All Down The Line

[Gio]

This brings back memories ...

Everyone has pretty much has heard of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but here is a exclusive fest occurring every year for almost a century in Tampa, Florida ...

Gasparilla Pirate Festival


Tampa Jay

Gasparilla 2022 Tampa, Florida. My full day and experience of the world’s largest pirate festival and parade!

Jan 30, 2022

34:59 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAyTbQOsyEk

[Gio]

"Island of bliss" ...

Socotra - The treasure island between Yemen and Somalia

DW Documentary

The tiny, picturesque island is not typical of the area. It is part of Yemen, but far away from the civil war.

Even many people well acquainted with the region haven’t been to Socotra. Instead, they speak with shining eyes of an island that they long to see one day. Socotra lies off the Horn of Africa. In 2008, the main island and the rest of the archipelago were recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site because of its biodiversity. The hills are dotted with dragon’s blood trees, a species native only here. The place enjoys a strange sense of peace and quiet, 400 kilometers off the south coast of the Yemeni mainland. The civil war is far away and tourism is the main source of income.

Most of the travelers who come to Socotra come here from the United Arab Emirates for the water sports - and many snap up land here. They can afford to buy unlike the islanders. Locals are worried because they fear they are losing control of their home. Others are happy about the economic development that has come about thanks to investment from the Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Dec 21, 2021

28:25 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chkro9-ITYM

[Gio]

More and more ...

Homelessness in Germany - What if you can’t afford a home?

DW Documentary

Up to one million people in Germany are considered to be experiencing homelessness. Despite having a job or a pension, many are unable to afford a home of their own.

According to estimates, the number of people experiencing homelessness has been rising steadily since 2008. For too long, politicians have ignored the problem and neglected to collect comprehensive data - even though the issue has long since reached the heart of society. It’s only now in 2022 that the German government will have collected nationwide data to assemble official statistics. Because only people housed in community or emergency shelters are counted, this analysis will be supported by additional reporting on the number of people living on the streets.

The problem is exacerbated by overburdened aid and support systems, a lack of coordination, a tight housing market and real estate speculation. For experts such as social anthropologist Luisa Schneider, it mainly comes down to a lack of strategy: "At the moment we find ourselves in a situation where we are managing, but not solving homelessness. If we don’t change our social structure, these numbers are going to skyrocket. The problem can’t be solved with our current system."

Reporter Max Neidlinger accompanied several people experiencing homelessness. Their stories are examples of an ever graver problem: More and more people are homeless or, less visibly, being housed in makeshift accommodation. There is a lack of both affordable housing and a long-term strategy to support those affected. Yet in a joint declaration of EU member states, Germany has pledged to work to end homelessness by 2030.

Homeless people in Germany have been forced to fend for themselves. Many of them are unable to seek help or are unaware of possible assistance. Some feel a sense of shame and oftentimes they live hidden away, somehow managing to survive. How is it possible that in one of the world’s wealthiest countries, people increasingly cannot afford a home of their own, despite having a job or a pension? And why has there been inaction for so long?

Feb 1, 2022.

28:26 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik5SAOQQRDA

[Aragorn]

How is it possible that in one of the world’s wealthiest countries, people increasingly cannot afford a home of their own, despite having a job or a pension?

It's a question stemming from the willfully blind first-world mind, because the answer is in the question itself. "The wealthiest countries" are wealthy because they believe in the mirage that resources are infinite, while they're not. One cannot have economic growth without causing an economic recession elsewhere, just as on a finite celestial body, one cannot grow one's territory without taking territory away from someone else.

Capitalism is a pipe dream, and even Keynes knew that. Sadly enough, his followers ─ with their Bitcoin wallets and their NFT art collection () ─ do not.

[Gio]

Well please take time to watch the video report, then you'll see the ultimate viable solution was first developed here in the U.S., but it took Finland's government to give it a working chance and apparently it is progressing well there.

