The Village Effect ― How Face-to-face Contact Can Make Us Healthier, Happier, and Smarter

A provocative and persuasive argument about the transformative power of our face-to-face connections

Concrete factors such as diet, earning power, exercise, and drugs have driven our recent understanding of health and well-being. New findings tell us that our relationships are just as critical to our survival. Pastimes that many of us have written off as frivolous time-wasters—chatting with friends over a meal, taking a coffee break with a co-worker—serve important biological functions. We are living in an era of constant digital connection, but also of increasing social isolation: More of us than ever settle far from our families and find ourselves living, shopping, going to school, and working alone.

Human beings are hardwired to connect with one another. Social networks matter: Tight bonds of friendship and love protect our health, help us to learn and remember, extend our lives, and make us happy. But not just any social networks will do: We need the real, face-to-face, in-the-flesh encounters that tie human families, groups of friends, and communities together.

Resonating with our most profound life experiences, The Village Effect reveals some surprising findings about human relationships in a digital age, such as:

‧ Face-to-face social involvement can be as good for your health as regular exercise.
‧ Men who confide in their wives are less likely to die of heart disease.
‧ Fertility can be contagious among siblings.
‧ Women with large networks of friends are more likely to survive breast cancer than women with few in-person social experiences.
‧ Face-to-face contact with parents and trained teachers boosts kids’ achievement more than apps or software.

The Village Effect will make us rethink the way we educate our children, meet our partners, conduct our businesses. It may even save our lives.

Susan Pinker is a developmental psychologist, columnist, and broadcaster who writes about social science. Her first book,The Sexual Paradox, was published in seventeen countries and was awarded the William James Book Award by the American Psychological Association. Her work has been featured inThe New York Times, The Times of London, The Economist, The Atlantic, Financial Times, andDer Spiegel and on the BBC, the CBC, and NBC’s Today show. She lives in Montreal.