Friendship in the age of loneliness An optimist's guide to connection
Book - 2021
'After a year of social distancing and lockdown measures during the pandemic, it's more clear than ever that our friendships and social bonds are vital to our health and happiness. This refreshing, positive guide helps you take care of your people and form deep connections in the digital age. We are lonelier than ever. The average American hasn't made a new friend in the last five years. Research has shown that people with close friends are happier, healthier, and live longer than people who lack strong social bonds. But why--when we are seemingly more connected than ever before--can it feel so difficult to keep those bonds alive and well? Why do we spend only four percent of our time with friends?"--Amazon.
Saved in:
- Subjects
- Genres
- Self-help publications
- Published
-
Philadelphia :
Running Press
2021.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Edition
- First edition
- Physical Description
- xv, 255 pages ; 23 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-253).
- ISBN
- 9780762472277
- Preface: The power of friendship in a pandemic
- Introduction: The revolutionary act of connection in the digital age
- part 1. Be more playful: Make a friend map ; Trade screen time for friend time ; Question what it means to be a grown-up ; Try new things ; Twenty interesting questions more interesting than "What do you do?"
- Become a sheriff of good times ; Find something that makes you feel whole ; Hug more, hug longer ; Get into your body ; Wherever you go, bring an offering ; Open your world
- part 2. Be a better friend: Belong to yourself first ; Destigmatize mental health ; Lose the agenda ; Come as you are ; Do an emotional bandwidth check ; Be a hype person ; Have a closet of trust at work ; Start saying no ; Be less flaky
- part 3. Invest in friendship: Start slow ; Always go on a second date ; Go deep rather than wide ; Honor the one-on-one ; Know who's in your circle ; Have fewer Facebook friends ; Treat your friends ; Don't ask, just help ; Exchange your talents ; Get somebody else a gig ; Repair what's broken ; Live in death's face
- part 4. Stay in touch: Become a correspondence queen ; Send a video love letter ; Put friendship on the calendar ; Bring good habits home ; Keep a friend treasure box ; Pick up the phone and call ; Listen to a full album ; Keep friendship in your family manifesto ; Build a healthier relationship with social media ; Make virtual connection a reality ; A few apps that help you connect with friends ; Use technology to heal
- part 5. Embrace ritual: Replace scrolling with gratitude ; Create a unique routine ; Swim in a creative container ; Host a friends' showcase ; Don't go our for drinks ; Hold space for your friends ; Have tea with strangers (and have tea alone) ; Practice Shabbat ; Be vulnerable around other men ; Uplift other women ; Start a Monday night activity club ; Make an all my friends playlist ; Have an intentional bachelor (or bachelorette) party ; Think like a chief experience officer ; Forty fun rituals to practice with your friends
- part 6. Be a minister for loneliness in your community: Be an agent of human connection ; Spend more time with people who are older (and wiser) than you ; Foster intergenerational friendships ; Create a support system for new parents ; Create safe and supportive spaces ; Bridge the divide ; Build an exponential community ; Live in community ; Remember to let the light in
- Afterword: You have to decide what kind of friend you want to be.