BITE Insight

Could you go for a week without talking to anyone? For most people, that would be an unimaginable and alien task. But loneliness is a serious and often debilitating reality for around half a million older people in the UK.

BMB teamed up with The Campaign to End Loneliness to devise the Loneliness Project, a social experiment in which they they left Joe, a young Londoner, alone in his flat for a week. He could have no human or technological contact, but he could watch TV. Joe had to keep a video diary throughout the experience but, by the end of the week, he struggled to say anything to the camera without finding himself on the verge of tears.

The Project is designed to raise empathy for the individuals, mainly older people, who are socially isolated. When the week is up, Joe meets his next door neighbour, Barry, a retired journalist who writes about the familiarity of these feelings of loneliness after the tragic death of his wife.

Our concept of society is no longer just about the physical, face-to-face interactions we have with other humans on a daily basis, but it is also about the connection we feel to our online communities. The socially technological age we live in allows us to connect with another human in the blink of an eye. But many people don’t have that luxury. It is those people that this project raises awareness about, and who it is aiming to help.