Dr Sarah Bentley from UQ's School of Psychology appeared as a guest on Bay FM's Searchlight Conversations discussing social connectedness and the psychological impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns.
"Our research team here at the University of Queensland, we focus on the importance of social connectedness, which is often very straight forward and simple but sometimes the obvious and simple things are what we tend to overlook," Dr Bentley said.
"Of course with the pandemic and the events of the last two years, this has become much more visible in people's minds because we have been forced to socially distance and socially disconnect ourselves from those around us.
"We've been more fortunate here in Australia or at least some regions of Australia, but the issue of social disconnection has now become key for many people."
"We have experienced it ourselves and then of course we have experienced the toxic effects of that and how bad it can make us feel when we literally can't see people and we can’t feel connected to people."
The interview with Dr Bentley runs from the nine minute mark.
