Pat and Sandy Hayashi live in a quiet, forested neighborhood in the Oakland hills, about seven miles from the UC Berkeley campus where Pat worked for close to 30 years. Pat is 80 and Sandy is 83. They both retired in 2004, Pat as associate president of the University of California system, and Sandy as the founder and owner of a local travel agency. Sandy clearly remembers the day that she decided to retire. “It was a beautiful, sunny day and I looked out the window of my home office and thought, why in the world am I worrying about someone's seat assignments when I could be outside in the garden,” she says.
Sandy walks me downstairs to their art studio, a large open room with a big picture window, and points out the small platform that models use when she and Pat host life drawing potlucks for friends. They throw these gatherings about every three months, welcoming a dozen friends to their home for three hours of life drawing followed by a shared meal and a show-and-tell of their work. “Two of our models are dancers and they are both willing to dance when they pose. And then it becomes really interesting, because you have to develop a strategy for capturing and conveying their essence while they are moving, and it's exciting,” Pat says.
For Pat and Sandy, the life drawing potlucks, which they started 20 years ago, are an in-person social activity that has survived the COVID-19 pandemic. Sandy says that since COVID, she and Pat have become more withdrawn, not because they fear illness but because they are older than they were before the pandemic started. Pat nods in agreement. “I think that 70 is the new 60, but 80 is 80. Your energy level declines, and I've become a slightly fearful driver,” he says. During the pandemic, Pat and Sandy joined a lot of social activities on Zoom, from drawing classes to singing lessons. Although they prefer in-person interactions, the conveniences of Zoom offer consistent social opportunities that meet them where they are as their age and health changes. But they are grateful that the life drawing potlucks are in-person. “Our potlucks have provided a real center of social activity and connection,” Pat says.
While Pat and Sandy have been able to maintain an active social life, many older adults are lacking enough social connection to meet their health needs. Experts in American health are ringing the alarm bells about loneliness, and much of this national conversation is focused on older adults who experience higher rates of social isolation than the rest of the population. In 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy published an advisory highlighting the correlation between loneliness and poor mental and physical health outcomes, including a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, depression, anxiety and premature death. The increased social isolation among older adults has shown to heighten risks of hypertension, type 2 diabetes and dementia.
Among the doctors focusing on these issues is Ashwin Kotwal, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. Dr. Kotwal co-leads UCSF’s Social Connections and Aging Lab, which focuses on the health effects of loneliness and social isolation among older adults, and he has seen first-hand how the pandemic disrupted social networks in the older adult population. “I had patients who were dating, or who had volunteer opportunities. Especially in rural areas, none of those things have come back. Friends or family may have died, living arrangements may have changed, new health conditions may arise,” he says. Because of all this, Dr. Kotwal emphasizes that for older adults, rebuilding their social networks post-pandemic requires a lot of intentionality.
Marian Gade embodies this kind of intentionality. She retired from UC Berkeley in 1993 after a 35 year career supporting former UC Berkeley Chancellor and former University of California President Clark Kerr. “I got involved in all sorts of wonderful projects all over the country,” Marian says. Marian is 90 years old now, and struggling with both glaucoma and declining mobility due to multiple leg operations. But she and her partner, Jerry, participate in several music jams per week on Zoom. Sitting in her living room in Kensington, a small unincorporated community in the Berkeley hills, I can spot a piano, a five-string banjo, four guitars and a tenor ukulele. Every Monday, she and Jerry join an international jam with about 40 other people, mostly from Europe, who come to sing and play a variety of instruments. It took some time to figure out the logistics of online jamming, but by now everyone knows how to make it work. “You stay muted except when it's your turn to lead,” Marian explains. But the jam is more than playing music, it’s a social event as well. “A lot of people stick around for another hour. So the music stops at four, but the program doesn't stop. People take turns talking about all kinds of things,” Marian says. She also has a bi-weekly card game over FaceTime, and as a board member of several University associations she uses Zoom to join multiple meetings per month. “I am just so grateful for Zoom. I really am,” she says.
As defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, older adults are people 65 and up, but there can be big differences between those on the younger and older end of the spectrum. While older adults in their sixties and seventies might be eager to move away from socializing on Zoom and get back to all in-person activities, those in their eighties, nineties and above have more reasons to lean into online gatherings to meet their socialization needs. But despite its conveniences, Dr. Kotwal says that Zoom has its limitations. Some research has found that online interactions are beneficial when they don't replace meaningful in-person interactions, but that in the long-run they can be harmful if they replace too much in-person contact, he explains. “There are simple things that happen in person that are actually meaningful. Things like human touch. Even a touch on the shoulder, or a hug, or a handshake is meaningful from a health standpoint,” Dr. Kotwal says. “People tend to have lower blood pressure, they have reduced stress responses, that type of thing. So there's actual biological things that are happening when people are in person.”
For Marian, although Zoom offers a very convenient way to connect with others, she also feels that online interactions can be too transactional. “On Zoom you can get things done, but a lot of being with other people isn't just about getting things done. It's being in the company of other people. Not for this reason or this purpose, but just because that's what human beings do. They get together. And I think that's important,” she says. Pat agrees. “I think you can feel people's emotions in person in a way that is difficult on Zoom. You can feel if someone is embarrassed or proud of something, or struggling with something. And that's part of friendship,” he says. But while many older adults feel that in-person activities are rewarding, they also find themselves emerging from COVID five years older than they were when it started, no longer as comfortable driving to in-person programs and not as confident in their ability to physically navigate the outside world. “It's hard for me to move around,” Marian says, “and so one of the problems with going places is that I often find I end up being alone in the crowd.”
Despite the social difficulties brought on by the pandemic, Dr. Kotwal says that older adults showed a lot of grit. “Older adults tended to do pretty well, and I think there's a lot of potential reasons for that,” he says. “People draw on prior life experiences of how to get through things. Older adults in general tend to be resilient and adaptable to new changes.” But he also cautions that certain subgroups of older adults struggled more than others, especially those with intersecting social or health needs. “The technologies that we've used to help people adapt have not quite met their needs, or maybe even left some people behind,” he says. He recommends that older adults check in with themselves, and ask themselves if their social lives are meeting their needs. “I think that's kind of the first step, is just identifying or reflecting on what you need and turning to people for support, or kind of thinking about what might help if needs aren't being met.” He encourages older adults to think about their social lives as a health behavior. “People should be proactive and really prioritize that as part of their health, because it makes a big difference,” he says.
At Pat and Sandy’s house, I notice that they have several paintings hung up outside, completely open to the elements. When I ask Pat how he protects them, he explains that seeing how the wind, rain and sun impact the art is part of the process of creating something interesting. Colliding forces, unexpected interactions, are what makes the final product so beautiful. We have all grown accustomed to the ease of life on Zoom, and for many older adults, especially for those on the older end of the spectrum, Zoom seems to have opened up a world of connection rather than isolation. However, I can’t help but reflect on how difficult it is to collide with other people over a computer screen. And without collision, it can be hard to experience the full impact that another person can have on us. But when age and health make in-person get-togethers more difficult, Zoom, FaceTime, and other online tools can be the difference between loneliness and connection. As I get up to leave Marian’s house, she gestures towards a west-facing window looking out over the San Francisco Bay. “I'm part of the world,” she says. “I have a view of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and all of a sudden, rather than being stuck in a room and feeling sorry for myself, I'm a citizen of the world again. And I guess in a way, Zoom is another view. Another way of saying I'm not alone. I'm not stuck here. I have the world.”