[Wind]

but it took Finland's government to give it a working chance and apparently it is progressing well there.

Yup, here homelessness is rare. Usually it only happens because addicts won't or can't live indoors.

This is also a country where the renting prices are insanely high, especially in the capitol area.

[Gio]

A quickie ...

Why it's almost impossible to lose things in Japan

BBC REEL

If you lose a wallet or a phone in Japan, you will most likely be reunited with it. The country has one of the most effective Lost and Found processes in the world. The success of the system relies not only on the honesty of the finders, but also on a national culture of reporting, cataloguing, and storing lost property.

Video by Terushi Sho

Executive producer: Camelia Sadeghzadeh

Jan 28, 2022

6:19 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK0Eo9QGwIw

[Gio]

A very conflicting dilemma ...

Living Rent-Free Next to Millionaires

VICE News

For decades, the “anchor-outs” have enjoyed living in rent-free boat homes in the Bay Area. Their boats, anchored just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, float illegally in the sightline of one of the country’s wealthiest zip codes. But now, as enforcement ramps up, their way of life could be coming to an end.

Jan 26, 2022

10:06 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnbpLcH59lI

[Gio]

The new theory proposes that forgetting is due to circuit remodelling that switches engram cells from an accessible to an inaccessible state. (Credit: Dr Nora Raschle)


Why we forget: Scientists suggest you
may not have lost your memories after
all


February 7, 2022

by Steve Fink

"Memories stick with us for a reason. We hang onto important events and life experiences from our past, however, many of these seemingly crucial memories have also been forgotten. The act of forgetting often has a negative connotation. Many perceive forgetting as a form of memory loss. However, scientists researching forgetfulness have proposed an alternate theory. It appears as though forgetting may not result in memory loss at all, but an alteration of access to our memories.

While remembering and recalling memories may provide many benefits, forgetting memories also has a functional role in allowing our brains to operate at an optimal level. Having flexibility in recalling memories we find useful and forgetting memories that may not be relevant help us with certain functions, such as decision making. We often remember memories that are important, and forget memories that are not. This comes at a cost, however, when important information is lost.

Drs. Tomás Ryan, Associate Professor in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and Dr. Paul Frankland, Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto led a study observing how forgetting involves a circuit remodeling process that changes as a result of dynamic interaction with the environment. Canadian-based research organization, CIFAR, collaborated on this project with Dr. Ryan and Dr. Frankland through its Child & Brain Development program.

The science behind forgetting and memory recall suggests that memories are stored within engram cells. These are ensembles of cells that are reactivated when successful recall takes place. In contrast, forgetting occurs when the engram cells cannot be reactivated.

While different forms of “natural forgetting” are impacted by such variables as time course and reversibility, all forms of forgetting are tied to circuit remodeling. When engram cells are in an accessible state, they can be reactivated. Similarly, the cells may also be inactivated making them inaccessible. In this scenario, the memories still exist, but cannot be accessed.

Dr. Ryan compared this to storing memories in a safe, but without remembering a code to unlock it.

“Our new theory proposes that forgetting is due to circuit remodeling that switches engram cells from an accessible to an inaccessible state,” Ryan explains in a statement. “Because the rate of forgetting is impacted by environmental conditions, we propose that forgetting is actually a form of learning that alters memory accessibility in line with the environment and how predictable it is.”

Dr. Ryan and Dr. Frankland acknowledge in healthy individuals, natural forgetting may be reversed in most circumstances. Whereas in cases with those living with neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, natural forgetting mechanisms are hijacked and pathological memory loss occurs with a reduction of engram cells.

“There are multiple ways in which our brains forget, but all of them act to make the engram – the physical embodiment of a memory – harder to access,” says Frankland."

The findings from this study were first published in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience.


Source page

[Gio]

Inspirational with hope ...

Eden for the Homeless ...
A retired couple built a community for the homeless

RT Documentary

Eden Village is a tiny home community for chronically homeless with a disability in Springfield, Missouri. There are dozens of fully-furnished homes built for people who had no roof over their head for a long time. Eden Village is a brainchild of Linda Brown and her husband David, who wondered why some people end up on the streets.

