 Staying Connected to Family, Friends and Community
Presented by
Dr. Laura Freberg
Laura Freberg, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology at Cal Poly University San Luis Obispo. Dr. Freberg teaches courses across a wide spectrum of psychology every term at Cal Poly and for the last few years has also investigated the topic of Social Connections. At Live to 100 she’ll discuss current research showing the vital importance of personal relationships and the association between a lack of connection and shortened life spans. She’ll also share a variety of ways we can become more connected to friends and family and to our community.
Dr. Freberg writes:
Human beings are a supremely social species. Lacking impressive teeth or claws, and responsible for children who took many years to mature, our ancestors had to band together to survive. We carry these strong needs for connectivity with us into our modern environment. When there is a threat to that connectivity, we experience loneliness, an early warning signal that is processed by the same parts of the brain that feel physical pain, telling us we should start working harder to repair our connections.
Over time, a lack of connection can become as harmful to health as smoking or obesity, interrupting our will power and abilities to socialize skillfully. Our consumptive culture, putting things above people, may be contributing to a growing personal disconnect. Many no longer sit down to a family dinner, and even among those who do, the television is usually on throughout the meal. In the 1980's, most people reported that they had three people with whom they could confide their innermost thoughts. In the last decade, most people reported they had no one at all with whom they could confide, a result made more ironic by the huge growth in connectivity offered by technological innovations using cell phones and the Internet.
Fortunately, we know what steps we can take to form new bridges and strengthen existing ones, reducing loneliness and returning richness to our physical and psychological well being. Dr. Freberg grew up in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California. She then invested nine years of academic life at UCLA, earning a B.A., M.A., and finally a Ph.D. She has taught at the college or university level for more than 30 years and been a professor at Cal Poly since 1985. One of her prime focuses is Biological Psychology and she has written two editions of the textbook Discovering Biological Psychology. She also teaches courses in Sensation and Perception, History and Systems of Psychology, Behavior Disorders, and General Psychology—where she includes the topic of social connections as part of the course. Dr. Freberg maintains an award-winning blog which you can find at her website, www.laurafreberg.com. She is still happily married to her high school sweetheart with whom she has three daughters.
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