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The Art of Friendship: Cultivating Your Social Muscle

  • Writer: horizonshiftlab
    horizonshiftlab
  • Jun 5
  • 16 min read
Two friends lie on patterned blanket, smiling with hands on cheeks. One wears a purple sweater, the other an orange sweater and beanie. Autumn leaves surround them.
Source: Asya Cusima via pexels.com

In a world grappling with a widespread loneliness epidemic, how are our friendships faring? In this episode of Signal Shift, Raakhee welcomes Dr. Sabrina Howard, formerly with the Institute for the Future, is an expert in consumer and cultural insights. We explore the complexities of modern friendship, from the high percentages of people experiencing social-emotional and existential loneliness, with technology topping the list of contributors. Dr. Howard illuminates how friendship is finally being taken seriously, moving beyond its historical "secondary importance" compared to romantic partnerships. The conversation delves into the challenges posed by social media, the rise of AI companions, and the crucial work required to cultivate and maintain meaningful human connections in an increasingly digital and siloed society. Tune in to understand why pushing past social awkwardness and recognizing friendship as "work" is essential for our overall well-being and the future of community.


Connect with Dr. Sabrina Howard: LinkedIn





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Episode Transcript:

Raakhee: (00:00)

Hello and welcome to Signal Shift with me Raakhee and our wonderful guest today. Dr. Sabrina Howard. Welcome, Sabrina.


Sabrina: (00:07)

Thanks for having me.


Raakhee: (00:09)

So grateful for your time today. Sue is still away. Lana couldn't be here either. And yeah, I'm just really happy to be having this conversation with you. And I will share with everyone that Sabrina was part of the faculty team at the Institute for the Future who actually taught Lana and I the essentials of foresight. So yeah, it's just awesome to reconnect and to be able to talk about all of this with you today. And just a little bit more about Dr. Sabrina Howard, has earned her PhD in American and Ethnic Studies from the University of Southern California in 2020. From there, she joined the Institute for the Future. And after two plus years in the future space, Dr. Howard began doing qualitative research in the consumer and cultural insights field. Very, very exciting work. So Sabrina, I'm excited to just hear everything you have to share today.


The theme we're exploring right now is social and relationship capital. And we've covered community living in our previous episode. And this week we're going to be one of, if not the most important pillars of our social networks, our friends, the people we get to choose and keep choosing throughout life. And we have a widely recognized loneliness epidemic.


And real concerns around friendship, how to make them, how to keep them. And the question of, social media hurting our social relationships more than helping them? Some interesting findings from a Harvard University report on loneliness is that high percentages of the respondents reported that what they experience is social-emotional loneliness. And that's basically not feeling like you're part of any sort of meaningful group. There's about 67%.


not having enough close friends or family. 61 % of respondents said that. And a high number also said that they felt existential loneliness, which is feeling a disconnect from really everyone in the world and your purpose as well. And it was about 65 % of people who said that. And when these respondents also asked what they think contributes to loneliness in the United States particularly, technology topped the list for 73 % of the people. And I think that speaks to my question around is social media helping or hurting? But there were other things that came up for people, which is not spending enough time with family. People are just too busy or too exhausted, and people also struggling with mental health challenges. So I don't think any of this will be too surprising for any of us, right? I think it speaks to our lived experiences and what we're seeing happening in our communities and amongst our friends and families. So we really have a sense of what the issues are.


What are your thoughts from all the work you do? you must be touching on these topics in different ways and from different angles. And what's your thoughts on where we at with friendship in the world today?


Sabrina: (03:03)

Yeah, it's really interesting because it feels like we're in a time where ⁓ friendship is being taken more seriously than it ever has, which I think is really exciting. But I think because those conversations are now happening, we're also realizing how much we've neglected them in the past and how they've kind of been the relationship of


secondary importance in many ways compared to romantic partnerships. And so we're in this moment now where there are so many conversations around dating, right? And thinking about the role that social media technology has played in dating. And it's left a lot of people questioning whether they will ever be partnered because of the experiences that they have had in this kind of landscape of dating apps and all of the kind of social decay that has come with that. And it sparked these really interesting conversations around what does life look like if I am not romantically partnered? And friendships play such a huge role in ⁓ people's versions of happiness without romantic partnership. And it's really interesting, particularly to see the way that women have become very vocal around the importance of their female friendships. You see a lot of conversation about kind of alternative family structures, which I know is also something that you all are chatting about on the podcast. And these different ways of thinking about family and what that could look like and how you could build your life around your friends rather than a romantic partner.


