Why we’re losing our ability to really talk to one another – and what you can do to help yourself

Are we on the cusp of an era where the work of tens of thousands of years of brain evolution is coming under threat within a period of two to three decades? Where the finely honed face-to-face communication skills driven by our Social Brain fall victim to the relentless advance of modern life? Where such skills, like underused muscles, begin to atrophy and lose their power?

Our Social Brain relates to an incredible network of structures and neuronal networks which control all aspects of our social world. It includes areas such as our prefrontal cortex, limbic system, mirror neuron system, the amazing spindle cell network and our language centres.

All of these combine to consciously and unconsciously control every facet of our face-to-face interactions.

The key to the Social Brain, however, is the brain’s natural ability to expand or contract key internal networks or pathways depending on whether we are using them or not. The so-called ‘use it or lose it’ concept is known as neuroplasticity. This process continues from birth throughout our lifetime.​

In the past few decades there have been three major challenges to the Social Brain and its key emotional connection skills: social media/technology; the Covid pandemic; and the arrival of hybrid working.

Facebook was launched in 2004 and the world has never been the same. Around the same time Google and Twitter were launched, the former in 1998 and the latter in 2006. These companies became the dominant forces in our lives, transforming how we communicate with each other.

At the same time we also experienced the arrival of the smartphone. When we combine the smartphone with social media we would seem to have the perfect networking system in place.

If we add in newer platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat launched in 2010 and 2011 respectively, and most recently TikTok (2016), it would appear that routine emotional connection is superfluous.

How could communicating face to face, ever hope to compete with the networking monster created by social media and the smartphone?

The biggest casualty of this monster, (apart from disrupting our attention spans) has been the gradual erosion, for many of us, of the relevance of real face-to-face communication.

There are certainly major benefits to social media and the smartphone, and both are here to stay, but we need to be cognisant of their impact on our Social Brain.

One would have particular concerns for our children, adolescents and future young adults, if as a consequence of excessive or unhealthy use of these mediums they fail to develop critical social and emotional connection skills.

The second big challenge to our Social Brain arrived with the pandemic. It turned out to be a massive social experiment, with each one of us being asked to explore what life would be like if the necessity for human connections were removed.

The results demonstrated how lonely life can be without them. How bland and uninteresting our world can seem. How emotionally barren and introverted we can become in the absence of interpersonal communications. How life can sometimes seem aimless and not worth living. The truth is we are essentially social beings.

In many ways it has highlighted the dilemma which faces us all. On the one hand technology, social media and the smartphone, turned out to be our saviour in allowing us to communicate with each other on an individual, family, community and corporate level, through mediums like Zoom, Teams, FaceTime and WhatsApp.

On the other hand, the continuous usage of such virtual platforms exhausted us all, often leaving us strangely unfulfilled and detached. Zoom-fatigue became a buzzword of the pandemic.

What was missing, of course, was the emotional impact of those face-to-face encounters, which make up so much of our daily lives. Where we could listen and converse naturally, pick up all those non-verbal cues and show and receive empathy. Where we could nourish each other through natural human contact. Where we could really interact at a deeper level than through any virtual platform.

Thankfully the pandemic has waned, allowing us the possibility of returning to normal communication. But a lot of damage was done to our Social Brain and for many the after-effects still linger.

As a direct consequence of those two challenges, a third threat has emerged, with the arrival of hybrid working.

In the past two years the workplace has been in the middle of a major societal revolution, as remote working became the norm for so many of us in the pandemic.

As the restrictions have eased, the choice for many companies has been to introduce a ‘hybrid’ or ‘blended’ combination of in-office and remote working days.

There are clearly positive and negative consequences to this new revolution. The positives, at first glance, seem to be overwhelming. It allows those with families to organise their daily routines, without the stress of long commutes, managing creche and school times, even building in personal time for activities such as exercise.

Hybrid working also allows greater flexibility for those who wish to live at a distance from their workplace, especially if they are in larger urban centres. It is also better for the environment.

