in times of stress to support parents. The result was that between 1970 and 2012 the share of households consisting of married couples with kids halved. In 1960, 72% of Americans were married and only 13% of households were single-person. By 2018, nearly half of American adults were single and the number of single-person households had more than doubled to 28% (41% in the UK).

The concept of marriage is also falling out of favour: in a 2019 survey over 80% of American adults said getting married is not essential to living a fulfilling life. 51% of young Americans (aged 18-34) were living without a romantic partner in 2018, up from 33% in 2004. Only 70% of late-Millennial women are expected to be married by age 40 vs. 90% of Baby Boomers and 80% of Gen X women. (In the UK the number of cohabiting couple families continues to grow faster than married ones rising 26% from 2008 to 2018.)

Americans today also have less family than ever before as the birth rate has halved since 1960. (down 39% in the UK). By 2012, most American family households had no children (87% don’t in the UK). More had pets than children! Only 10% of households had 5 or more people by 2012 half the rate in 1970 (5% in the UK in 2020). The biggest change is in the decline of intergenerational living: only 18% of 65+ Americans lived with their children and grandchildren by 1990 vs. 75% in 1850. 

We could be living through the most rapid change in family structure in human history, as a result of a multiplicity of economic, cultural, and institutional causes. Over the past two generations, people have moved further apart geographically, as a result of which married people are less likely to visit their parents and siblings. This greater self-sufficiency means, in turn, that they are less likely to help with chores or offer emotional support to other family members. 

Affluent, highly educated families can afford to purchase the support that extended families used to provide, which supports children’s development and reduces stress and time commitments for parents. Those further down the income scale cannot. In 1970, there were no great differences in family structure according to income. Now there is a huge divide between the family structures of the rich and poor. Research shows this has increased income inequality by 25%. In 2005, 85% of children from upper-middle-class families lived with both biological parents when the mother was 40 vs. only 30% for working class families. College-educated women ages 22 to 44 have a 78% chance that their first marriage lasts at least 20 years vs. 40% for those with a high-school degree. Among Americans aged 18 to 55 only 26% of the poor and 39% of the working class are currently married. 

People who grow up in a multigenerational extended clan tend to be more willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the family than those who grow up in nuclear families who can have a more individualistic mind-set. The result is more family disruption. People who grow up in disrupted families have more trouble getting the education they need to secure prosperous careers leading, in a vicious circle, to more trouble building stable families, because of financial challenges and other stressors. The children in those families can become more isolated and more traumatized.

Vulnerable people and especially children suffer most from the decline in family support. In 1960, 5% of children were born to unmarried women and 11% lived apart from their father. 50 years later these numbers have risen to 40% and 27%. Now about half of American children spend their childhood with both biological parents, with 20% of young adults having no contact with their father (for some due to the father’s death). America has a higher rate of single-parent households than any other country. 

Though there are stable and loving single-parent families, on average, children of single parents or unmarried cohabiting parents tend to have worse health and mental-health outcomes, less academic success, more behavioural problems, and higher truancy rates than children living with their two married biological parents. Research shows, if you are born into poverty and raised by your married parents, you have an 80% chance of climbing out of it. This falls to 50% if you are born into poverty and raised by an unmarried mother. 

Groups that experience greater discrimination tend to have more fragile families. African Americans have suffered more in the era of the detached nuclear family. Nearly half of black families are led by an unmarried single woman (19% of UK black households are made up of a single parent) vs. one-sixth of white families as the high rate of black incarceration results in a shortage of men to become husbands or caretakers of children. 2010 census data shows 25% of black women over 35 have never been married vs 8% of white women. Two-thirds of African American children lived in single-parent families in 2018 versus 25% of white children. Research suggests the differences between white and black family structure explain 30% of the affluence gap between the two groups.

It’s not just the lack of relationships that hurts children; a 2003 study showed 12% of American kids had lived in at least three “parental partnerships” before they turned 15. The transition moments, when an old partner moves out or a new partner moves in are hardest on children. 

