We're Not Who We're Meant To Be: Our Anti-Social Habits are dominating the Social World

We’re in an era of our lives where everything is engineered for our convenience. There’s simply no need to take a trip to the cinema to watch that film we’ve been meaning to see, or rush to the supermarket when we realise we're missing an ingredient for dinner. With just a few taps on our phone or computer screens, we can seemingly do it all from the comfort of our homes.

We all know that the pandemic triggered a global spike in the number of us working from home, and created a trend that seems to have stuck with us, even after Covid-19 loosened its tight-grip over our ‘new normal’. Indeed, in 2019, only 12% of UK working adults reported working from home, yet in 2024, 41% continue to do so at least once a week (Gill, 2023).

But it's not just work that’s moved home. Now, more than ever, we tend to eat at home, exercise at home, shop at home, and are entertained at home. In many ways, it can be said that we’re becoming increasingly self-sufficient—everything we need can be found within the four walls of our homes, as long as we have a screen handy. 

Yet, here lies the ultimate paradox: while the world becomes a more digitalised and isolated place, we as humans remain reliant on social interaction for survival. So, what happens when we continue to isolate ourselves in the name of convenience, when we’re hardwired to crave connection?

Gone are the days where a pen and piece of paper are our first port of call when we want to jot something down. Instead, the sentence, “Wait, I need to grab my phone to write this down”, and a subsequent, frantic search for said device might be a more common series of events. 

Whilst there’s no denying that technology can be a fantastic tool for productivity, learning and working, the saying ‘you can have too much of a good thing’ has never rang more true when it comes to screen-time. 

A study investigating the impact of excessive screen time on brain health found that those who spent more than 7 hours a day staring at their screens experienced thinning of the brain cortex (Sowell et al, 2016-). With this area of our brain being responsible for the way we think, make decisions and our ability to reason, it’s pretty clear that we can’t afford to lose it in the rise of technology. 

Whilst many of us may scoff at the idea of spending such a considerable amount of time on our phones, science has shown that it is in fact not a laughing matter. According to the Digital Parenthood Association, the typical teenager is awake for 15 hours a day, and has an average screen time of 4.5 hours on weekdays, and 6.3 hours on weekends. This means that 30% of the average teenager's waking life is devoted to staring at a screen - an undeniably worrying statistic considering what we know about the impact of screens on brain health and functioning. 

But, it's not just our physical health that can be affected by spending too much time on our phones. Scientists have repeatedly found that excessive screen time can lead to increased anxiety, depression and feelings of isolation. 

A study that followed over 40,000 children and teenagers found that those with higher screen-times experienced greater levels of anxiety and depression (Twenge et al, 2018). While we can largely put this decline in wellbeing down to the negativity that endlessly circles the Internet, Psychologist Dr Suzi Gage (2023) makes a crucial point: it isn’t just what we’re consuming on our screens that is the problem, but what we are missing out on by endlessly scrolling on them. When we choose to replace face-to-face interaction with a quick Face Time call in the interest of convenience, we lose out on experiencing those all-important feel-good hormones triggered by real-world social interaction. Once our social media feeds are up-to-date, and that Face-Time call has ended, we are completely alone - something that, as fundamentally social creatures, is a difficult pill to swallow.

At StoriBoard, we’re on a mission to make the world a less lonely place by building friendships through small-group shared experiences. Through matching like-minded people together and organising activities that spark interesting conversation and genuine friendship, we make building connections easier, and bring people back together in the real world. After all, it seems that when we are left to our own devices, we choose our smart-devices, in spite of what it is costing us on both a personal and societal level. 

Make new friends by joining the StoriBoard Club. Take our 5-minute quiz, get paired up with five like-minded people, and enjoy exclusive discounts and treats from our partner venues. Making new friends has never been so easy! 

If you are struggling with loneliness or your mental health, download the StoriBoard Peer-to-Peer Support app to make meaningful connections with people who understand what you are going through, can relate themselves, and can both validate and support you through any hard time. 

This article was written by Emma Annetts - a member of the StoriBoard Marketing Team.