Well Wisconsin Radio

Interviewer: The information in this podcast does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It should not be used as a substitution for healthcare from a licensed healthcare professional. Consult with your healthcare provider for individualized treatment or before beginning any new program. Hello and welcome to Well Wisconsin Radio, a podcast discussing health and wellbeing topics with experts from all around the state of Wisconsin. I’m your host, Alexis Krause, and today my guest is Dr. Ben Locke. Dr. Locke is the Chief Clinical Officer at Togetherall and leads the clinical team, which provides sector leading levels of support and risk management in digital mental health space. Dr. Locke is focused on ensuring that the 24/7/365 clinical monitoring of the Togetherall peer support community keeps its global membership safe and supported. He is a licensed psychologist with over 20 years in senior clinical roles in higher education and a range of clinical settings including hospitals. Dr. Locke also is the co-founder and director of the Center of Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State University for nearly two decades. Dr. Locke also holds a PhD in counseling psychology from Boston College. Dr. Locke, thank you for being here today with me.

Guest: Hi, Alexis. It’s great to be with you. That’s a, that’s a lot to say for an introduction.

Interviewer: Yes it is. I know you’ve accomplished a lot so far.

Guest: It’s, it’s, it, it’s amazing how fast a couple decades go.

Interviewer: Yeah. I believe it. Well, I’m excited to dive in and talk with you today about social connectedness, and my first question for you is really what does social connectedness mean?

Guest: Hmm. Well, I think, um, on one level it’s kind of obvious. Do you, are you connected to other people? Who are important to you, who have similar interests to you, who live in your community? On a, on a slightly deeper level. Um, are those connections meaningful to you? Are you happy with those connections? Do they give you what you need in the world? And then I think the other part just to sort of acknowledge is that sometimes we think of social connections as like optional or something that would be nice to have. When you break down what the human experience is, including, uh, our communications and even very emotions we feel, they’re actually completely intertwined with community and connection. So in a lot of ways, if you think about emotions like happiness, are designed to be shared. Everybody knows that yawns are contagious, right? I yawn, then you yawn. That’s how emotions actually work is that people, when they’re interacting with each other, they share those experiences, share those emotions, and they’re contagious. The other person catches ’em and brings them back, and it that experience of being in connection and community, which is part of what makes people feel whole and, and feel satisfied. So those are some of the thoughts I had there.

Interviewer: I like how you compared it to a yawn ’cause I think that’s really easy for people to grasp onto. It makes sense. What role does social connectedness play in mental health and wellbeing?

Guest: People vary quite a lot in terms of how much social connection they need or want. Sometimes you might hear people referring to themselves as introverted or extroverted. Um, so introverts, uh, recharge and, and feel ready to go when they have more time to themselves. Without other people, and they get overwhelmed by too much people time. Extroverts, on the other hand, feel most excited, most energized when they’re engaged with, with more people and, and they feel maybe a little, um, sad or, or disconnected when they’re, when they’re not getting enough of that. So I think each person kind of defines how much social connection they need, how much social time they need. But if they’re not getting the level that they need, whatever your level is. Then, uh, your, your, your mental health, your sense of wellbeing in the world is probably going to suffer some. Um, and so it’s about acknowledging that maybe that’s happening not at the level that you need, and then going out of your way to go find that connection, um, and, and sort of add it back into your life. Achieving that goal can be, can require quite a lot of intent and follow through. Developmentally, one of the things we, uh, sometimes talk about with college students in particular is that in high school, social relationships are often automatic based on the classes you’re in and the sports you’re in. Like, you see these people every day in and out. You can’t get away from them even if you want. But you have those connections, you have all those shared things, and they’re built into your day when you transition into college, and this is just a, just an example. All that goes away, it vaporizes and you’re in this huge group of, of people. Um, and if you don’t build those social connections intentionally, they don’t just magically happen. And that’s true across multiple, uh, life chapters is, is having intentionality and, and setting out, making it happen.