Single men have also suffered from fragmented families. Men benefit from male bonding and female companionship in extended families. Today many American males go through childhood without a father and spend a long period of early adulthood – perhaps until their mid 30s – unmarried: these men are less healthy, earn less, and die younger than married men.

Time to tackle a growing crisis 

Women have benefited greatly from the loosening of traditional family structures, and access to education and better paid jobs, giving them more freedom to choose the lives they want. But many are raising their young children without extended family nearby, a lifestyle that can be brutally hard and isolating especially as women still spend significantly more time on housework and child care than men. The result is stressed, tired mothers trying to balance work and parenting with both, inevitably, suffering.

As the social structures that support the family have decayed, the reality is that now only a minority of households are traditional nuclear families. The majority are formed of single parents or never-married parents, others are blended families who come together or cohabiting couples. Without extended families, older Americans have also suffered and levels of loneliness have, unsurprisingly, risen. According to the AARP, a US nonprofit that empowers older people, 35% of Americans over 45 say they are chronically lonely. Many have no close relatives or friends to take care of them. 

These numbers are alarmingly high and while current UK numbers do not look as bad, 5% of UK adults and 13% over 65 are chronically lonely. And where the United States leads, Britain often follows. Population growth projections in the UK, especially in the older demographic, will see these numbers explode. Being in bad health, or having a disability or an underlying health condition, are major risk factors for loneliness. But other risk factors can be just as important, especially those related to family structure such as being a working age adult living alone, being divorced, separated or single.

And so, we can see clearly that the collapse of intergenerational living, and the parallel rise of fragmented family structures, has increased loneliness. We know that chronic loneliness is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day due to a 26% increase in the risk of premature mortality. This is a growing health crisis. With serious implications for both society and the economy.  

We need action to tackle this public health crisis now. The subject of my next blog post….

I am heavily indebted to David Brooks for the thoughts in this blog.

The Power of Intergenerational Friendships

In my last blog post I focused on the collapse of intergenerational living and the rise of fragmented family structures which has increased loneliness. Chronic loneliness is a health hazard equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day so our focus now turns to potential ways out. 

Human beings have become the dominant species on the planet by being remarkably practical and capable of adapting to ever changing circumstances. We are also intrinsically social animals. So if the family you were part of is no longer around the answer may be to create a new one, if you are prepared to reconsider who counts as kin. David Brooks considers this issue in the second part of his fascinating article.

Knitting people together

Anthropologists have long argued about what exactly kinship is and have found a wide variety of created kinship models among different traditional cultures. For much of human history people lived in extended families consisting not just of people they were related to but people they chose to cooperate with. They may not have been genetically close, but they were probably emotionally close. One study of 32 present-day traditional foraging societies, found primary kin (parents, siblings, and children) usually made up less than 10% of a residential group. As such kinship has been variously described as sharing a “mutuality of being”, an “inner solidarity” of souls, as people being “mystically dependent” or seeing themselves as “members of one another.”

When European Protestants came to North America, in the 17th and 18th centuries, their relatively individualistic culture existed alongside Native Americans’ very communal culture. While European settlers kept defecting to live with Native American families, almost no Native Americans ever defected to live with European families. Has our Western individualist culture, which prizes the values of privacy and individual freedom, been a huge mistake?

We seem to want both the stability and solid roots of close family as well as the mobility, dynamic capitalism and liberty to adopt the lifestyle we choose. Despite the damage caused by the collapse of the fragile structure of the detached nuclear family – rising drug addiction, suicide, depression, inequality and a detached, disconnected, and distrustful society – we do not want the legal, cultural, and sociological constraints that made them possible. However, there are hopeful signs that Americans are experimenting with new forms of kinship and extended family, as a reaction to societal changes and family chaos, and that a new family paradigm is emerging as people search for stability. 

In 1980, 12% of Americans lived in multigenerational households but this has now risen to 20%. 