They took on a mission to provide the homeless with a permanent housing and support from community. Residents pay $300 a month to live in Eden Village. They also can’t use drugs if they want to stay in their homes. Still, there are more people on the waiting list than there are homes in the community. In the meantime, people can stay at the Revive 66 nightly rental.

Over half a million Americans are homeless and millions more are ‘a paycheck away’ from becoming homeless. Substance abuse, addiction, disability, mental health problems, poverty- a multitude of things can make a person homeless. The documentary features heartbreaking stories of the Eden Village residents about how they lost their home and how it feels to start anew.

In the meantime, founders of Eden Village share their views on why homelessness is a community problem and why it the problem has to become visible. Find out how they are making people pay attention to homeless people.

0:00 intro
0:59 Eden village for the chronically homeless
6:32 From the streets to Eden
8:43 Living on the streets
11:32 Revive 66 Campground
13:46 How easy it is to become homeless
16:53 No one sleeps outside
18:46 Walking into a new home
19:43 ‘Indoor plumbing is a glorious thing’
20:39 Rules of the Eden village
25:36 A close-knit community
32:06 Causes of homelessness
34:07 A different house
41:51 Applying for housing
44:53 Is homelessness a community problem?

Jan. 2022

53:56 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyR5ti5vlPg

[Gio]

All about (again) ...

Evangelical Christians in the USA

DW Documentary

Evangelical Christians often have a huge impact on American politics. Many of these people are socially conservative, consider themselves patriots, and believe that Americans have a constitutional right to own guns.

This documentary explores the core beliefs of America's fundamentalist Christians -- including the concept of creation, as opposed to evolution. Our report features interviews with conservative evangelicals who, for example, believe that God created the world in six days about 6,000 years ago.

Our reporters traveled to the state of Kentucky to visit a Creation Museum and a Christian theme park that features a life-size model of Noah's Ark.

Christian churches in the US play a major social role, especially in rural areas. They operate schools and universities, and organize music festivals that celebrate their faith.

Most fundamentalist Christians are opposed to abortion, pre-marital sex, and homosexuality. They believe that those who engage in these activities will be condemned to Hell. And some have formed paramilitary groups to defend themselves against those whom they perceive as enemies -- including non-believers, Communists, and Muslims.

[This documentary has been reuploaded due to a licensing issue. The documentary was originally released in 2019 and uploaded to our channel in January 2021.]

Feb 9, 2022

42:09 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S33bTCrv-vE

[Gio]

The latest ...


FAMOUS GRAVE TOUR - Viewers Special #11
(Benjamin Franklin, Luther Vandross, etc.)

Hollywood Graveyard

Welcome to Hollywood Graveyard. Today I turn the camera over to you, the Hollywood Graveyard community, as we travel the world to visit famous and historical graves in your neck of the woods. In this tour we continue down the east coast, to find legends like Maureen O’Hara, Benjamin Franklin, Pearl Bailey, Luther Vandross, and many more.

Intro - 0:00
New Jersey - 0:51
Pennsylvania - 12:08
Delaware - 35:39
Maryland - 36:20
West Virginia - 40:08
Virginia - 41:30

