Moment 1 - Johann Hari On Why We're Becoming Less Happy And More Lonely

Steven Bartlett (0:03)

This podcast is centres around business, entrepreneurship and I guess the pursuit of success, generally speaking. But what is it that's causing us to become lonelier as entrepreneurs are known to be incredibly lonely as a group, I guess, a professional group of society. But what's causing us broadly to become lonelier?

Johann Hari (0:25)

Well, I think there's a lot of things, but I'll give you an example of one of the other courses.

I think you would have better insight on this than me, but I think might play out more in people who are inclined to become business leaders, not all of them. So everyone listening to this knows that junk food has taken over our diets and made us physically sick, right? I don't say it's with any sense of superiority. For most of my 20s, I basically lived on KFC. I had a low point one day when I went to my local KFC at the end of Brick Lane. I remember going, it was the afternoon of Christmas Eve, which makes it even sadder as a story. I would go again and saying my order, which was so disgusting, I wouldn't even repeat it. The guy behind the counter said, Oh, Johann, I'm really glad you're here. I was like, wait a minute. He went back behind the friars and came back with every member of staff and a really big Christmas card, which they'd all written to our favourite customer. Part of one of the reasons why my clogged heart sank is because I suddenly thought this isn't even the fried chicken shop I go to the most. Okay, so we know that junk food appeals to the part of us that wants nutrition but actually doesn't give you nutrition, it makes you sick. But what's interesting is, something very similar has happened with our values. A junk values have taken over our minds and made us mentally sick. So there's an extraordinary man called Professor Tim Kassa, who I learned a lot about this, he's in Illinois, he's done incredible work researching this for 30 years. He showed lots of things. I'll give you an example, one of the things he's shown in, I think, in a really, really interesting way. So every human being has two kinds of motivation. So let's imagine, what would be an example, imagine you play the piano. I'm completely unmusical, but maybe you aren't. No, I'm definitely not. Imagine you play the piano in the morning because you love it and it gives you joy. That would be an intro or you play it with your kids or as part of a band or whatever. That would be an intrinsic reason to play the piano. You're not doing it to get something out of it, you're doing it because that experience is the thing you love. Now imagine you play the piano, not because you love it but to pay the rent, you work in a dive bar or to impress a woman, maybe there's some piano fetishist out there or something. Or maybe because your parents are massively pressuring you, they want you to be a piano maestro. That's not an intrinsic reason to play, you're not doing it for the thing itself. That's called an extrinsic or junk reason to play it. You're doing it to get something else out of the experience because of how it will look to other people or for something else that you'll get further down the line. Obviously, all human beings are a mixture of intrinsic and extrinsic motives. But what Professor Kassar showed is a couple of things. Firstly, as a culture, we have become much more driven by these junk values. We've become much more obsessed with doing things and driven by doing things because of how we'll look to other people in a cheap way, because of money, because of status.

Professor Kassar also showed, the more you are driven by money and status and the external appearance of how you look to other people rather than joyful or important experiences with them, the more likely you are to become depressed and anxious. I think this is one of the most difficult factors to think about, because I could think about how much it played out in my own life. I know you obviously do a lot of work with social media. I think social media drives us so much to be driven by these junk values. I think all the time about, I've got three teenage nephews and a teenage niece. I think all I've got two godchildren who are just on the cusp of starting social media. About social media drives people to think in terms of these junk values. How many likes did I get? How good do I look in this picture for Instagram? The more you are driven in those directions, the more unhappy you will become. There's a deeper reason for that, which connects a lot of the causes of depression and anxiety that I write about in my book, Lost Connections, which is everyone listening to your show knows that they have natural physical needs, obviously. You need food, you need water, you need shelter, you need clean air. If I took them away from you, you'd be screwed really quickly. But there's equally strong evidence, all human beings have natural psychological needs. You need to feel you belong, you need to feel your life has meaning and purpose. You need to feel that people see you and value you. You need to feel you've got a future that makes sense and where you're going to be valued. Our culture is good at lots of things. I'm glad to be alive today. I like dentistry, I like gay rights, I have all sorts of things. But we've been getting less and less good at dealing with these deep underlying psychological needs that people have. It's not the only thing that's going on, but I think it's a really key factor in why the crisis is going up.