Brooks points to two forces at work. Economic pressures have been pushing Americans toward greater reliance on family since the 1970s, and especially since the 2008 recession, The share of children living with married parents began to inch up in 2012 largely driven by the financial crisis of 2008 as young adults moved back home: in 2014, 35% of American men ages 18 to 34 lived with their parents. In time this shift might not just be due to economic necessity as data suggests many young people are already looking ahead to helping their parents in old age. College students also have more contact with their parents than they did a generation ago. Sometimes derided as helicopter parenting or a failure to make your own way, it makes sense that young adults rely on their parents for longer than they used to as the education process is now longer and more expensive. 

Secondly, more older people are moving in with their children. The percentage of older people living alone peaked around 1990. Now over 20% of Americans over 65 live in multigenerational homes not counting the large share moving to be closer to their grandkids but not into the same household.

Immigrants and people of colour – many of whom face greater economic and social stress – are more likely to live in extended-family households. More than 20% of Asians, black people, and Latinos live in multigenerational households, compared with 16% of white people: extended families are becoming more common as diversity in America increases. African Americans have always relied more on extended family and the capacity of the wider community to take care of each other than white Americans.

The return of multigenerational living is already changing the built landscape as more home buyers are looking for homes to accommodate their parents or returning adult children. More houses are being built that enable family members to spend time together in shared areas whilst also preserving their privacy through separate entrances, kitchens and dining areas. Though catering to those who can afford such houses, they are a response to a realisation that family members of different generations need to do more to support one another.

Bridging the divide

However, the most interesting extended families are those that stretch across kinship lines. In recent years America has seen the rise of organisations that facilitate new living arrangements that bring non biological kin into family or family like relationships. It could be single mothers finding other single mothers interested in sharing a home or co-housing projects, in which groups of adults, often young singles, live as members of an extended family, with shared communal areas but a private area for sleeping. 

‘Kin’ is a co-housing community for young parents where each young family has its own living quarters, but also shared play spaces, child-care services, and family-oriented events and outings. Other co-housing communities bring together non-kin middle and working class people across multiple generations resident in small apartments with a shared courtyard and industrial-size kitchen with upkeep a shared responsibility. The adults babysit one another’s children and the extended family rallies to support members in difficulty or crisis. These types of experiments suggest people may want flexibility and some privacy but they also want more communal ways of living.  

Some programmes are helping prisoners convicted for serious crimes to create a form of extended family. Others bring traumatised veterans into extended-family settings. There are nursing homes that house toddlers so that older people and young children can go through life together. Others help disadvantaged youths to form family-type bonds with one another. There are many different types of forged families in America today.

These new families Americans are forming would look familiar to our hunter-gatherer ancestors as they are chosen families which transcend traditional kinship lines. The origins of the moden movement can be traced to 1980s San Francisco where gay men and lesbians, many of whom had become estranged from their biological families, came together to support one another to cope with the trauma of the AIDS crisis. The families they created had fluid boundaries similar to kinship organization among parts of the African-American, American Indian, and white working class. These family members could count on each other emotionally and materially and took care of each other. These groups, termed “forged families” or “fictive kin” by anthropologists, were pushed together by tragedy and suffering in a way that goes way deeper than a convenient living arrangement. 

Over several decades, the decline of the nuclear family has led to millions of people being set adrift as the relationships in their life, that should be the most loving and secure, have broken down. Over time, some of these individuals are coming together to create forged or chosen families who are committed to each other. The communities they create are providing the kind of care to non-kin that is replicating the support that used to be provided by the extended family.

Rich nations have much smaller households than poor nations. Arguably these rich economies benefit from us living alone or with just a few people as we are mobile, unattached, and uncommitted so can devote an enormous number of hours to our jobs. The rich world’s affluent can dedicate more hours to work unencumbered by family commitments as they hire people who will do the work that extended family used to do. This life can be emotionally empty when family and close friends aren’t physically around or when neighbours aren’t geographically or emotionally close enough for you to lean on them or them on you. The impoverishment of family life has led to a crisis of connection in our societies.

