As fundamentally social beings, we humans are at our best when we are experiencing meaningful and fulfilling connections with those around us.

We all think we know what loneliness is. However, in this digital age, we are experiencing a particular type of loneliness that started long before social distancing, lockdowns, and the isolating year that was 2020. Friendships are the answer to happier, healthier and more productive lives both at work and outside of it. So, why hasn’t the average American made a new friend in the last 5 years? And why is only 4% of our time spent with our friends?

Adam Smiley Poswolsky connects with Sarah Shewey, Happily CEO and Founder, to chat about the loneliness epidemic we’re currently living through, as well as his latest book Friendship in the Age of Loneliness: An Optimist's Guide to Connection.

The definition of loneliness isn’t how many followers you have, or friends you have on Facebook, or how active your social life is, it’s actually the disconnection between what you want to be feeling in terms of connection, and what you actually feel. It’s that gap. It’s that subjective gap.

Smiley Poswolsky, Millennial Workplace Expert, Keynote Speaker, Author

Smiley Poswolsky is a millennial workplace expert

He helps companies attract, retain, and empower the next generation. As a prominent keynote speaker, Smiley inspires and guides thousands of professionals on how to be more connected at work and why those social bonds are fundamental. He has addressed companies and organizations such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Unilever, Deloitte, and Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Smiley has advised heads of state and foreign leaders about millennial talent, multigenerational engagement, and fostering belonging in the digital age. He has also spoken in front of 50,000 people in 20 countries, and his video ‘Refusing to Settle: The Quarter-Life Crisis’ for TEDx Talks has over 1.5m views.

In 2017 he launched The Women/Womxn, BIPOC, and Inclusivity Speaker Initiative, which has grown to over 4,000 members. Its goal is to increase opportunities for women and other underrepresented keynote speakers, as well as ensure that they are paid competitively.

He is the author of 3 inspirational books, The Quarter-Life Breakthrough: Invent Your Own Path, Find Meaningful Work, and Build a Life That Matters (2014), The Breakthrough Speaker: How to Build a Public Speaking Career (2018), and Friendship in the Age of Loneliness: An Optimist's Guide to Connection (2021).

For all the enlightening insights you must listen to Smiley on Happily Live with Sarah Shewey, CEO and Founder of Happily, and you can also read on for a super quick summary.

Some takeaways from their discussion

Loneliness is an epidemic

For the past 20 years our daily lives have been fundamentally changing along with the rise of technology. A shift in how we socialize has happened, and it no longer prioritizes in-person, real life, regular meetups with like-minded people in your community. Loneliness has grown along with this shift. 80% of Gen Z’ers, 70% of Millennials and nearly two thirds of Americans (of all ages) are lonely.

We used to have bowling leagues, we used to meet up with people at the local church, or the VFW, or the town hall, or these Elks Clubs, having kind of these neighborhood-based places where you would just see people and regularly talk.

Smiley Poswolsky, Millennial Workplace Expert, Keynote Speaker, Author

Our current relationship with social media is not healthy

The ability to connect with like-minded people that technology has allowed us is truly wonderful. However, we need to be more conscious of how we use it. Only when we use social media as a facilitator can it enable us to nurture or create friendships. Think of it more as a wayfinder; the means in which you can easily find direction, to organize and meet up for conversations and interactions in real life.

Social media can contribute to your wellbeing, but if it’s just the end place, if it’s just like ‘I’m on here and I’m on here’ and I never get off the hamster wheel, it’s really really unhealthy for you.

Smiley Poswolsky, Millennial Workplace Expert, Keynote Speaker, Author

We all need a work-wife, work-hubby or a best friend at work

If you have at least 1 close friend at your workplace, you will be 7x more engaged. Friendships in the workplace are so important, especially as we increasingly use technology more and more to communicate and collaborate. Casual conversations as you both make coffee in the staff kitchen, or exchanging ‘good morning’ smiles in the hallway is something we are experiencing less as the world moves away from traditional office spaces.

Here are 3 simple tips for companies and employees to encourage that all important social spirit in the digital space:

1. Enable moments for people’s uniqueness and individuality to shine through in conversation. For example, spend the first 10 or 15 minutes of a Zoom call just chatting before getting into the meeting agenda.

Allowing people to bring their full selves to work, allowing people to share who they are, allowing people to have these moments talking about their hobbies, their passions, things that they’re working on, so people get a sense of who their colleagues are.

Smiley Poswolsky, Millennial Workplace Expert, Keynote Speaker, Author

2. Don’t shy away from smaller sized and more personable conversations and meetings.

I also think facilitating more one-on-ones is important, it’s hard to develop a best friend when you are 20 people on a Zoom.

Smiley Poswolsky, Millennial Workplace Expert, Keynote Speaker, Author

3. Celebrate each other and lift each other up. Everybody feels good when they feel seen, heard and appreciated, and as a result, the team as a whole will feel more connected. There are even platforms such as tribute.co that have made it super simple to create a collaborative video montage.

Affirmation and celebration and praise is really important especially right now during the pandemic. Feedback is always important, but right now having channels where people can give praise, give gratitude, celebrate their people is really remarkable.

Smiley Poswolsky, Millennial Workplace Expert, Keynote Speaker, Author

Are you fascinated by this topic?

Here are links to resources and things mentioned in this Happily Live:

• Get yourself a copy of Smiley’s latest book Friendship in the Age of Loneliness: An Optimist's Guide to Connection via Amazon
• Check out Smiley’s website
• Learn more about Smiley’s public speaking and how to book him
• Follow him at Instagram and Twitter @whatsupsmiley
• Learn more about Camp Grounded: Summer Camp for Adults where Smiley is a 13-time camp counselor and advisory board member for Digital Detox
• Read more about The Women/Womxn, BIPOC, and Inclusivity Speaker Initiative
• The Tribute website that was mentioned