Interviewer: Yeah. That intentionality touches a lot of our aspects of well-being it seems. You have to really be mindful of what you’re trying to accomplish and how you’re feeling. What are some of the common barriers that you see to social connectedness? I know you compared it to when we may have been younger and you’re around everyone, but, um, how can, how can this be overcome some of those barriers?

Guest: Boy, there’s so many potential barriers there. Um, well I think, uh, let’s talk about the elephant in the room first. So, modern information, age and social media, um, and the attention economy, if you will. So, something I used to do all the time with people in counseling and treatment who were coping with different signs of disconnect or, or things weren’t going well in various ways, is we do the 168 hour exercise, say, do you have any idea what that is? Most people would say no. And it’s like, that’s the number of hours in a week, so let’s sit down and go through what you do with all your hours and every day. And, and it’d be down to like toothbrushing, you know, it, we’d, it’d be really complete and in the end you would either say, wow. You don’t have enough time to do anything other than your schoolwork or your work. Um, no wonder this is happening. Or we’d say, boy, you really don’t have enough to fill your time, and that’s why you’re struggling in this way, in that way. In the modern information age and social media and the attention economy, there are, there’s a whole industry out there devoted. To capturing your attention and holding onto that attention. Hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars, right? And so a key barrier for people today is ironically, also a pathway to connection, right? So being, uh, in your favorite social media app. And consuming that content on endless scroll on the one hand, connects you to people you might not otherwise be connected to. But on the other hand, it consumes ton of time and it, and it often reduces the amount, and the quality of interaction. And then, you know, so if you combine that with people being very, leaving, very busy, full lives, having a lot going on, um, those, those things can get in the way. So, to make that a little bit more specific, if, if somebody is, let’s say on social media for 10 hours a week, less than two hours a day, those two hour, those, you know, hour plus a day. Is not being spent doing something else, not being spent sitting with somebody at a, at an activity like going running or biking or walking together, not going to a reading, uh, you know, a a book club, uh, not doing something else together. And so I think one of the major barriers to social connection is, um, the attention economy, frankly, because it, it, it’s something we don’t always think about really carefully and intentionally. And then time spent in that space that’s not spent with other people. The other part that I would just say is that many of us lead lives that are really, really full with lots and lots and lots of competing demands. So a, a book that I recommend to a lot of people when coping with sort of full life syndrome and, and how to balance all of your priorities is called ‘Essentialism. The disciplined pursuit of less.’ It’s by an author named Greg McKeown. And what he really does a nice job of breaking apart in this book is that the pace of modern society and, uh, this productivity mindset leads people to lead very fragmented lives. He says something like, you can be making a, a, a millimeter of progress in a thousand directions, but not actually moving forward. And so it’s about looking at your life and what your priorities are and then being intentional about saying, I wanna move in this direction. And I wanna move in that direction and then making those happen. Um, so, uh, that, that’s a really good resource in terms of the barrier that is our busy lives and how, how connected we are, and then the intentionality around social media, online time, digital time in general, and just being aware that each, each minute you spend doing one thing, you’re not spending doing another. And when you calculate those up over months or years, that can lead to missed relationships, lost opportunities, skills that you don’t develop, those kinds of things. And it’s really easy just to, um, default into scrolling.

Interviewer: Yeah, I like what you said about that book with the fragmented-ness that can come with all of that, and. Keeping in mind, um, the idea of quality over quantity and what does that look like as, as you get further in your life, you know, 10, 20 years in that compounds?

Guest: Yeah. Quality over quantity is so important in this age. It’s a wonderful way of putting it.

Interviewer: So how does social connectedness differ across cultures or age groups?