David Brooks often asks African friends who have immigrated to America what most struck them when they arrived. Their answer is always around a theme of the lonely way we live. The era of the isolated nuclear family has been a catastrophe for the non-affluent leading to broken families or no families or changing families that leave children traumatised and isolated or older people dying alone. Family inequality also undermines the economy the nuclear family was meant to serve as children who grow up in chaos have trouble becoming skilled, stable, and socially mobile employees later on.

The nuclear family has been crumbling since the increasing individualism of the 1960s which left many families detached and unsupported. Problems with education, mental health, addiction or the quality of the labour force stem from this. The nuclear family paradigm of the 1950s is not coming back yet people are hungering to live in extended and forged families. In ways that are new and ancient at the same time, people are experimenting with more connected ways of living and new varieties of extended families. 

Supporting new kinship models

There is an opportunity to deepen and broaden family relationships and allow more adults and children to live, grow and be supported in more ways than small or fractured families can provide to reverse the destructive decades long trend of having fewer and fewer kin. These shifts will mostly be cultural and driven by individual choices but government support would be needed to help nurture this experimentation for the working-class and poor whose family life is under the most social stress and economic pressure. This could include child tax credits, subsidised early education, and expanded parental leave. The two-parent family, meanwhile, will endure as for many people, especially those with financial and social resources, it is a great way to live and raise children. 

Cohousing communities in the UK are gathering a lot of interest, though the longstanding housing crisis, with property in short supply and out of reach to so many, may stymie initiatives to develop more communal settings that encourage forged family living. Longer term planning will be needed. For older homeowners with a spare room there are also cross-generational non-kin home sharing initiatives. 

However, there are more immediate ways to bring people together in our communities that enables them to recreate the benefits of extended families without necessarily moving in together. BuddyHub creates new, personalised and intergenerational social circles called ‘Friendship Wheels’. This is a direct response to the challenges created by chronically lonely older people having either lost their inner social circle or having no social circle close to home. These mutually beneficial relationships also offer a friendship solution to working age adults.

This writer lost her nuclear family to cancer, dementia and severe mental health problems way too young. So, forging a non-kin family has been a conscious and unconscious activity throughout my adult life. From the inception of the initiative, I spoke of people joining the “BuddyHub family” because I understood so many others needed to forge a new extended family around them, just like me. It’s incredibly touching to be thanked by a member for putting her ‘in contact with such wonderful girls. I am very happy that they are in my life. They are part of the family now!’. That sounds like a forged family to me!

I am heavily indebted to David Brooks for the thoughts in this blog.

The Power of Intergenerational Friendships

We love creating intergenerational friendships at BuddyHub. So thanks to our friends at Aging 2.0 for highlighting this great article on the benefits they bring. 

Author Elizabeth Bennett discusses how we tend to form friendships with people of our own age as we go through our education and working lives. That’s fine and normal but forming friendships with people who are older or younger, so of a different generation, has many benefits that enrich our lives. Yet, research showed that only a third of Americans had a close friend who is at least 15 years older or younger than they are.

In my last two blogs, I focused on how the collapse of intergenerational living, the norm for most of human evolution, has increased loneliness. In large part this is because the opportunity to connect with people from different generations, with all the benefits that brings, has greatly reduced. 

Friendships across ages have many benefits for society

They build community and empathy, help break down generational stereotypes and provide opportunities to gain a fresh perspective and grow. Friends of different ages can help you see the bigger picture and stop you comparing yourself to or competing with your age-peers which benefits your mental health. Such friendships offer the possibility of richer and more interesting conversations. People of varying ages have different life perspectives and experiences which can give rise to new ways of thinking and doing. We all evolve as people as we travel through life and the friends you have had since youth may not fully understand the more evolved you.

There are many benefits to having older friends

They can help you gain perspective to help cope with difficult life events such as redundancy or a break-up. You can learn how they survived and thrived after difficult life events. They often have a different outlook to those of a similar age to you. Older people tend to be more focused on happiness which can be refreshing for younger people more focused on life goals such as career advancement, buying property or starting a family.