Full list of stars visited today: Ben E. King, Sarah Vaughan, Joey Ramone, Luther Vandross, Sylvia Robinson, Marvin Isley, O'Kelly Isley, Aaron Burr, Grover Cleveland, Estee Lauder, Herman Hupfeld, Shirley Booth, Jack Mercer, Joseph Wiseman, Yogi Berra, Vince Lombardi, Dr. James Still, Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross, Smokin Joe Frazier, Willie Anderson, Charles Duryea, The Scott Brothers, Arlene Francis, Barry Nelson, Edward van Sloan, Emlen Tunnell, Gia Carangi, Hedda Hopper, Linda Darnell, Bayard Taylor, Nancy Kulp, Pearl S. Buck, Nancy Spungen, Hank Gathers, Pearl Bailey, Samuel Barber, Dorothy Page, Jimmy Dorsey, Fred Waring, Walter Burke, Thaddeus Stevens, John Updike, Milton Hershey, H. B. Reese, Don Brockett, Josh Gibson, Erroll Garner, H. J. Hines, Mary Lou Williams, Frank Gorshin, Ty Longley, Robert Mitchum, Divine, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key, Tallulah Bankhead, Mildred Natwick, Johnny Olson, Jack Rollins, James Monroe, Arthur Ashe, Patricia Medina, Joseph Cotten, Patsy Cline, Audie Murphy, Ira Hayes, John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Capt. Michael Smith, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Thurgood Marshall, Medgar Evers, Charles Durning, Constance Bennett, Jackie Cooper, Jane Adams, R. Lee Ermey, John Glenn, Columbia Crew, Joe Louis, Lee Marvin, Maureen O'Hara, Glenn Miller.

Feb 10, 2022

59:52 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUA0OVaKjgA

[Gio]

You don't say ...

Eating the pain away? Researchers find
there really is a link between food, chronic
pain

Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

Posted three hours ago ...

A recent study reveals an area of the brain involved in regulating feeding behavior is impacted when there is a chronic presence of pain. The findings may explain why people with chronic pain experience weight problems.

Scientists say that the neurons involved in communicating a person’s motivation and pleasure are affected when someone experiences pain.

“These findings may reveal new physiological mechanisms linking chronic pain to a change in someone’s eating behavior,” says Dr. Paul Geha, assistant professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center and lead author on the study, in a statement. “And this change can lead to the development of obesity.”

The team looked at the brain’s response after eating foods high in sugar and fat. Participants ate a gelatin dessert and pudding with researchers changing the amount of sugar, fat, and food texture for certain groups. They found no changes in eating behavior for participants who ate desserts high in sugar. However, they noticed a change in behavior for people who ate more fattening sweets.

Participants with acute lower back pain who later recovered did not enjoy their pudding as much as participants without pain. Further, participants with recovered back pain were more likely to have impairments in satiety signals — signals your digestive system sends to the brain to show you’re full — than participants with acute lower back pain whose pain lasted for at least 1 year.

However, the researchers observed that participants with chronic lower back pain eventually had trouble with limiting food high in fat and carbohydrates such as ice cream and cookies. Additional brain scans confirmed this group also developed issues with satiety signals.

“It is important to note, this change in food liking did not change their caloric intake,” adds Dr. Geha. “These findings suggest obesity in patients with chronic pain may not be caused by lack of movement but maybe they change how they eat.”

Brain scans showed an area called the nucleus accumbens — involved in decision-making, reward behavior, and feeding was smaller in participants whose eating behavior was normal but whose pain became chronic. The size and structure of the nucleus accumbens helped researchers predict how much people with chronic back pain would find pleasure in eating, indicating this region is important in motivating the behavior of people with chronic pain.

The study is published in the journal PLOS One.

Source page

[Gio]

From the land of tribes ...

The Crocodile Hunters of Ethiopia

VICE

Joey Lawrence has been creating an archive of photographs of Ethiopia’s dying traditions for the last 12 years, but his life’s work will not be complete until he captures the one tradition that continues to elude his eye since he first began his work on the African continent. The Dassanach is a Southern tribe that occupied the arid desert surrounding Lake Turkana long before the country of Ethiopia existed. The majority of the Dassanach tribe is cattle-owning pastoralists, but the poorest among them are nomadic and follow ancient hunting techniques first mastered by their ancestors ...

To survive, these members of the Dassanach hop in wooden canoes and risk their lives to hunt massive man-eating crocodiles with wooden harpoons in the middle of the night. With the indigenous tradition on the verge of extinction, it’s Joey’s last chance to capture it on film, and he’ll do anything to make sure he gets the once-in-a-lifetime shots. We follow Joey on this journey as he risks life and limb to document this brave, and dying, tradition of the Dassanach.