Other conversation that's happening is around the loneliness epidemic, as you mentioned. And a lot of that conversation is centered around men. ⁓ And so there's also been conversation not just about having friendships, but what the quality of those friendships are and what it looks like to actually cultivate friendships that are nourishing and healthy and


It's been really interesting. It's been really fascinating just to kind of see all of the different ideas that have come into play. But I think all of it kind of points to the idea that we need to value our friendships more and that they have the ability to really contribute to our overall happiness.


Raakhee: (05:39)

This concept of social decay, like you said, and it's technology, it's these changes in our society that are happening and how we gather and where we gather and how we come together. ⁓ And we're losing that, you know, it's a muscle. So we're losing the fitness around the social muscle, the more we use the technology. So, but I also, loved that we veered into ⁓ what's coming up for women and what's coming up for men. And I think is the show called Adolescence? Is that the one?


Sabrina: (06:10)

I have not watched it because I've heard it's pretty intense.


Raakhee: (06:14)

Yeah, same. But I thought about it and I was thinking about all my friends who do have kids


I can see how it's such a challenging time for both young boys and girls, but in very different ways.


Sabrina: (06:27)

It's very different. I ⁓ think one of the reasons that adolescence kind of had such a big response is because with social media, we're super siloed. And so I think there is a segment of the population that was less surprised by adolescence. And then there were a ton of people that had no idea about these kind of pockets of the internet where certain ideas around masculinity and, all of this kind of toxicity are very common and, very pervasive and very influential, obviously, for the younger people who might be watching it, honestly, the older people too, if we want to be, you know, fair.


Thinking about the role that social media has played in that, we're very aware that there are these echo chambers and it's a problem. It prevents us from kind of understanding what other people are consuming and what ideas are being circulated. And it leaves us with a lot of blind spots, I think socially.


Raakhee: (07:36)

It's true for like health information or anything we're seeing. It's like we see people on opposite ends of just the information spectrum about it, right?


Got me thinking about something else I'd seen recently, which is that these virtual chatbots now, AI friends, are obviously going to get very popular because we are lonely. It's really easy. It's free. And I was thinking about the case with the 14 year old boy who was chatting to, he was chatting to, you know, an AI chatbot friend that he had created online on character.ai. he was not in a good space, but these conversations did not support him. In fact, maybe encouraged him ultimately towards suicide.


Since then they are doing things and they've got a pop-up for the national suicide line and those sorts of things. But I that is scary. So you have all these things coming together.


Sabrina: (08:36)

Yeah, I did hear about that. And obviously it's just a really sad story. And it is very scary to think, I think particularly for younger generations that maybe don't have as hard of a line between humans and AI as maybe some of the older generations who have lived versions of life where technology was not so dominant.


And there are, you know, a ton of stories that have been popping up recently around people having AI romantic partners and even, you know, Reddit threads of people discussing having real life partners and AI partners and their real life partners being jealous of the AI partners and the drama that's ensuing with these parties, some of which are human and some of which are AI. And it's really, really fascinating to think about the ways that feelings of loneliness and siloedness and this heightened disconnectedness.


have driven us to this place where people are seeking solace in non-human personalities, I do think it makes us susceptible to some challenging circumstances. I think it makes us vulnerable in some ways.


There's a lot of work to still be done as far as helping build strong human connections in the contemporary world.


Raakhee: (10:15)

But in essence, what you shared. it's a human AI human throuple. Yeah, which is, you know, I mean, who would have thought we'd be sitting here having this conversation, right?


I think it was the LA Times. But it spoke about a lady who wanted to stay anonymous. So it's not her true name, but calling herself Sakura, I think from California. And yeah, she basically was speaking about all of her virtual relationships and her friendships and how important they are. And she started two Facebook groups for other people who have relationships with these virtual bots and AI She's got about 1,700 people between both these Facebook groups, right? It's a quote that she made from this article, but it's that “a lot of people think, you're going to an AI for friendship. You must be lonely. And it's like, no, no, you're going to an AI because people are jerks.”


Sabrina: (11:15)

While I understand that, think what disturbs me about it is that...