Guest: It’s really, it’s, it’s kind of hard to, to generalize. Um, but I would say I would pick up on something we talked about a minute ago when people are young. Um, middle school, high school, I. Kind of thing. Their lives tend to be uber structured and your relationships and your sense of connection in many ways is defined by geography. What are you doing in that moment, in that day? And who are the people around you? And relationships develop as a, as a side effect of that. As you age and as you move through your life, you are, uh, for many people the amount of free time that you have, contracts, um, and social connection becomes less and less automatic. Um, and social connection is also more and more determined by big life decisions. Like if you move from one state to another for a new job, you have to start over in a lot of ways, and you maintain some of those connections online, but you’re really starting over and the real meaningful in-person connections you are starting over with. And then if you have, let’s say children or you’re caring for other people, you have other responsibilities, you have less time for those social connections. So if you don’t have them established, uh, and they’re trailing along and continuing to develop, then you’re starting over. So I think one of the, you know, looking at social connection from a developmental perspective is really important. Then it really highlights the importance of investing early and often because your, your social connection experience five years from now is gonna be determined by your choices today, next week, next month, not necessarily five years from now. So think about it as an investment strategy. So that’s, that’s sort of a developmental, um, perspective. And I think if you extend that all the way out to folks who are, let’s say retired older, their peers are starting to to die, um, people in their family had died, there’s a sense of loneliness that can kick in there just because the people you’ve always been connected to, the places you’ve lived, the things that have kept you busy have gone away. So it’s even more, uh, being intentional and flexible about creating those experiences. I think in, in, in terms of, uh, culture and, uh, sort of different backgrounds. I. Um, you know, the sky’s the limit there. I think social connection can be all over the place, whether you are, are in an urban environment, in a rural environment, if you’re a person who attends, uh, a church or a synagogue or other religious practice, if you’re involved in sports, um, uh, if there are traditions that are really important to you throughout the year. So I think there, there can be real differences there for people. And again, the part that’s important there is taking stock of what you do, who you’re connected to, the kinds of things you’re engaged with, and is it enough for you or other things that are lacking and then being intentional about creating them.

Interviewer: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and it, it definitely does change throughout your lifetime. I also wanted to talk a little bit about how might someone determine if their social connectedness is low.

Guest: Yeah. So is your social connection low or high is a really interesting way of framing it. I think, um, one of the parts I would go back to is the recognition that, that humans evolved to be socially connected. But we actually evolved, like if you look at evolutionary psychology in particular. Our sort of optimal community level is about a hundred to 150. Now, these are not all people we’re best friends with, but they’re sort of people we know, interact with. We know their names. We sort of know who their family like, we’re sort of in, in this smaller group.

And within that you might have just a handful of people who are really, really important to you, but you’re sort of connected to this broader group. In our, in the world we live in today, there’s this perception that everybody else has it better than I do. Everybody else has more friends than I do. Everybody else is more connected than I am. They’re really socially connected. I’m not because I only have, you know, one best friend. The truth is most people only have one or two best friends. They have a couple of additional people they’re well connected with, they like doing things with, and then some others that they’ll do things with occasionally, and then family. And so I think as part of answering the question, I would say people need to be really aware of, does their perception that they have high or low social connectedness, is that tied to what they think other people are doing, and how well they think other people are doing it. Because if that comparison is happening most, most of the time, it’s wrong. Uh, most people are just about the same as you in in, in terms of your connections. And then coming back to your question around how do you know if you’re low, how? How do you know if you’re lonely or you don’t have enough? That really does go to that sustained experience day in and day out, week after week, month after month, and feeling like I’m just lonely. I just feel like I don’t have enough people in my life. I don’t have enough people that I laugh with or, or. You know, am, am active with. And so if you’re experiencing that sustained sense of loneliness, then that’s where, where I think you might say, okay, I have low social connection, but I, I think it’s really important to factor into that is your perception of high or low, driven by what you believe other people are doing. Um, and then setting really realistic goals because we’re not really designed to have dozens and dozens of best friends. And when we always have good times with everybody, I. And feel happy all the time. Uh, that’s just not the way the world works.

Interviewer: Yeah. And it makes me think of that old adage of comparison as the thief of joy. And it brings me back to even further what we were talking about of quality over quantity.

