WHERE WE GET OUR VITAMIN S – FIVE LUMINARIES EXPLAIN WHERE THEY’RE FINDING SOCIAL MEANING
Ayear into the pandemic, and with the end of it almost tangible, the most prosaic of interactions would be enough for the most dizzying of thrills. Britain is running desperately low on social contact. Bailiffs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, armed robbers – come in, make yourselves comfortable, and stay as long as you like, as long as you don’t mind chatting.
Aware of this vital, ravenous need for interaction, any interaction, a leading psychologist has rebranded social contact “Vitamin S”. Paul van Lange, who is professor of psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, has dedicated his career to studying empathy, trust and cooperation in human society. Along with Simon Columbus, of the University of Copenhagen, van Lange, 59, has coauthored a paper, published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, titled “Vitamin S: Why is social contact, even with strangers, so important to well-being?”
Why indeed? Van Lange, a warm mannered, floppy-haired Dutchman locked down in Amsterdam, gives his thoughts over the course of a Zoom call. At a time when his work has never been so relevant to the interests of the public, it is intriguing to hear him anatomise the human need for social contact. This is not an abstract realm of study; this is the principal concern of the hundreds of millions of people in lockdowns across the world.
As van Lange puts it, our need for social interaction “is almost as basic as our hunger and thirst. If you don’t have any social interaction, ultimately your health will go downhill.”
And it could go downhill in all kinds of ways. Over the past 20 years, evidence linking poor social connections to severe health conditions has been inexorably increasing. Loneliness, perhaps partly as a consequence of the
‘If you don’t have any social interaction, ultimately your health will go downhill’
physical stress it causes, is now associated with raised inflammation, impaired immune function, slower recovery from cancer and higher risk of heart disease and Alzheimer’s.
This cavalcade of horrors brings us on to mental health effects. Depression and anxiety, both on the rise in the UK, are exacerbated by loneliness. “As far as I know,” says van Lange, “in all the countries badly affected by Covid-19, there has been a major decline in mental health, sometimes even more pronounced for young adults, people who own businesses, and elderly people.”
The easing of social distancing, then, is worthy of huge celebration. Amid the many joys reopened to us, the highlight for many people will be the opportunity to reunite with friends and family. These relationships are known to psychologists as strong ties, and we can all intuitively recognise their importance.
But van Lange stresses the importance of weak ties too. Weak ties are our casual acquaintances: friends of friends, familiar baristas, colleagues we’re not particularly close to but who, in normal circumstances, we’d greet and perhaps chat to. Weak ties were first identified as important in the 1970s by the Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter, and van Lange’s work, including the Vitamin S paper, continues this thread.
The brief interactions that support these relationships, van Lange says, are fundamental to our sense of community, and our sense of community is an important contributor to our mental health. Our brains, after all, are built for the Paleolithic era, in which we lived in small groups and were utterly dependent on each other’s goodwill. This means that, even today, it feels much nicer to have friendly interactions with familiar faces than brief exchanges, or no exchanges at all, with strangers.
“It’s almost like you get a little bit of a reminder that you are socially supported.”
The briefest chat with a familiar face is good for our health. “As far as research shows, if people are instructed to do this, then you see a temporary increase in mental health or happiness not only in the person who receives this contact, but also the person who initiates this approach. To me, that’s really nice. And people actually underestimate this effect.”
The past year has been a bad one for weak ties. Naturally, people have leant on their family and close friends rather than their broader social circle. Lockdown is designed to minimise social contact: when was the last time you saw your colleagues in the flesh? Or spoke to the parents of your child’s friends at the school gates? Or sat in a café where you know the waiting staff ?
You might, however, have got to know your neighbours better. “I think many people are more prepared than before to have a little chat,” says van Lange. He includes himself in this, explaining how he’s got to know people
‘I would not be surprised that for people who are low on vitamin S even a smile works’
living nearby. Before the pandemic, he says, his trips to the local grocery store would be conducted “in a hurry. Now, I’m taking a bit more time.” Along the way, he greets familiar faces, “and it’s reciprocal”.
Those who wish to reintroduce some fellow-feeling to their lives might be reassured to know that a little goes a long way. “I would not be surprised that for people who are chronically low on vitamin S even a smile works. Even a genuine greeting works – small reminders that you are part of this community, that you are well-supported.”
Mindset, says van Lange, is important. Loneliness begets loneliness, but open-mindedness has its own rewards. An interaction doesn’t need to involve many people to be meaningful. As van Lange points out, one-on-one pairings, known to psychologists as dyads, lead to more enriching exchanges than group conversations.
This means that someone looking for a quick infusion of vitamin S “could go outside and try to just have one-on-one contact with other people; go to a park, sit on a bench. Now, with the sun out, it’s very nice to sit there and make yourself comfortable. Why not prepare a cup of coffee? Bring that coffee with you when you go outside, and look for a bench in the park. And before you know it, with an open attitude you’re likely to have some interaction.”
Do that and you’ll have given your brain a much better workout than if you’d stayed at home. “Many networks in your brain are active when you have real interaction. So it’s important parts of perspective-taking areas that are over here in your brain,” – he points to just above his ears – “the prefrontal cortex is of course very strong” – he taps the front of his head – “many, many networks are activated. And that keeps you mentally fit.”
Some of the most rewarding of interactions, van Lange says, involve the sharing of laughter and of positive stories: things that we’re proud of, or that make us laugh. “These are very important for health.”
It’s possible to have too much vitamin S. Van Lange, an extrovert, notes that some people have enjoyed lockdown, “especially if they have self-discipline and are organised”. But we all need interaction, even if the scale of our need varies, and the past 12 months might be a good reminder of that. For the sake of our happiness and our health, let’s toast the return of vitamin S.