The answer to ending loneliness may be A.I. and if we can wrap information within a personality with a sense of humour, that may be the perfect companion.  In 2001, if you were on AOL and wanted to chat with one of the buddies on your list, there was always someone there waiting for you, even if no human wanted to talk. You didn't need to look for SmarterChild. It was already in your Buddy List waiting for you to begin chatting with it. SmarterChild was online from 2000 to 2006 and was the...

If there’s one word that immediately brings the image of someone to your mind, it may very well be: Celebrity.  Just hearing that word and you associate it with your favourite fill-in-the-blank star. Many people want fame, even crave it, because of what we believe life is like for the famous.  And despite being unfamous, we can all associate the perks of being a celebrity, including fortune, designer clothes, valet parking, mansions with pools.  Yet even from the perspective of peering in on...

It’s been more than a year and a half of solitude for millions of us. The pandemic led to shutdowns and isolation. Being alone has taken a toll.  Loneliness is something all of us feel at some time. Some are alone by choice, others have had it imposed on them. Each story is unique and different.  In Season 2 of Alone Together: A Curious Exploration of Loneliness, we learn there’s so much more to gain when we dig deep into how connections are found.  Research is emerging from the pandemic of...

Over the first season of Alone Together, we’ve compiled notes and tips from our executive producer, Terry O’Reilly, the host of Under The Influence, who knows a lot about writing for the ears and not for your eyes.  During the 25 episodes of season 1, Terry has provided great tips on how to write for sound and storytelling structure, and how audio and podcasts are different from print stories. In this bonus episode, here are some of Terry’s Tips for Writing and Storytelling. We’ll be back...

We are alone.  But that doesn’t mean we are on our own.  Over this last year of the pandemic and this first season of the show, we heard from others who were also curious: What can loneliness tell us about who we are right now?  And people all over shared their ideas and their thoughts about solitude and challenged some stereotypes we might have had about loneliness.  Over the last 24 episodes, we explored what it means to be alone, the art it helped create, the stories it led writers...

Following the pandemic of 1918, there was an urge to look for new solutions to what we used every day inside our homes.  Everything from door knobs to bed frames to toilet seats were redesigned towards a cleaner, more hygienic environment.  What will the interiors of houses look like after this pandemic and how and where will we live? Whether it’s a basement suite or a mansion by the beach, our homes are shelters and sanctuaries. But sanctuaries come at a cost. House prices skyrocketed during...

From Yoda to Henry David Thoreau, hermits have something to teach us about loneliness. For centuries, in religious and in secular life, there are people who chose to remove themselves from society.  It could be for long periods of time. Karen Fredette entered a monastery after high school and then to a cabin by herself for six years. Henry David Thoreau lived for two years, two months and two days in the woods.  If you are a hermit, being alone is an option to consider when the world around...

One is the loneliest number that you can ever do, according to Harry Nilsson’s song One. But two can be just as bad as one. The formula behind loneliness isn’t based on numbers but on connections.  In this episode, hear from: Suzza Silver, a writer who loves numbers behind Beauty of Mathematics. She failed grade four math but learned how to figure out numbers. She came up with her own solution to become a math muse by forming associations between letters and numbers.  Cathery Yeh at Chapman...

We wear clothes for ourselves, but also as a statement of who we are to the outside world.  Are we casual or formal? Loose and relaxed. Or rigid and constructed? Through our clothes, the message we are telling complete strangers who are dressed like us: we are connected. Clothes can also give another signal: that we are alone and lonely.  Clothes are a physical reflection of our internal thoughts and our internal longings.  They are a shield against external elements and a signal of what we...

One of the biggest international hits from South Korea in recent years was the K-drama Crash Landing on You. The plot is about a South Korean heiress who paraglides accidentally across the border into enemy territory where she’s rescued by a North Korean soldier. Each of the two main characters are lonely in their own way and that loneliness tells us something about how the two countries separated and evolved from one united Korea against foreigners to becoming two culturally distinct...

Our guests in this episode know what it takes to survive on your own, alone. Woiniya Dawn Thibeault teaches people around the world how to empower, connect and inspire with ancestral and land-based living skills. Dr. Sarita Robinson, aka Dr. Survival, researches people’s reactions to disasters, focusing on trying to work out why some people are more likely to survive than others in emergency situations and how anyone can improve their chances of survival. And Les Stroud, Survivorman, has been...

If you could pick the loneliest music genre of all, what would be some of options: would it be blues or jazz? How about shoegaze. What makes a song lonely and can music bring us closer together even if we are listening on our own.  In this episode, we hear from experts: Robbie Kowal, a DJ, who held the first silent disco in America. Lisa Christiansen, a music journalist and reporter at the CBC. Steve Wide, a radio announcer, in Melbourne, Australia and a fan of shoegaze. Geoff Luck, CEO at...