Guest: Yeah. And just, and just adding one extra point there, there’s, there’s something called, there’s two, there’s many types of internal bias in terms of the way we process information, but there’s two that are, are really important here. One is negativity bias and one is confirmation bias. So negativity bias refers to the way in which people tend to pay more attention to the negative in their lives and the positive. And, and that’s why no matter what new thing we acquire, two or three months from then, we’re like, oh, somebody else has something better. Mine’s not good enough. And when it comes to connections and looking and comparing to others, we tend to focus on the negative rather than the positive. And, uh, meditation or being mindful, for example, is a really good way to help remind yourself what you have and that it’s, that it’s, um, that it’s good enough and, and you’re happy with it. Confirmation bias refers to if, if, if we have a particular belief, that we tend to interpret new information, that confirms that belief. And so it can just be good to be aware of those two as you’re evaluating, am I, am I, do I have enough social connection or not? And in particular, am I comparing myself to other people? Do I hold a belief there? Um, because as much possible, you should eliminate the comparison and look at what you need and what you feel.

Interviewer: I love that, that’s a really good piece to keep in mind as we are in this social media heavy phase. Um, and I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon.

Guest: Yeah, no, I, I agree.

Interviewer: So I kinda wanna pivot a little bit to talk about sharing your experiences with other people. So how does sharing with either friends or family, different experiences, you know, whether that’s joy or struggles, that you’re going to create a stronger bond and reduce those feelings of loneliness?

Guest: So, so your question is how, how does, how does the experience of, of having a shared experience reduce loneliness and, and increase bond?

Interviewer: Whether it’s actually co-habiting at the same time, but more just sharing what you’re feeling with other people.

Guest: Mm-hmm. Going back to what we were talking about earlier, doing something with another person, having a shared interest share, literal shared experience in the moment. That creates bonds between people. It creates common understanding. It creates references in the future that you use about the past. Remember when we did this, or we should do that again. And the more of those that you are accumulating day to day to day, the better you’re going to feel. The more connected you’re going to feel, and the more, uh, the stronger your foundation will be to create more of those. Um, in the future. I think the. So internal experiences like emotions and, uh, you know, difficulties that you’re going through, uh, such as grief or sadness or anxiety, or worry about the future. People differ in the way that they, they process those things, but a pretty universal, a universally effective way processing those is to share those experiences with another person and to have them provide sympathy and understanding. And if they have the same experience, they have a shared lived experience that’s not with you, but is, is the same, then you feel validation, you feel normalized. You feel like, oh, I’m not alone in this. And, and that always helps people feel better. In fact, if you think about it, uh, promote peer support standpoint, it is the oldest form of, of human support is one person saying, oh, I went through that too. Here’s what I did. I’m really sorry you’re going through that. And, and if you boil that down, it would, if, if there was a way to make that into a pill, uh, somebody would become incredibly rich. But since we can’t do that, we need to, you know, encourage people to do exactly that, which is going through something tough, find people to share it with. And if. If they’re not right there in your friend group or not right there in your family group, then go elsewhere to find them because, uh, that’s, that’s a really good way to, uh, feel supported, understood, gain new ideas, and then move through difficult experiences.

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And now we’ll head back to the Well Wisconsin Radio interview.

Interviewer: I like that a lot and it makes me think about too, you know, sometimes you might notice someone in your life is, is looking kind of low or seeming kind of lonely and it’s always worth reaching out to them because they might not feel strong enough to reach out to someone else in that moment.

Guest: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I always like to encourage people to think about what would you like to happen if you are going through something difficult and you’re sort of, you’re aware that you’re maybe showing people that you’re sad or a little bit upset or not quite yourself. Wouldn’t it be nice if somebody asked, Hey, how are you doing? Is everything okay? And then to just play that forward in your life.

Interviewer: Yeah. And that brings me to talking a little bit about together all, you know, you are part of the group floor of Togetherall and um, we have access to this for our group health insurance members. And what kind of tools does Togetherall offer to people to promote that social connectedness and support?

