Meet five people a day

We are all now familiar with the injunction to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables each day for the sake of our health. I have a friend, recently retired, who has adapted the 'five a day' principle to his new situation: he tries to ensure that he has at least five social exchanges with other human beings in the course of each day. These need not be deep conversations about the meaning of life. They might consist of little more than passing the time of day with a neighbour or the assistant in the newsagent's, but they help to prevent social isolation and may even bring a little cheer to those on the receiving end.
     Of course for some people the 'five a day' principle is unnecessary. If you are employed, a member of a large family network, or involved in social or sporting activities, you are likely to encounter lots of people on a regular basis. But there are many individuals to whom this may not apply – those out of work, the elderly, the bereaved, the shy and withdrawn (some of whom may be suffering from mental illness). More and more people live alone, either by choice or as a result of circumstances. This is often seen as a symptom of an atomised and fractured society, in which there is little sense of community. Against this background, the recommendation to try to ensure at least five social contacts each day begins to make sense.
     I was made aware of how even simple exchanges can matter by a conversation with a checkout lady in Marks and Spencer last Christmas. It's a busy time and people can get rather stressed. In an attempt to lighten the mood, I asked if the customers were behaving themselves. The lady replied that most people were fine but that she objected to customers who acted as if she did not exist. She always said 'Good morning' or 'Good afternoon' but was sometimes completely blanked out. A particular source of irritation were those customers who arrived at the checkout speaking on their mobile phones and completed their transactions while continuing their telephone conversations, without ever acknowledging her presence. Her identity as a human being simply did not register on their consciousness.
     As well as mobile phone calls, many communications now take the form of text messages and e-mails. While these have their uses, they cannot substitute for face-to-face exchanges. So much can be conveyed through gesture and body language. A 'smiley face' on a screen is not the same as the real thing. The sound of laughter, a casual shrug of the shoulders, the irony of raised eyebrows, the added value of a hand gesture – all these require the physical presence of the individual to be fully effective.
     Sociologists suggest that social identity is both individual and collective. We develop a sense of self through social encounters of various kinds. People vary considerably in their need for social encounters. The novelist Kingsley Amis could not stand being on his own (apart from when he was writing) and ended up sharing a house with his first wife and her husband. At the other end of the spectrum are people who need to spend a large part of each day alone. This can be taken too far: a person living in extreme isolation is likely to suffer from a diminished sense of self and their personality may even begin to disintegrate. We all need the confirmation of our identity that social exchanges provide. Even rather unpleasant encounters can be psychologically beneficial: they enable us to define our difference from others and help us to formulate the values that matter most to us.
     In an important sense, everyday conversations between individuals are the building blocks of community. We can gain a chilling insight into the dangers of loss of community in J G Ballard's dystopian novels of the near future. In 'Super-Cannes' one of the characters says: 'Today we scarcely know our neighbours, shun most forms of civic involvement and happily leave the running of society to a caste of political technicians. People find all the togetherness they need in the airport boarding lounge and the department-store lift. They pay lip service to community values but prefer to be alone.'
     The 'five a day' principle may be a modest counterweight to this cultural trend but it's a response that perhaps carries more promise than the efforts of 'political technicians'.