Health Check Loneliness Part 1

How does social media and friendship influence the development of loneliness? Claudia Hammond analyses the results of the BBC Loneliness Experiment.

Academics from the Universities of Manchester, Brunel and Exeter, supported by The Wellcome Trust, developed an online experiment to investigate loneliness, launched on BBC Radio 4’s All in the Mind in February 2018. 55,000 people chose to take part and answered questions such as what people look for in friends, how they trust other people and how they use social media.

In conversation with Claudia Hammond, Professor Pam Qualter from the University of Manchester reveals the effects of discrimination on loneliness, how people who feel lonely use social media and the most unhelpful suggestions people make to overcome feeling alone. Professor Manuela Barreto of Exeter University talks about the complex relationships which make people less lonely and discusses loneliness in marriage and parenthood.

(Image credit: Rabia Ali)