Ideas worth spreading

The secret to living longer may be your social life

3,281,419 views |

Susan Pinker |

TED2017

• April 2017

The Italian island of Sardinia has more than six times as many centenarians as the mainland and ten times as many as North America. Why? According to psychologist Susan Pinker, it's not a sunny disposition or a low-fat, gluten-free diet that keeps the islanders healthy -- it's their emphasis on close personal relationships and face-to-face interactions. Learn more about super longevity as Pinker explains what it takes to live to 100 and beyond.

The Italian island of Sardinia has more than six times as many centenarians as the mainland and ten times as many as North America. Why? According to psychologist Susan Pinker, it's not a sunny disposition or a low-fat, gluten-free diet that keeps the islanders healthy -- it's their emphasis on close personal relationships and face-to-face interactions. Learn more about super longevity as Pinker explains what it takes to live to 100 and beyond.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

About the speaker

Susan Pinker

Developmental psychologist

See speaker profile

Susan Pinker reveals how in-person social interactions are not only necessary for human happiness but also could be a key to health and longevity.

David Snowdon | Bantam, 2001 | Book

Aging with Grace: What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives

David Snowdon tracked almost 700 Wisconsin nuns from the order of The School Sisters of Notre Dame since the mid 1980s. Armed with information about their family backgrounds, education, relationships, writing skills, and ultimately, their autopsied brains, Snowdon tells an unforgettable story—filled with epiphanies—about how to live a meaningful and connected life.

John Cacioppo and William Patrick | Norton, 2008 | Book

Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection

Social neuroscientist John Cacioppo, along with writer William Patrick, do a masterful job in, in illustrating how loneliness impairs our ability to learn and make decisions, and how social isolation leaves a damaging biological footprint on every cell of our bodies.

Jeffrey Zaslow | Gotham, 2009 | Book

The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship

This book tells a compelling story about the lifelong friendships of 11 women, who sustain their bonds across the distances that divide them, divorce, illness, and all the inconceivable obstacles life throws their way. In an era when people conflate time with friends with hours spent on Facebook with "friends," we get accounts of how women can use social media to enhance their relationships, not replace them.

Marc Dunkelman | Norton, 2014 | Book

The Vanishing Neighbor; The Transformation of American Community

One hot August day just weeks before my book was published, Marc and I were in steamy Washington DC for a live NPR interview, which is where we learned that our books had a common theme: how weak social bonds are as critical as our tight relationships in preserving healthy individuals and a healthy society. Marc's book makes a powerful case that without conversations and relationships with people from different backgrounds and political leanings, we can't function as a civil society.

Nicholas Christakis and John Fowler | Little, Brown, 2009 | Book

Connected: The Surprising Power of Social Networks

I could not have made the case for the transformative effect of face-to-face interaction without the empirical work of these two research powerhouses. Any one serious about learning the mechanisms behind social contagion should read this book.

Learn more

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.