Feb 12, 2022

45:02 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsx6ju8KIzg

[Gio]

Changing interacting dynamics ...

The Pandemic Has Erased Entire
Categories of Friendship

There’s a reason you miss the people you didn’t even know that well.

By Amanda Mull



January 27, 2021

A few months ago, when millions of Americans were watching the Netflix series Emily in Paris because it was what we had been given that week, I cued up the first episode and was beset almost immediately by an intense longing. Not for travel, or for opportunities to wear beautiful clothes—two commonly cited high points in an otherwise charmless show—but for sports. Specifically, watching sports in a packed bar, which is what the titular character’s boyfriend is doing when the viewer meets him.

The scene is fleeting, and it’s also pretty bad. It doesn’t come close to capturing the sweaty intensity of a horde of nervous fans, poised to embrace each other in collective joy or drink through despair. I know this because I am, sometimes unfortunately, a person who has spent a good chunk of her adult social life watching sports in bars, both with my actual close friends and with 500 or so fellow travelers at the New York City bar that hosts expatriated University of Georgia alumni during college-football season.

During the pandemic, I’ve been able to maintain, on an outdoor TV, the ability to watch a game with a couple of my closest buddies, which is a balm. But the other experience—the one Emily in Paris was trying to portray—has been lost entirely. In noticing all the ways the show misunderstood its joys, I realized how much I missed it, and especially how much I missed all of those people I only sort of know. Of the dozens of fellow fans and bar employees I’d greet with a hug on a normal fall Saturday, I follow only a handful of them on social media; for most of the others, I know only their first name, if that. But many comforted me through mutual, bone-deep disappointment, or sprayed champagne at me in exhilaration.

In the weeks following, I thought frequently of other people I had missed without fully realizing it. Pretty good friends with whom I had mostly done things that were no longer possible, such as trying new restaurants together. Co-workers I didn’t know well but chatted with in the communal kitchen. Workers at the local coffee or sandwich shops who could no longer dawdle to chat. The depth and intensity of these relationships varied greatly, but these people were all, in some capacity, my friends, and there was also no substitute for them during the pandemic. Tools like Zoom and FaceTime, useful for maintaining closer relationships, couldn’t re-create the ease of social serendipity, or bring back the activities that bound us together.

Understandably, much of the energy directed toward the problems of pandemic social life has been spent on keeping people tied to their families and closest friends. These other relationships have withered largely unremarked on after the places that hosted them closed. The pandemic has evaporated entire categories of friendship, and by doing so, depleted the joys that make up a human life—and buoy human health. But that does present an opportunity. In the coming months, as we begin to add people back into our lives, we’ll now know what it’s like to be without them.

American culture does not have many words to describe different levels or types of friendship, but for our purposes, sociology does provide a useful concept: weak ties. The term was coined in 1973 by the Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter, and it comprises acquaintances, people you see infrequently, and near strangers with whom you share some familiarity. They’re the people on the periphery of your life—the guy who’s always at the gym at the same time as you, the barista who starts making your usual order while you’re still at the back of the line, the co-worker from another department with whom you make small talk on the elevator. They’re also people you might have never directly met, but you share something important in common—you go to the same concerts, or live in the same neighborhood and frequent the same local businesses. You might not consider all of your weak ties friends, at least in the common use of the word, but they’re often people with whom you’re friendly. Most people are familiar with the idea of an inner circle; Granovetter posited that we also have an outer circle, vital to our social health in its own ways.

During the past year, it’s often felt like the pandemic has come for all but the closest of my close ties. There are people on the outer periphery of my life for whom the concept of “keeping up” makes little sense, but there are also lots of friends and acquaintances—people I could theoretically hang out with outdoors or see on videochat, but with whom those tools just don’t feel right. In my life, this perception seems to be largely mutual—I am not turning down invites from these folks for Zoom catch-ups and walks in the park. Instead, our affection for each other is in a period of suspended animation, alongside indoor dining and international travel. Sometimes we respond to each other’s Instagram Stories.

