In a recent article for Sociale Vraagstukken, “De zin en onzin van sociale bubbels” (The sense and nonsense of social bubbles), SCOOP postdoctoral researcher Marieke Vermue explains why humans tend to feel safe and comfortable within our social bubbles – but also the importance of stepping outside our networks. If we forget how to interact with people who come from different financial classes, educational backgrounds, or countries, we can struggle to empathise and increase our own loneliness. How can we learn to be more open to people who are different to us? Marieke writes that it is much easier to make connections by sharing stories rather than statistics.
You can read Marieke’s article (in Dutch) here.
