How Talking To Strangers Can Make Us Healthier And Happier

Terms like social distancing, masking, and quarantine have become part of our everyday parlance.  They belie a pandemic year in which we've learned to be afraid of each other, conditioned into thinking that talking to a stranger could literally kill you.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called out an epidemic of loneliness back in 2017, before we were afraid of getting sick from strangers. And as we become ever more connected digitally, research suggests we also grow further apart personally. We're seeing signs of it in our politics, in our health, and in our social fabric.

We take listener calls with Joe Keohane, a Boston-born journalist and author of the new book "The Power Of Strangers: The Benefits Of Connecting In A Suspicious World." He argues that there might just be a cure for many of our social ills: talking to strangers.

Joe Keohane will be at the Plough & Stars in Cambridge on Thursday night.