The neighbor you wave to

Knowing the names of our neighbors is often something we take for granted. In today’s world, we may live in one place for years and never successfully put names to the faces we pass regularly on our blocks, or in our apartment complexes. Modern systems have trained us to believe that the most important connections lie elsewhere. Inboxes. Group chats. All of the endless notifications pinging from our glowing phone screens. Those screens promise constant proximity and reachability, but those promises are pervaded by a novel kind of distance.

In places like the Riverdale area, we might not think twice about the familiar faces and gestures that greet us each day. Maybe there’s a local business owner that always smiles at you as they unlock their door for the day, or a neighbor you always pass on the stairs on your way to work who never fails to say “good morning.”

There is a tendency to think of this kind of neighborliness as mere politeness. A minor virtue we perform as part of our daily routines, like holding a door open or offering up a seat on the bus. But the evidence suggests something larger. Knowing the people around you, those who make your community feel like a community, is not a small thing. It may manifest in small actions such as daily greetings, borrowed tools or the return of a misdelivered package, but these actions can accumulate to have major impacts.

Nearly a year ago, the World Health Organization Commission on Social Connection reported one in six people globally is impacted by loneliness, which can cause significant health problems. In fact, loneliness is linked to an estimated 100 deaths every hour, according to the report — that’s more than 871,000 deaths annually. The solution? Strong social connections, which can lead to improved health and longer lives.

The need for human connection is not a poetic or abstract concept. It is an epidemiological one. Loneliness is now being discussed in the same language as smoking, heart disease and air quality in relation to its impacts on human health. The former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, warned in his famous 2023 advisory that we are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. That widespread loneliness was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and continues to be propped up by declining community participation, technology use and other facts of modern life.

Feelings of loneliness can be hard to pin down, but their health effects are tangible. Lacking social connections has been linked to increased risks of heart disease, stroke and even Alzheimer’s. And that loneliness doesn’t discriminate.

Essentially, we live in an era when talking to our neighbors is not just a kind act. It’s the first step toward crafting a social safety net, improving our own health, and the health of those around us.

Warnings like these once seemed unnecessary. Many people still remember a time when community was ingrained in daily life. So much so, the “nosy neighbor” trope became an annoyance, a running joke. But that nosy neighbor would likely be the first one to pick up the phone if your windows stayed dark a little too long. If something seemed amiss.

Nowadays, we are more connected than ever, but those connections are often tenuous and far-spread. We know the names of strangers who live thousands of miles away, but become frequent presences in our social media feeds. We know what is happening far from home, from political conflicts to what someone ate for breakfast. We know all of this, yet many of us barely know the person who lives across the hall.

In places like greater Riverdale, essential community connections live on in many ways. Longtime businesses know their regulars. Familiar families have resided on certain streets for generations. Many residents leave their homes in the morning knowing exactly who they’ll chat with on their commutes, or in the cafes they frequent. But that close-knit community feeling is still being challenged by the pressures of our globalized world, and it’s up to all of us to preserve it.

To some, it may be tempting to argue that this feeling is wrapped up in nostalgia. To say the world has moved on, and the concept of community looks different now. After all, it’s true that technology offers community too. We can speak to loved ones who live oceans away at the tap of a button. We can discover sprawling networks of affinity and interest on the internet that we might not have locally. There is connection and belonging to be found online, and those connections are not without value. But they aren’t replacements for those face-to-face interactions with our neighbors.

Online connection tends to be elective and reversible. You can disappear online. Mute and block others. Curate an ideal version of yourself, primed to be witnessed by the public. Our neighbors witness our existences in smaller ways. Ordinary and sometimes inconvenient ways. Our lives intersect constantly whether we want them to or not, and in those intersections grows a sense of familiarity that we need.

When you know the people around you, the world can begin to feel less abstract. Feelings of helplessness in the grand scheme of global issues can be eased, at least somewhat, by making even small differences in one’s local community. Those small differences can come from actions like a friendly wave to a neighbor, or helping someone carry groceries, or joining a local organization. These moments, no matter how fleeting they may seem, are instrumental in building toward a greater good we can all feel a part of.

In this world that insists on scale, the act of being neighborly counters by insisting that the local still matters, and that community is built and sustained in increments, through our daily decisions.

As the weather warms and we begin to see more of our neighbors emerging outside, it is important that residents of greater Riverdale continue to do what they already do so well — be a community. Support one another. It doesn’t take grand gestures. A quick wave, a question or learning a new name can make all the difference in keeping loneliness at bay.

Through those quiet exchanges we begin to see that none of the distance, the untethered feelings, have to be inevitable after all.