None of the experts I spoke with had a good term for this kind of middle ground—the weaker points of Granovetter’s proposed inner circle and the strongest of the weak ties—except for the general one. “Friend is a very promiscuous word,” William Rawlins, a communications professor at Ohio University who studies friendship, told me. “Do we have a word for this array of friends that aren’t our close friends? I’m not sure we do, and I’m not sure we should.”

The extent to which individuals are separated from their moderate and weak ties during the pandemic varies by their location, employment, and willingness to put themselves and others at risk. But even in places where it’s possible to work out in gyms and eat inside restaurants, far fewer people are taking part in these activities, changing the social experience for both patrons and employees. And even if your job requires you to come in to work, you and your colleagues are likely adhering to some kind of protocol intended to reduce interaction. Masks, though necessary, mean you can’t tell when people smile at you.

Friends are sometimes delineated by the ways we met or the things we do together—work friends, old college buddies, beer-league-softball teammates—but they’re all friends, and Rawlins thinks that’s for the best. “Living well isn’t some cloistered retreat with just a few folks,” he told me. “The way worlds are created is by people sharing with and recognizing each other.” Many different kinds of relationships are important, he says, and man does not thrive on close friendships alone.

This realization, new to me, is also somewhat new in the general understanding of human behavior. Close relationships were long thought to be the essential component of humans’ social well-being, but Granovetter’s research led him to a conclusion that was at the time groundbreaking and is still, to many people, counterintuitive: Casual friends and acquaintances can be as important to well-being as family, romantic partners, and your closest friends. In his initial study, for example, he found that the majority of people who got new jobs through social connections did so through people on the periphery of their lives, not close relations.

Some of the most obvious consequences of our extended social pause could indeed play out in the professional realm. I started hearing these concerns months ago, while writing a story on how working from home affects people’s careers. According to the experts I spoke with, losing the incidental, repeated social interactions that physical workplaces foster can make it especially difficult for young people and new hires to establish themselves within the complex social hierarchy of a workplace. Losing them can make it harder to progress in work as a whole, access development opportunities, and be recognized for your contributions. (After all, no one can see you or what you’re doing.) These kinds of setbacks early in professional life can be especially devastating, because the losses tend to compound—fall behind right out of the gate, and you’re more likely to stay there.

The loss of these interactions can make the day-to-day realities of work more frustrating, too, and can fray previously pleasant relationships. In a recent study, Andrew Guydish, a doctoral candidate in psychology at UC Santa Cruz, looked at the effects of what he calls conversational reciprocity—how much each participant in a conversation talks while one is directing the other to complete a task. He found that in these situations—which often crop up between managers and employees at work—pairs of people tended to use unstructured time, if it were available, to balance the interaction. When that happened, both people reported feeling happier and more satisfied afterward.

Now Guydish worries that reciprocity has been largely lost. “Zoom calls usually have a very defined goal, and with that goal comes defined expectations in terms of who’s going to talk,” he told me. “Other people sit by, and they don’t get their opportunity to give their two cents. That kind of just leaves everybody with this overwhelming sense of almost isolation, in a way.”

This loss of reciprocity has extended to nondigital life. For example, friendly chats between customers and delivery guys, bartenders, or other service workers are rarer in a world of contactless delivery and curbside pickup. In normal times, those brief encounters tend to be good for tips and Yelp reviews, and they give otherwise rote interactions a more pleasant, human texture for both parties. Strip out the humanity, and there’s nothing but the transaction left.

