Mark's Blog

We’ve spoken a lot about the effects of lockdown over the past few months, but one of the issues that has been highlighted this week is the massive impact of lockdown on loneliness.

Communication tools like Skype, Zoom and others have enabled us to maintain that much-needed connection with friends, family and colleagues and these apps were essential to get us through the most restricted weeks of lockdown. But they don’t deliver the same emotional connection as a hug, or face-to-face time together:

"People are using digital modes of communication to meet their social needs, but they're less satisfied with the quality of this form relative to face-to-face contact. [This] lower satisfaction with the quality of digital social contact, we found, was associated with higher loneliness."

Friendships are difficult to maintain without seeing people regularly, and things like ‘Zoom fatigue’ are very real when you’ve only been able to see people on a screen for five months.

Santander are using the results from their recent survey of loneliness to set up a staff volunteering scheme with the Alzheimer’s Society and Age UK, wherein volunteers sign up to deliver supplies and make phone calls to people who are feeling isolated.

It doesn’t just affect older people though: there are those who have been shielding for health reasons, people living alone, people who have had to move in with family and don’t feel able to be open about aspects of themselves, such as their sexuality. Statistics consistently show young people (aged 16-24) are most likely to be affected by loneliness.

Even before coronavirus, loneliness was widespread in the UK. Back in 2018, the Government appointed a Minister for Loneliness, and 55,000 people completed the BBC Loneliness Experiment, the biggest survey of its kind. Radio 4’s The Anatomy of Loneliness discussed the results (still available on BBC Sounds and worth a listen), and people who took part in the experiment offered some coping mechanisms that had worked for them, such as finding distraction through activities and hobbies, joining social groups and striking up conversations with people.

These things can still be really difficult, and it really comes down to feeling able to talk about loneliness, and in turn, to listen to people who are feeling lonely without necessarily offering up solutions. Sometimes it’s just about people needing to be heard and understood.

Don’t forget you can access free counselling sessions from Paycare as part of P3’s Employee Assistance Programme – go to the Paycare website and log in to your account, or speak to our HR team to find out more.