The Un-lonely
Published in March 17th, 2023 MIT Omega Newsletter
Tia Reddy
I started dropping in on MIT AgeLab’s OMEGA Chat Hours in 2020 with my sister. At first, I wanted to check it out and see what it was all about. Moreover, it seemed exciting to interact with people beyond my immediate family and friends (through FaceTime) during the pandemic’s groundhog days of social distancing—Zoom schooling, eating, sleeping, and hitting repeat. When I started with the chat hours, I shared the same Zoom Screen as my sister. We met the 85+ Lifestyle leaders and it was interesting as I silently listened to their conversations about day-to-day life.
After hearing about societal loneliness especially among older adults from our mother, my sister and I started SMILES & Breathe to help people combat loneliness. We gave out and posted pamphlets with tips and resources at hospitals, cafes and clinics. Going to the OMEGA meetings, I saw older adults engaging in discussions about topics ranging from smart homes to religion. They seemed comfortable taking on sensitive topics and speaking about them nicely, in an objective way. This was very different from what I was seeing on television and in other places. Moreover, they did not appear lonely during the conversations. They seemed content and willing to respectfully disagree. The conversations were engaging and sometimes very funny. They were un-lonely.
So, my sister and I thought that maybe we could reverse engineer and understand what the un-lonelys did. We worked on it when we found time together and sometimes asynchronously. We deduced from the un-lonelys that loneliness did not have one opposite word, but they had kept it at bay by leaning into community, society and solitude. They did this through meaningful relationships grounded in shared interests and values, by giving back to the community and society, and by embracing solitude on a regular basis. Over the last three years, we went through sixteen versions of handouts and/or website updates. What I most enjoyed is our recent intergenerational version. This version gives tips on connecting across generations.
During our research into loneliness, we gathered that older adults and Gen-Z were the loneliest generations, statistically. The difference between them seemed to be technology and world wisdom. Each was savvy or naive at something depending on what you were looking at. We have grandparents, family, friends, and neighbors who we know we can connect with but are sometimes sensitive to raise a topic. But, if we don’t make attempts to establish these meaningful connections, the wisdom of the generations is lost. We all know human connection is important. We researched and added resources for ideas to connect across generations. Some were simple like baking cookies and some were long term projects. They Involved a common interest and sometimes used technology to facilitate it
We piloted the program to foster ongoing intergenerational connections at the MIT AgeLab’s OMEGA summit in January 2023 with the help of our AgeLab mentors, Ms. Lauren Cerino and Ms. Taylor Patskanick. We met a few times with our AgeLab mentors via Zoom before the pilot. We needed to pick a topic that would be common and interesting to all generations. A week before the planned meeting on our way home, we were discussing how we knew we had to pick but had not picked a discussion topic yet. After a quick light bulb moment, we picked the knowledge-action gap as a topic of our discussion. We wrote a proposal outlining the format for the event. Ms. Cerino and Ms. Patskanick gave us a lot of flexibility with our ideas, gently and occasionally guiding us back on path.
On the day of the pilot, we sat in front of our Zoom screens, dressed- formal on top and in pjs waist down. I watched as eager faces peered at us. We started with an icebreaker:” Tell a fun fact about yourself.” The audience introduced themselves and jumped into the conversation. We heard from many people, a retired teacher, a teen who had recently moved from Egypt, a person who lived on the west coast and many other interesting stories and insights about the knowledge-action gap. We each tried to build on the previous person’s thoughtful words of wisdom. We were mindful to be objective and to stay centered on the topic. We all bonded, shared ideas and learned from each other. As I moderated, I learned that each generation and every person at that table had something to offer. All they and we had done was to foster a sense of belonging in this micro-community.