The psychological effects of losing all but our closest ties can be profound. Peripheral connections tether us to the world at large; without them, people sink into the compounding sameness of closed networks. Regular interaction with people outside our inner circle “just makes us feel more like part of a community, or part of something bigger,” Gillian Sandstrom, a social psychologist at the University of Essex, told me. People on the peripheries of our lives introduce us to new ideas, new information, new opportunities, and other new people. If variety is the spice of life, these relationships are the conduit for it.

The loss of these interactions may be one reason for the growth in internet conspiracy theories in the past year, and especially for the surge in groups like QAnon. But while online communities of all kinds can deliver some of the psychological benefits of meeting new people and making friends in the real world, the echo chamber of conspiracism is a further source of isolation. “There’s a lot of research showing that when you talk only to people who are like you, it actually makes your opinions shift even further away from other groups,” Sandstrom explained. “That’s how cults work. That’s how terrorist groups work.”

Most Americans were especially ill-prepared for the sudden loss of their weak ties. The importance of friendship overall, and especially friendships of weak or moderate strength, is generally downplayed in the country’s culture, while family and romantic partners are supposed to be the be-all and end-all.

The physical ramifications of isolation are also well documented. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Brigham Young University, has found that social isolation increases the risk of premature death from any cause by almost 30 percent. “The scientific evidence suggests that we need a variety of kinds of relationships in our lives, and that different kinds of relationships or social roles can fulfill different kinds of needs,” she told me. People maintain hygiene, take their medication, and try to hold themselves together at least in part because those behaviors are socially necessary, and their repetition is rewarded. Remove those incentives, and some people fall into despair, unable to perform some of the crucial tasks of being alive. In people at risk for illness, lack of interaction can mean that symptoms go unnoticed and arrangements for medical care aren’t made. Humans are meant to be with one another, and when we aren’t, the decay shows in our bodies.

The small joys of running into an old co-worker or chatting with the bartender at your local bar might not be the first thing you think of when imagining the value of friendship—images of more intentional celebrations and comforts, such as birthday parties and movie nights, might come to mind more easily. But Rawlins says that both kinds of interactions meet our fundamental desire to be known and perceived, to have our own humanity reflected back at us. “A culture is only human to the extent that its members confirm each other,” he said, paraphrasing the philosopher Martin Buber. “The people that we see in any number of everyday activities that we say, Hey, how you doing? That’s an affirmation of each other, and this is a comprehensive part of our world that I think has been stopped, to a great extent, in its tracks.”

Rawlins describes the state of American social life as a barometer for all that is going on in the country. “Our capacity for—and the possibilities of—friendship are really a kind of measure of the actual freedom we have in our lives at any moment in time,” he told me. Friendship, he says, is all about choice and mutual agreement, and the broad ability to pursue and navigate those relationships as you see fit is an indicator of your ability to self-determine overall. Widespread loneliness and social isolation, on the other hand, are usually indicative of some kind of larger rot within a society. In America, isolation had set in for many people long before the pandemic, making it one of the country’s many problems both exacerbated and illuminated by extended disaster.

In some senses, that means there’s cause for optimism. As more Americans are vaccinated in the coming months, more people will be able to return confidently to more types of interactions. If the best historical analogue for the coronavirus outbreak is the 1918 flu pandemic, the Roaring ’20s suggest we’ll indulge in some wild parties. In any case, Rawlins doubts that many of the moderate and weak ties people lost touch with in the past year will be hurt that they didn’t get many check-in texts. Mostly, he predicts, people will just be so happy to see one another again.

All of the researchers I spoke with were hopeful that this extended pause would give people a deeper understanding of just how vital friendships of all types are to our well-being, and how all the people around us contribute to our lives—even if they occupy positions that the country’s culture doesn’t respect very much, such as service workers or store clerks. “My hope is that people will realize that there’s more people in their social networks that matter and provide some kind of value than just those few people that you spend time with, and have probably managed to keep up with during the break,” Sandstrom said. America, even before the pandemic, was a lonely country. It doesn’t have to be. The end of our isolation could be the beginning of some beautiful friendships.


Amanda Mull is a staff writer at The Atlantic.