Science fiction makes us bold about exploring so we can feel less alone when we imagine a future world where there are infinite diversities, infinite combinations. In the future, there’s always hope we will lead a less lonely existence and find signs of life that we aren’t alone. In this episode, we talk to:  Rod Faulkner, a science fiction fan who grew up in the South and became a fan after watching Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura) on the original Star Trek. He discusses how science...

Four-year-old Eliana Pauls wrote a story during the pandemic. It was about her best friend, a fairy named Sapphire. The fairy had wings, hair of gold, and like Eliana, they both love the colour blue. While Eliana is a real little girl who can be seen by anyone, Sapphire, the fairy, cannot. She can’t be seen during regular times and never by people who don’t believe in fairies.  But once in a blue moon, when the conditions are perfect, she appears with her suitcase.  And if you are very lucky,...

Hunger makes us reach for the food that provides us with what we need at that moment. But there are different types of hunger and our brain and our stomach tell us that there are needs that must be filled by connections with people and not just our favourite comfort food. A new study shows that even one day of being alone makes our brain respond as if we’ve been fasting. Food feeds us and fills us up, as does connections.    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Imagine waking up one morning to discover you are entirely alone. Everyone else in your home has disappeared.   You look out the window and the streets are empty. No cars on the road, no planes overhead. Shops are abandoned. Schools are deserted. Buildings completely vacant.No phone reception. No internet connection. No electricity. No television or radio.  It is silent and eerie. Lonely.  You are alone on an island with no one else and there’s no way out.  Now imagine if all this was...

Single’s Day in China is a day to celebrate being on your own, unattached and alone. Four men are believed to have invented the holiday as their protest to Valentine’s Day. China is the country of the one-child policy and it was so effective that two generations later, Chinese men and women are alone and lonely at a scale unprecedented in our time.    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When we put our thoughts and feelings in a letter, it’s an attempt to understand our loneliness. In letter writing, we are connecting the weight that is in our heart and in our mind and having it come through our hands on to something permanent.  We sign our names and commit to a contract. We sign petitions as a commitment to a belief.  We know what happened in the past. But a letter is a wish to make sense of our present at that moment. And it is an act of faith.  That the person who reads...

If you are lucky, you live in the South West of England, one of the country’s nine official regions, where Stonehenge is located. It is the place of origin of Devon cream teas, cheddar cheese, and Cornish pasties. The population: 5.6 million people. If you are really fortunate, you live in the county of Somerset with its rolling hills and the home of Bath, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The population in that county: 560,000. But you’ve really hit the jackpot if in the county of Somerset, you...

In times of trauma & stress, people, animals, and even nature somehow find a way of coming together and there's something we can learn from that about loneliness.In times of trauma and stress, people, animals, and even nature somehow find a way of coming together. It’s a phenomenon that has been documented in bees and trees and even in human knees. When you’re down and almost done, it’s rally and recovery time. In 2005, during Europe’s primary club football competition, Liverpool of...

The legendary spymaster known only as the Man Without a Face lived a life of concealment. He was rarely ever seen by outsiders during his time in power.  He used spycraft to gain secrets by targeting the lonely. Over the span of decades, the Man Without a Face supplied a steady stream of Romeos across the wall to get to Juliets and the secrets they had access to. In the world of espionage, those who have access are powerful and vulnerable. They are sought after, pursued and targeted.  But...

A dictator behind the Iron Curtain issued a decree so he could grow an army. Instead he created a nation of orphans. We instantly connect to fictional orphan characters when we read about them in books like the Harry Potter series and Dorothy Gale in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In real life, the damage done to orphans when they are abandoned early in life can have lasting effects, leaving them isolated and alone, even after they are adults. The absence of connections affects us deeply. The...

Edvard Munch’s most famous painting, The Scream, began as a walk in nature and is a representation of isolation, disconnection and loneliness. During lockdowns, when gyms and pools were all closed, the only form of exercise many people could do was walk.  Our outside walks became rituals for many of us, the only time of the day or night when we left our homes.  Since ancient Greek and Roman times, walking has been considered a part of healing. It’s a concept that Japanese culture has long...

Superheroes can save us from many things including annihilation, evil, mutant viruses, and mad geniuses. But perhaps the most important one is these characters have something to teach us about loneliness. Almost all origin stories of superheroes begin with intense isolation, abandonment, and solitude. Why do so many superheroes long to not have their superpowers and how did their time alone help them understand their purpose towards themselves and to others, the people they’re supposed to...

You can’t touch this podcast, but you can hear in this episode the reasons why touch matters.  The loss of physical touch has increased our feelings of loneliness. For some people who are living by themselves, it’s been months since they’ve had physical contact with another person.  A year ago, we hugged and we touched without thinking about what we were doing. Every physical action we take now is planned and deliberate. The way we say hello or goodbye has changed.  That need to connect...