The benefits of having younger friends

Sharing life experiences and perspective can be extremely rewarding. Only having older friends can be limiting as your cohort can reduce over time due to loss. It can be really rewarding and invigorating and lead to a change of routine and trying something different which studies suggest can increase brain function.

In modern Western society, the opportunities for different generations to mix can be very limited despite these benefits. However, BuddyHub specifically focuses on building intergenerational bonds. We see a real desire for these relationships as everybody benefits from the friendships created. 

Employee Mental Health: a £45bn problem

Happy, healthy staff are more likely to be productive so enhancing employee wellbeing makes good business sense. Yet official figures show one in five employees experienced depression during 2020: that’s concerning but not surprising. Social relationships are critical for wellbeing and act as a buffer to support against mental ill health, yet the shift to hybrid or home working has reduced opportunities to develop social connections at work and to deepen them during social time. The cost to businesses of poor employee mental health in the UK has been put at a startling £45bn. Here we look at what employers can do to help. 

What happens in an employee’s life away from work can impact on performance and what happens during the work day can affect overall life quality. One area that employers may never have thought to focus on is whether their employees feel lonely both at work and away from work. But the pandemic changed that with a greater awareness of the impact on mental health due to social isolation and loneliness. 

Loneliness in the workplace is now getting more focus. In ‘Employees Are Lonelier Than Ever. Here’s How Employers Can Help’ Constance Noonan points to already high rates of employee loneliness before social distancing and remote work kicked in. Loneliness was already a growing problem in wider UK society with 2.6 million or 5% of adults always or often feeling lonely, pre-pandemic. Noonan argues that as companies consider the future of work and employee well-being, loneliness needs to be a priority. This is due to the negative impact on mental and physical health (chronic loneliness is as likely to lead to early death as smoking 15 cigarettes a day) which reduces productivity and turnover and risks burnout. 

Noonan suggests ways to improve relationships within the workplace and argues it will take more than simply bringing colleagues together face to face. Fostering stronger bonds amongst colleagues would be helped by thinking about how people interact with other members of their teams. More opportunities to share and develop work can help people feel more connected and engaged as a team and boost team morale. Rewarding ways of building better relationships will help. 

People bond when they are prepared to show some vulnerability by, say, sharing something quite personal. But they will only do so if they feel their work environment is a safe place to do that: finding ways to build empathy will support this. However, employees may not realise that negative feelings about work may actually stem from loneliness. As Noonan says “what counts is whether someone perceives there is enough support in times of needs and how social the work environment feels in terms of real, empathic connections to colleagues.”  

A recent report  ‘Employers and loneliness’ written by the Campaign to End Loneliness for the government’s ‘Tackling Loneliness Network’ of employers, takes a broader view of the issue. This is discussed by Francis Churchill in his article ‘Employers key to tackling loneliness among the workforce, government says’. 

The report considers how feelings of loneliness, unrelated to work, can be brought into the workplace and could be exacerbated by workplace loneliness. Though work can give opportunities to connect, employees can also feel lonely or isolated when there. Whilst excess stress from work, such as long working hours, can spill into other areas of life creating feelings of loneliness.

The report suggests employers address loneliness and relationships within their wider work on employee wellbeing. Recommendations include employers emphasising cooperation and connectedness as important values, surveying employees about loneliness, making loneliness part of managers’ responsibilities and facilitating staff networks to help tackle the problem.

As Churchill reports, employers pay a price ”when a lack of social connection and loneliness at work means employees show less commitment and productivity and greater absenteeism and staff turnover.” A 2017 Co-op survey cited by the report, says loneliness costs UK employers an estimated £2.5bn a year. The majority due to staff turnover (£1.6bn or 64%) and lower productivity (£665m or 26%) with presenteeism also a major factor. This is dwarfed by the £45bn cost of poor mental health to employers which came out of the 2020 Thriving at Work report by Deloitte. This highlights the true cost of poor mental health on business recognising it as a society-wide issue and economic issue.

Thus, tackling loneliness and supporting employees to build social connections makes good business sense as it helps employers ensure a more productive and resilient workforce. What is your organisation doing to tackle this problem?