I think it pretends as though friendships are supposed to be easy. And I think that's a myth. And I think that's a myth that is very much invested in this hierarchy of the romantic relationship. Because the romantic relationships, we're aware, they're supposed to be tough, right? They're gonna be tough. You have to go through the struggles. They make you stronger. You stick by each other. It builds the relationship.


There's all these really powerful narratives about the struggle that is inherent to romantic partnership. But when it comes to friendship, we are made to believe it's supposed to be all rainbows and butterflies, right? ⁓ And in some cases, if something goes wrong with the friendship, it's socially acceptable to just let it die, right? You don't have to fight for it. You don't have to… go to therapy, you don't have to talk it out or anything like that. It's like, it's just a friendship. You have other friends move on. And I think we are now in a time where we're kind of acknowledging that that's not how we should be treating our friendships. And so when I hear someone saying, like humans are jerks, I'm like, yeah, many of them are. You have to find the ones that aren't. And maybe you find someone who's not a jerk, but they're a jerk in a given instance. And how are you going to work through that? and still hold on to what could be a really valuable relationship. Yeah, I do understand that humans are very difficult, but there's something really wonderful in going through that experience with someone and getting to know someone and having those difficult challenges and going through different stages of life. And maybe there's stages where you're seeing each other every day, maybe there are stages where you talk once a year. And I just think we need to have more grace for our friendships. We need to take them seriously, but also recognize that being in relationship with any other human is always going to be complicated in some ways. And ⁓ friendships are still worth the energy, despite the challenges that might come along with it.


Raakhee: (13:39)

That's really profound and I think such an important message. I think we've all just taken it for granted to a large extent. And you're right, it is work. It is. And the older you get, it's more work because there is no institution tying you together. If it's friendships outside of work, there's no institutional force that is tying you together.


It's really up to us to maintain those. it's a lot of hard work, but all you get is we make different life choices, which are also so varied these days, choosing to have kids or not, choosing to be single or not. There's these dynamics that everybody's life just doesn't look the same. So it's like, yeah, friendships are gonna be hard in this era. That's such an important lesson, takeaway out of this conversation.


Sabrina: (14:30)

I think I have a very particular perspective because I have for most of my life, I have been single. I am an only child, so I don't have siblings. so my friends have been my everything for such a long time. And so I think it's always been somewhat obvious to me that friendships matter.


In fact, I credit my friendships to a lot of my own personal growth because you learn a lot about yourself through conflict, especially in conflict with people that you know and care about because it's not as easy to dismiss them. If they bring something to you as a friend, you're supposed to take that seriously and you're supposed to try to shed the ego of it all and actually figure out some kind of resolution so that you all can move forward.


I think I literally think it would change the world if everyone had at least one really good friend, you know, that truly cared about them and was willing to put in the energy. I think it would make a world of difference. I truly, truly do.


Raakhee: (15:46)

I can definitely share somebody who's left her home country and moved and just, you know, that's challenging. And that's been really challenging for my friendships and really, you know, they're still there, but they're not the same. And it's, you know, I'm at this whole point of like questioning, okay, and how do I build those networks again? So I'm very focused on being out there and building those new networks and saying, hey, that's part of, know, when you move somewhere. So. but it's an interesting journey and it kind of just took the friendships I had for granted because they were all there.


I'm also focused on those intergenerational relationships and now it's also building relationships with your friends who have kids and you're like, wow, you want to be a part of their lives as well. And it's really interesting. So I think, yeah, just being a lot more open and flexible to the idea of who your friends are and


I think like you said earlier, it's just about when you feel nurtured and vice versa. You leave somebody and you feel happier internally, richer. And I think you can give them the same. I think that's it, right? And all the other stuff becomes very peripheral.


And of course, maintaining the bonds with my friends who are in different parts of the world and trying to give that focus. And that is much more easier said than done.


Sabrina: (17:04)

And yes, it's great that you have those friends, that you can sit and you can catch up on Zoom or chat over the phone or what have you. And those connections can still be super valuable and super integral to your happiness, but it's not the same as having someone to go to the concert with. we don't… always talk about how challenging it is to make friends, particularly as an adult, particularly as someone who is not in your 20s,


There's things about the 20s that still make them a little more conducive to making friends a bit more easily. I think once you get into the 30s and older, it becomes challenging. And I don't feel as though we really talk about that a lot. And I think again, it's because we are not... taking friendships as seriously as we could be.


I wish that there were more opportunities like you're describing to connect with people, whether it's book clubs, the bowling leagues, the social clubs, like all of those things And so I hope that we're in a moment where we're starting to bring some of those things back to life.


