The conversation sanctuaries
Initiatives are emerging to recreate social bonds, from friendship benches to smartphone-free zones, such as the Dial café in Tokyo
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Conversing or starting an exchange in real life are activities that no longer seem so natural. Instant messaging, social networks have taken over. On many occasions, people "meet" ahead of an event: adding a future new colleague on LinkedIn, exchanging messages on a dating platform before a date (when the date actually happens...).
Despite numerous digital solicitations to create connections, loneliness is there and progressing. Various initiatives are taking place worldwide to create conversation sanctuaries. Sign of the times: we need to unlearn digital habits to return to the social link factory.
The voice to reconnect with others
According to a study published in JAMA Psychiatry, a phone call is a first step towards the solution. Indeed, at the end of an experiment where half of a group of participants received a call from a volunteer, 20% of them subsequently reported feeling less lonely.
One virtue of the voice is that it humanizes interlocutors, even when we totally disagree with them. The voice nuances, leaves room for breathing, sets up a gymnastics that - except for huge clashes or disputes - helps to create empathy or at least a healthier space. The phone before the internet promised access to the presence of the other. And the answering machine was then used to compensate for absence. Decades later, it is not so surprising that 17% of "Gen Z" send voice notes at least once a day according to GWI.
Social design serving the quality of exchanges
The Dial café (short for dialogue) in Tokyo aims to encourage couples to converse. Tables for two are set up in a neat interior.
Before starting, guests go near the entrance where there is a cabinet with rows of small velvet drawers divided into three categories - light, medium, and deep. Customers are invited to open a drawer and take an envelope containing cards. These propose questions from the most trivial to the most introspective. An organization of the exchange that aims to structure the conversation, and above all to start it, with people who may never have known or been able to conduct this type of interaction. The café suggests that couples come back frequently, a true bubble out of the digital time, in order to prolong the exchange.
In pop culture, shows like Single's Inferno on Netflix are all the rage: stories of romantic encounters that involve many moments of conversation, personal anecdotes. The episodes are certainly very scripted and the video editing probably very biased, nevertheless these contents prove our appetite for stories that are both close, intimate, and paradoxically fictional. In France, Warner Bros has just appointed its first "director of real TV", which proves the enthusiasm and the potential market!
In the United States, in Great Neck, Ronald Gross launched "Conversation Stations". The principle: signs placed on benches to encourage people to sit down if they are open to a friendly conversation. In French schools, friendship benches are becoming more and more frequent in the playgrounds, to encourage children to talk to each other and not to exclude.
Among the youngest, disturbing figures confirm that children go out less. According to the Institut de Veille Sanitaire, 40% of French children under 10 never play outside during the week, which raises questions about future social relationships.
On France Culture, Géraldine Mosna-Savoye reminds us how important conversation is for our battered humanities:
"Yet, I believe, on the contrary, that conversation only takes place when it overflows, either in excess, effusion, or by default, by an overflow of silence, embarrassment. In the end, even when we don't say what we should, something is exchanged, which is indeed the purpose of a conversation”. Géraldine Mosna-Savoye
Conversation sanctuaries are bound to explode in the coming months; a way to restore meaning and commonality, just like urban libraries.
The figure of the week: 28%
Regarding French people aged 18 - 24, an Ifop study conducted for the sex-toys company Lelo demonstrates that more than a quarter of this population has had no sexual intercourse in the past year.
Amazing links
Snapchat has released its campaign "Less social media. More Snapchat". A real debate among industry professionals that proves the confusion about the role of platforms.
On The Guardian side, the Moai are explored, a notion from Japan that designates small groups of lifelong friends (the word translates roughly as "meeting for a common purpose") and their impact on our life expectancy.
At NOEMA, Alastair Humphreys delivers a true philosophy of micro-adventure.
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