But as time passes the negative consequences are emerging. Younger employees without relationship or family commitments may feel they are missing out on the social interaction of the in-person working environment.

Many people hired during the pandemic have either never met their colleagues or are struggling to bond with them as they only interact on an intermittent basis.

Those who are more extrovert in nature are also much happier working in-person. Others struggling with the housing crisis may be working from tiny box rooms or kitchen tables in small apartments, and may be less enamoured with the new working model.

Microsoft’s most recent Work Trend Index focusing on the Irish market, highlighted some of the issues relating to hybrid/remote working. Almost a third of those surveyed found it harder to disconnect. A further third were lonelier and others found it harder to build up relationships with colleagues.

Add to the above mix the huge challenge facing businesses and employers who are trying to grapple with the massive changes hybrid working is introducing.

Although decisions can still be made on Zoom calls, there is increasing evidence that creativity is suffering when in-person numbers are slashed.

Then there are those increasingly ghost-like working places, with less energy, reduced spaces, hot desking and less communication between those attending in-person for a particular day. Is this our dystopian future?

The real casualty, however, may be our Social Brain.​

What is the purpose of the workplace to begin with? Surely it has as much to do with the joy of interactions as much as earning our crust? The pandemic demonstrated just how joyless our lives can be without such social connections. Is there not a great danger that we all begin to lose our social skills or our capacity to be truly there for one another?

This is not a case of either/or in relation to social media/technology and hybrid working versus our social skill sets. Both of the former are clearly here to stay. Rather it is a case of both/and, in relation to these new realities and the social skill sets which we need to acquire and deepen.

There are four emotional connection skill sets, driven by the powerful engine of our Social Brain. These include Verbal Skills (such as listening and conversing); Non-Verbal Skills (such as body language, eye contact, facial expressions); People to People Skills (such as empathy, reading non-verbal cues, managing conflict); and Personal Skills (such as self-acceptance, kindness, managing hurt and frustration, gratitude).

The really exciting news is that each one of us, with information and practice, can prevent the atrophy of these vital human connection skills.

We can assist the Social Brain to overcome the challenges of the new world in which we find ourselves. We can, if we are prepared to put in the time and effort, transform our social and working world.

Let’s take an example. You are struggling for years with severe social interactional anxiety. You become paralysed with fear and anxiety when forced to engage in normal social situations, with friends or strangers, at work, in the canteen, at the pub or party.

You believe that others will notice that you are physically anxious. That you are the poor conversationalist you believe you are. That you are a boring person and best avoided. And there is that dreaded post mortem following each social event. Your life is a quiet hell.

Hybrid working for you, is a double edged sword. While at home, working remotely, you can avoid the embarrassment of the above. But what happens when you have to present yourself in person to your colleagues? Where all of your anxiety and embarrassment comes once again to the surface.

The good news is you can learn to apply some of the above key social connection skill sets to your dilemma. Learning that you might be misreading the non-verbal cues in social situations, that people never see the physical signs of anxiety in others. Developing your active listening skills. Improving quickly your conversational skills and practising the non-verbal cues that go alongside them.

Most of all, working on unconditional self-acceptance, where you develop the insight that people are never boring, only topics of conversation. That others love to talk most about themselves, the most interesting topic of all.

I have seen the application of these skills assist countless people to overcome their social anxiety, transforming their lives for the better. They have learned to engage the power of their Social Brain.

Imagine how your life could be transformed if you could easily relate to others, in any social or professional situation; or were more connected to family and friends, more empathetic, warmer, kinder, and particularly self-acceptant.

We are coming to a crossroads in western civilisation, where there is an increasing danger that each one of us, through a combination of technology/social media and hybrid working, may gradually but inexorably lose these social skills, as they begin to subtly alter or atrophy.

Maybe, before it becomes too late, we need to re-activate the hidden power of the Social Brain and brush up on our social connection skills. Let’s learn to use them before we lose them.​

‘The Power of Connection’ by Dr Harry Barry is published by Orion and out now