Cause I think we need to get off of our phones. In a very basic way, just need opportunities that get us off of our phones.


Raakhee: (18:23)

Yeah, exactly. think that all in itself set the foundation, laid the ground to at least talk to the person next to you. I read this book called The Good Life. study that it was, I think it's one of the longest, it's the longest running longitudinal study, I think in history.


They started in the 20s or 30s and with a whole lot of people, I think, in the Boston area. And the study now, includes the descendants of the family who they started interviewing from those years right into now. So I think the study is probably hitting close to 90 years and will go into 100, think, sometime soon. And yeah, it's very interesting. They looked at what makes a good life.


And it came down to relationships and the quality of relationships. Yes, you need the healthy food and all those things, but the one common factor of the people who were happy and fulfilled and had a good life in the end was, just had good relationships, your most intimate ones, but your friendships and your community.


There was an experiment they spoke about in the book, was where a group of people, well, there were two groups of people. And one group was told, OK, go onto the train and you have to deliberately start a conversation with somebody and engage people and talk to them. And they said to the other group, you need to go on the train and do not engage with people and just focus on yourself and getting out of there and no engagement.


And it's interesting, the premise of the study was around the fact that we believe that interacting with people is gonna, like, it's gonna be painful and it's drain and I'm not gonna wanna engage with them and it's not gonna be good for me. And so we actually perceive it as a negative thing going in, like, I don't wanna, you know, I don't wanna have to do that. So this group has to go in and speak to people who don't wanna do that. And then of course the group who comes out of that side of the experiment is happier, like, oh, I had such a nice conversation, or I learned something new. And so they weren't able to understand the very benefits they were going to receive through those interactions. And it's a little bit of a fallacy there in our thinking.


Sabrina: (20:38)

I think to that point, and you mentioned earlier that we've lost the skills, right? Like we don't really know how to do the social thing and like we become a bit awkward.


But I really do think it's worth pushing ourselves to regain those skills if we lost them or to cultivate them for the first time if we never had them. I think it's really worth it because I do think a lot of people perhaps don't want to be, know, have their entire social world be in their phone, but the anxiety that they experience at the thought of talking to a stranger, you know, is so overwhelming that they're always just gonna stick with the phone because it's easier.


Something interesting happens when you're walking down the street and you make eye contact with someone and you're like, did you see that or what? The guy comes by on a unicycle or something and everyone's like, what? And there's these moments of connection, right? It's just about connection, feeling like you are a part of something. And so all those little moments count.


A lot of us don't realize that we send signals that we're uninterested in being interacted with. And then we wonder, you know, why no one approaches us or like, like, you know, such and such seems to make friends so easily and I don't. And it's like, well, if you're closed off and you're staring at your phone, you refuse to make eye contact with anyone,


And so it does require mindfulness to show up in the world in a way that's a little more inviting.


Raakhee: (22:18)

Nothing good comes without work. And we have to reframe friendships as that because I think because we've all had them so easily in childhood, we kind of have just assumed that, it's always got to be easy. friendship is the basis of all relationships. Like I think about, you know, you were mentioning the hierarchy, right, even in dating and, and where we put sort of relationships. But, you know, romance will wear off. And even as a parent, right, at some point, your kid is now an adult and your relationship has to be one of friendship. And so ultimately, all relationships are about cultivating friendship, right? It becomes the most important type of relationship.


In all forms, even in dating, even in marriage. I think, yeah, think remembering that and that, it's going to take work, I think is a really, really profound lessons. Yeah, Sabrina, thank you so much. I think people will really resonate with this topic and some of what's come up in the conversation today.


Sabrina: (23:19)

I think it's going to be increasingly more important that we feel that we're in community. I think community is going to, if we're thinking about a future, future forward lens, I believe that friendships are going to be, friendships and community more broadly are going to be integral to what's coming up next. I think feeling a sense of connectedness is going to be absolutely imperative.


Raakhee: (23:48)

Thank you so much. I'm going to sit and think about all of this tonight. And I hope all our listeners do as well. And let us know what you think. And let us know what's happening in your lives with your friendships.


How you're feeling, know, are you feeling a loss of friendships? Do you have a great network? And what are you doing to cultivate and maintain amazing friendships in your life? So as always, thank you so much for listening and we will catch you again next week. Bye for now.


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