Promoting Social Connection During an Epidemic of Loneliness

The nonprofit Beyond Us & Them encourages groups to listen to one another’s stories without judgment. How does it create community and combat isolation?
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[MUSIC PLAYING] JOHN WHYTE: Welcome, everyone. I'm Dr. John Whyte, the chief medical officer at WebMD. There's a lot of things that impact our health, and we talk about them quite a bit at WebMD, in terms of lifestyle issues, in terms of the environment, how diseases progress and develop. But we're also starting to learn about the role of some other aspects, such as loneliness, disagreements with people in our communities.
My guest today says we need to focus on how we all come together. He's the CEO of Beyond Us & Them, Jared Seide. Jared, thanks for joining me today.
JARED SEIDE: It's great to be with you. Thanks so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.
JOHN WHYTE: Now, some folks may not be aware of your organization. So can you tell us a little bit about what you do and why you do it.
JARED SEIDE: Absolutely. Beyond Us & Them is a nonprofit organization that creates structures of belonging in a variety of organizations and communities to foster social connection and well-being. We create programs and we deliver trainings that resource individuals and organizations in self-awareness, in self-regulation, effective communication, and relational skills, which we believe are the conditions necessary for compassion to arise in community.
You can't really teach compassion, but compassion is made up of noncompassion elements that are trainable. We utilize this practice of council, which is essentially bringing folks together respectfully to listen with curiosity as opposed to judgment and to share authentic stories. And that council huddle is sort of the hallmark of all of our programs. And I think it's really the key to the impact we're seeing and also the sustainability.
JOHN WHYTE: Why is it so hard to bring people together nowadays? Is it the impact of social media, where the algorithms promote you listening to the same voices as yourself? Is it a lack of respect that's going on in society for disparate viewpoints? What are some of the causes here?
JARED SEIDE: Yeah, I think you've really put your finger on it. I think that there is increasing understanding that we are really experiencing an epidemic of disconnection and isolation. I think that we are a solutions-based organization that looks at how we change the situation because we realize that it is a critical one.
Human beings are wired for social connection, and we become more and more isolated. Social media plays a big role in that. The political discourse does as well. And I think we've lost sight of the fact that social connection is as essential to our health and long-term survival as food and water.
Loneliness and isolation are rampant. It's become a major public health concern. The surgeon general has released an advisory last year that calls out this social isolation and loneliness situation as an epidemic affecting 50% to 60% of Americans.
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