How can the outdoors combat our loneliness epidemic?

In a 2023 Report, the US Surgeon General warns of the serious health and economic risks created by a lack of ‘Social Community.’ How can we combat this issue through time spent outdoors?

“Tap someone who made you laugh during this trip”

During a CFI closing ceremony, Gwen – a CFI Trip Leader – prompted a few 8th graders to walk around a circle of their classmates, silently and secretly tapping the shoulders of anyone who made them laugh during their 3-day Colorado River trip. The format of a CFI closing ceremony varies from trip to trip, and is designed to give students a chance to reflect on their CFI experience. For this group, Gwen chose to highlight support and community. She created a list of prompts; things like “Tap someone who you got closer with during the trip,” or “Tap someone who surprised you,” or “Tap someone who went out of their comfort zone.” When it’s their turn, a student moves around the group and anonymously taps other students who fit the prompt, while their peers sit with their heads down and eyes closed.

As someone who spends most of his time in the office – filling in as a guide for river trips when we are short staffed – I felt like I was looking in on a transformative moment. With the sounds of the Colorado River flowing around the rafts, I took a moment to pause my rigging to watch the Closing Ceremony unfold. What was so special about this activity to cause this excitable group to take a moment, slow down, and be fully engaged?

As the students orbited, responding to prompts and tapping each other, the possibility occurred to me that nobody had ever asked them questions like this before. We spend classroom time teaching our kids how to do math, how to diagram sentences, how to draw, or build robots, or create arguments from evidence…but which educational standards focus on creating connection?

So, what is Social Connection, why is it important, and how does CFI tackle this apparent educational lack within traditional school systems?

What is Social Connection?

“Social Connection” is used to describe the nature of our relationships with the communities that surround us. Throughout human evolution, our ability to form community when hunting large mammals or establishing fertile agricultural production gave our ancestors a significant advantage. Today, our daily interactions with classmates, teachers, family, or friends are what form our Social Connection. It is a spectrum; a way to characterize the nature of these myriad relationships. Strong social connection contributes to feelings of community, acceptance, and empathy, while weak social connection is related to feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Social connection and social isolation are two ends of a spectrum that describes the health of our relationships. As the advisory points out, while social isolation and loneliness are similar, they are not the same: “Social isolation is objectively having few social relationships, social roles, group memberships, and infrequent social interaction … Loneliness is the distressing experience that results from perceived isolation or unmet need between an individual’s preferred and actual experience.”

Why is Social Connection Important?

Thanks to the evolutionary edge hard wired into our brains, it’s no surprise that research supports some of what we feel instinctively: being lonely just feels bad.

In 2022, a Gallup survey published that only 39% of adults reported feelings of connection and closeness with others. This declining percentage is related to increasing feelings of loneliness, which approximately half of adults and even more young adults reported.

Unfortunately, poor social connection has direct impacts on an individual’s success:

“Social isolation among older adults alone accounts for an estimated $6.7 billion in excess Medicare spending annually, largely due to increased hospital and nursing facility spending. Moreover, beyond direct health care spending, loneliness and isolation are associated with lower academic achievement and worse performance at work. In the U.S., stress-related absenteeism attributed to loneliness costs employers an estimated $154 billion annually.”

CFI Programs Create Social Connection.

Increased disconnection is an urgent public health concern. Loneliness rates are rising rapidly, exacerbating the negative health consequences associated with social isolation. At CFI, we describe our educational model as one that features programming designed to create connection between self, community, and nature. While the best way to feel the effects of CFI education is to experience it, here’s the basic breakdown:

Connection to Self – This occurs through reflective activities like sit spots and technical skills education. Trip leaders, like Gwen, intentionally create opportunities for CFI students to experience growth by trying new things. According to our post trip evaluations, CFI students report increased feelings in their own skills and confidence related to the outdoors.

Connection to Community: I spend most of my time in the office, but every once in a while, I spend some time in the field supporting our operations. As a fill-in shuttle driver for one particular trip, I had the opportunity to get to know a group of kids briefly on the launch ramp, and reunite with them after their expedition. The transformation was stark. On launch day, I pushed boats off the ramp full of quiet, reserved middle schoolers, only to encounter a completely different group on the take out ramp. Sure, they were the same kids, but the energy, the tearful goodbyes, and the overflowing stories spoke to their time spent bonding on the river.

Connection to Nature: After every trip, we ask the kids about their experience learning outside. Here’s some of what they had to say:

• “It makes me feel at peace.”
• “The sun rises over the canyon in the morning, yielding the best view of my 17 year life.”
• “It feels like home.”
• “I stargazed with friends who I really didn’t know before the trip. The place held lots of good memories.”
• “Stargazing at campsites at night was a lot of fun — it just had this cool feeling of serenity and peace.” 
• “Outside helps me think.”
• “I can feel free outside.”
• “We have power to change.”
• “I feel that I can focus better than if I were in a classroom.”
• “Being outside and learning like this I often feel calmer.”
• “It gives a connection to what you learn when you see it.

Simply put; kids emerge from their CFI experience with a stronger connection to themselves, their peers, and to the world around them.

“Tap someone you want to hang out with more once you get back”

Time after time with this particular Closing Ceremony, I’ve seen CFI students circumnavigate their group, and tap every shoulder, every classmate. “Tap someone you want to get to know better…someone who you respect…someone who helps you be a better self….” When see this activity play out, it prompts my own reflection. Who in my life do I respect or what to get to know better? Who would I want to be trapped on a desert island with?

Who has a healing effect on my Social Connection?

It turns out that seeking these people out and deepening my relationship with them actually improves my physical and mental health. Kids deserve our investment in their Social Connection the same way they deserve our investment in their health.

Who are some kids in your life that are suffering from a lack of investment into their Social Connections? What are some ways you can set those kids up for success? What aspects of social connection are missing in your own life?

Tap someone you want to deepen your connection with.

Source: Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community, 2023

About the Author

Brennan Patrick Gillis is a writer and guide based out of Moab, UT. He works as the Director of Marketing and Communications for the Canyonlands Field Institute, and spends his free time getting lost in the canyons of the Colorado Plateau.