Guest: Togetherall was born out of this belief that people can feel better in the world if they can access this sort of shared lived experience from peers who are going through similar struggles. Togetherall is an anonymous platform. It’s probably important to say that as well, so that when you join the platform, your, your interaction with peers is, is entirely anonymous. And that is because it allows, it frees people up just to talk about what they’re feeling, um, and share what’s, what’s on their mind. Because it’s a global platform of, of, of like-minded people, uh, who are looking for support and looking to also offer support, you can really quickly find other people who have had the same experience as you, and then engage in a, you know, community conversation or a private conversation. About those experiences, sort of develop friendships that are anonymous except for that shared lived experience. On the platform there’s lots of other tools such as, you know, courses that you can take on, uh, depression or anxiety or social skills or something like that. Um, there’s also journaling and goal setting and, and things of, of that nature, which can be helpful in specific cases. But the core of the platform is facilitating, uh, this space so that people can connect when they’re in need. So beyond that, that core principle of, of helping people connect and get support that they need. The other thing about the platform that’s distinct from all other kinds of social media is that it’s, it’s designed to be a safe place. So, as we were talking about before, social media in an attention economy is a way for people to connect with others, with lived experience and maintain those relationships, and that’s great. The problem is that, um, it’s, it’s not a moderated or safe community. So when things go sideways, they can go sideways really, really fast. People can pile on, there can be doxing, grooming behavior, trolling behavior. You know, it, it’s not moderated to be a safe space. Together All is, is, uh, moderated by my team, which are all licensed and registered, uh, licensed or registered mental health professionals globally, um, who monitor the platform 24 hours a day, seven days a week without, you know, minute by minute. And so we’re there to make sure that the community is a safe, supportive place that facilitates that sense of growth and healing and connection and is free from. The sort of dangers that occur in unmoderated social media platforms. So that’s, that’s really the, the, the distinction I think is that when you’re trying to find support for something that might be difficult, might be sensitive, might be the first time you’ve shared it, uh, might be something you don’t want to talk with your friend or family about. You can go into this community and find people who have that and trust that you are, that you’re gonna remain anonymous and, and confidential in terms of getting that support. And I think sometimes that’s really important.

Interviewer: Yeah, I think that clinical support piece is huge. It, it’s a differentiator for sure.

Guest: You know, a couple of things I would just say there is that when people are on the platform, they can always reach out to the clinical team directly, say, Hey, I need help with this or that, or the other thing, or, I had this question, and we’re always there to, to, to answer those questions and then. Um, the, the other part is that it really takes no effort to make that connection. I mean, that’s part of what we’ve been trying to do. In the real world if you’re trying to build those longstanding, in person connections around playing soccer together or something like that, that’s gonna take effort and intent, and you really gotta do that. Togetherall is designed to be in the moment of need when it’s convenient for you on your phone. I need to get in touch with somebody about this thing that I don’t quite understand, or I need some extra support here, then it’s available to you in that moment of need. When, when you need it.

Interviewer: That makes sense. Well, Dr. Locke, as we wrap up today, um, I just wanted to provide an opportunity for one last tidbit of advice that you could provide people who are looking to have more of that social connection in their life

Guest: Over a lot of years of providing a lot of therapy. I would say it is intention setting. So if you look at your life and something about it feels like just not quite enough, I just don’t quite have enough social connection in this way or that way. And like you were highlighting before, it’s gone on for weeks or a month or more, or there’s that, that feeling is persistent. The, uh, the only way through is through. So set your intention. What are you gonna start doing differently in your life to make progress in that direction and understand that you’re investing now to benefit later. And so you might not see a change immediately tomorrow, but maybe a week from now you’d feel a little bit different. Maybe two weeks from now you’d feel a little bit different. So set, set your intentions, get your supportive people around you and and follow through.

Interviewer: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for being here today, Dr. Locke.

Guest: Thank you for having me. This was a pleasure.

Interviewer: Thanks for listening to Wall Wisconsin Radio. I hope you enjoyed this show. You can find our survey in the Wal Wisconsin portal and our transcripts and previous episodes, all at www.webmdhealthservices.com/wellwisconsinradio. If you’re listening to this podcast on your platform of choice, be sure to subscribe so you can never miss an episode.

• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown