Dr Harry Barry: When you give a child a smartphone you're giving a ticket to the Red Light District

If the pandemic taught us anything, it is that we need people and relationships to survive and thrive. Dr Harry Barry talks to Marjorie Brennan about his new book which examines the power of emotional connection in an increasingly isolated world

Dr Harry Barry: 'I’ve been saying for years that no child should get a smartphone before 13, and I remember being literally laughed out of it 10 years ago.' Pictures: Moya Nolan

As Joni Mitchell sang, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone — when the pandemic struck and we were living in literal bubbles, we all realised the value of human connection and relationships. Whether Covid is in the rear-view mirror is still a matter for debate, but in many ways we are definitely not out the other side. With rates of depression and anxiety continuing to rise, many experts have warned that the issue of social isolation has been exacerbated by successive lockdowns. It is a topic that is close to Dr Harry Barry’s heart. The Drogheda-based GP is respected for his holistic approach to mental health, which he has written about in several best-selling books. In his latest, The Power of Connection, he outlines how to improve our communication skills and establish fulfilling relationships which in turn will benefit our wellbeing.

According to Barry, increasing social anxiety has had an impact on how we interact with others. One of the main contributing factors is our increasing reliance on smartphones and social media over face-to-face contact. He is alive to the irony that at a time when we have never been more connected in terms of technology, we have never been more disconnected from each other.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the quality of communication that you can have via social media or your phone or whatever, is nothing like the face-to-face encounter,” he says.

Barry doesn’t hold back on how giving smartphones to children has been a disaster in terms of what they are being exposed to at such a young age and also missing out on learning important social skills.

“I’ve been saying for years that no child should get a smartphone before 13, and I remember being literally laughed out of it 10 years ago. And my God, if I’ve been proved right. But it’s too late. Everybody didn’t grab that this was coming,” he says. “Think about when you were 13 or 14 and if you had said, ‘I want to go to the Red Light District in Amsterdam’. Would you have been given a ticket and told, ‘Off you go’? That is exactly what you are doing when you give a nine-year-old a smartphone.”

The effects of the pandemic on our people skills also cannot be underestimated, he adds.

“It slammed shut the door of normal social interaction, making us regard each other almost as pariahs. The effects of that are still there. Lots of people became very isolated, not just older age groups.”

The quality of communication that you can have via social media is nothing like the face-to-face encounter, says Dr Harry Barry. Pictures: Moya Nolan

Many people see the rapid conversion to working from home as a positive outcome of the pandemic. However, according to Barry, this trend may be the one that has the most detrimental effect on society. “Remote and hybrid working brings its own problems. Why do we go to work at all? We go to work not just to make money, but because we want to meet people and chat to people. Those relationships are very important socially and I think that has been decimated.”

Just as we know the benefits of eating healthily for our bodies, social and emotional connection is vital for our mental health, says Barry.

“You have an awful lot of people who’ve got used to their communication being done by social media and technology and who literally think that’s their world. They think ,‘As long as I’m connected there, I’m properly connected’, but they are getting lonely because they’re not getting the human nourishment which is really important — that empathetic connection and that ability to share with each other.”

As Barry makes it clear in the book, there are positives to technology — after all, it is a video call that has enabled me to have the pleasure of sitting in Cork chatting to him at home in Drogheda. However, he says we need to live with technology in a way that doesn’t harm our wellbeing.

“I’m a realist — technology and social media are here to stay and, as I say in the book, they were of enormous benefit as well during the pandemic. But I think we’re being very naive if we don’t examine the social connection dilemmas that they’re bringing up.”

He says while people have become deskilled in the area of social interaction and relationships, being proactive in working on things like listening and empathy can helps us lead more fulfilled lives.

“How many of us are only half-listening to other people? I call this passive listening — we’re getting the vague outline of what the person is saying but we’re not really engaged with it. We’re thinking about deadlines or, ‘Did I take something out for the dinner for this evening?’ And the problem with that is that if we get into the habit of getting easily distracted — and social media makes us easily distracted — then it gets harder and harder to actually zone in and listen.”

Barry recommends being more mindful of how we pay attention to others. “It’s a very enlightening experience to take three days and focus only on how you listened. And you will be very surprised about what you find when you start observing yourself. It is eye-opening.”

While there is a growing movement towards teaching empathy in schools, Barry believes so-called “soft skills” should also be on the curriculum.

“I would love to see classes broken up into small groups, even if it’s only for 15 minutes, and a listening exercise done, and then everybody to come forward and talk about what they learned and if you can listen properly or be empathetic over a device? It should be about opening up these conversations. It’s much better to practice listening and empathy in real life. I would love to see far more of this stuff done in schools. These are skills you need to survive in this world.”

How many of us are only half-listening to other people?, asks Dr Harry Barry

When we lose sight of the importance of nurturing emotional connection, it can have harmful effects in more ways than one. Barry points to growing levels of frustration evident in everyday interactions.

“When you’re not getting emotionally nourished, you’ll find you’re getting toxic stress-type syndromes — you’re tired, demotivated, you stop enjoying what you’re doing, you’re finding mixing with people harder, getting irritable with people very quickly. The low frustration tolerance — LFT, as I call it in the book — that level of frustration out there, you can see it. I believe that’s happening because we’re not talking to each other, not properly socially interconnecting. And it’s building up in us. We’re spending less and less time with people and more and more time with machines. We’re burning out and it’s a subtle thing.”

In an increasingly individualistic society, where the selfie is the prime mode of expression, Barry says it is important that we focus on things and people outside ourselves. For him, curiosity is the key.

“One of the things I think we are beginning to lose is our sense of curiosity about each other — our worlds have become so insular and so self-obsessed,” he says. “By being curious and showing interest, the conversation blossoms, the person comes to life and you’re learning about them. I always maintain there’s not a day passes that I don’t learn something new. And the day that I’m not learning something new is the day that I’ll die. Because the more we talk to each other, the more curious we are about each other.”

The Power of Connection by Dr Harry Barry, published by Orion Spring, is out now.

The importance of soft skills from The Power of Connection, by Dr Harry Barry

In a modern world obsessed with science, engineering, technology and social media, hard skills such as problem-solving and the management of technical, organisational, behavioural and business difficulties have been those most sought after. These include science, mathematics, understanding algorithms, business management, problem-solving, and a whole host of similar skills. It is easy, however, to overlook the importance of soft skills.

The term ‘soft’ suggests that these skills are of less relevance than the colder, more logic-based harder skills. The reality is that soft skills such as listening, non-verbal cues, empathy and people-to-people interactional skills are perhaps more important emotional connection tools to have in your toolkit, if you wish to be successful in many areas of life.

As technology subtly invades every aspect of our lives, these soft skills will become increasingly important in how we relate to each other. Those who take the time and effort to attain them, will often find themselves forging ahead faster in all domains of their lives.