The social brain, use it or lose it

Have you noticed yourself preferring to stay in more? Trusting people a little less? Finding small talk a little harder? You might not be imagining it — your brain might actually be changing shape.

Researcher Sarah Stein Lubrano calls it social atrophy: the quiet shrinking of our social brains as we withdraw from each other. The more time we spend alone behind screens, the harder social cues become to read, the more suspicion creeps in, and the more we convince ourselves — "I prefer to be alone," "people can't be trusted" — that isolation was our choice all along. It's a vicious cycle, and in a world growing more transactional and distrustful by the day, we may all be caught in it without realizing.

But Lubrano isn't here just to diagnose the problem, but to show us the way out. Because the brain that atrophies can also be retrained. Join Sarah as she unpacks the data, debunks the myths, and makes the case that regular, genuine social contact isn't a nice-to-have. It's the foundation of a shared life and the only place from which we can actually begin to fix things together.