Woman's Hour - Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, Air pollution and pregnancy, BookTok, Loneliness and health

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

Frances Haugen is the former Facebook employee turned whistleblower who extracted more than 22,000 pages of documents from the company revealing its inner workings. She believes they show the company prioritising profit over the safety of its users. Frances has since campaigned for greater transparency and accountability for social media firms, giving evidence to the US Senate as well as MPs here in the UK. And she's written a book, The Power of One, about her experience. But what has prompted one woman to take on one of the biggest companies in tech? And what has been the personal cost?All this week on Woman’s Hour we are discussing the topic of loneliness as women and young people are statistically more likely to experience it. Today Nuala speaks to the psychiatrist Dr Farhana Mann from UCL about the impact of loneliness on our health.A new community has formed on TikTok where content creators share their top reading recommendations and bring plots to life. BookTokkers are mainly female, as are their followers. With the social media giant now launching its own book awards, just how influential is the BookTok community to both followers and the publishing industry? Nuala is joined by Holly McLoughlin, who posts as “the caffeinated reader” and Assistant Literary Editor for The Times Susie Goldsbrough.New research has found that almost half of black mothers living in London do not feel sufficiently educated on the impact of air pollution during pregnancy, despite 89% of respondents feeling concerned about air pollution in their local area. Nuala speaks to Dr Karen Joash is a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Imperial College NHS Trust and expert adviser to Global Black Maternal Health, a platform that aims to connect and empower black maternal health movements across the world.Lucy Bronze MBE is the most capped Lioness playing in the Women’s Football World Cup this year. Her mum, Diane, recorded a special message for Woman's Hour wishing Lucy and the team good luck ahead of England’s last group stage game against China today.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. This morning, an interview with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. She has just released her book, The Power of One. We talk about what it takes to stand up to one of the biggest tech companies in the world, how she thinks social media could work better and why she thinks Mark Zuckerberg is stuck in a rut.

We also continue our series on loneliness. Thank you for all your messages on your experience of it. I see more coming in this morning. 84844 is our text number. Today, we're looking at the physical and mental toll that loneliness can take on us. Dr Farhana Mann, a psychiatrist at University College of London, has been looking at this closely over the past 10 years. So she'll share her expertise and also her advice.

And my question to you. If I were to ask you, what would you recommend as the best book to end a reading slump? What would you say? Well, that is one of the categories in the first Book Talk Awards. So that's book awards from that huge community on TikTok that focuses on books. We're going to talk about the awards, but is BookTok where you get your inspiration? And if it's not there, where is it? Or who is it where you get

your recommendations from? It can be a tricky thing to get right. So I want to hear about your successes, your failures, whether it's on the giving or the receiving end

of recommendations. Again, the text number 84844 on social media at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website for WhatsApp or a voice note even. That number is 03700 100 444. And as you might have been hearing in the news bulletin, England are playing China at noon in the Football World Cup. The England defender

Lucy Bronze, her mum, has been in touch with Woman's Hour. We're going to play you her message. But let me begin with the news that we heard yesterday that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak plans to issue over 100 new licences to North Sea oil and gas companies, much to the alarm of environmental groups. The Prime Minister

has also ordered a review of low traffic neighbourhoods in England, saying that he is on the side of drivers. So as the debate on climate policies sharpens, today we're going to take a look at the impact of air pollution during pregnancy, particularly for black mothers. New research has found that almost half of black mothers living in London do not feel sufficiently educated on the impact of air pollution during pregnancy.

That is despite 89% of the respondents feeling concerned about air pollution in their area. Dr. Karen Joash is a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Imperial College NHS Trust, also an expert advisor to global black maternal health. That is a platform that aims to connect and empower black maternal health movements that are across the world. And welcome, Doctor. But before we delve into the new research, just more generally, can you explain to our listeners how exposure to

air pollution can reach a baby that is growing in the womb? Oh, thank you for having me on here. So first of all, we always used to think the placenta was this wonderful organ that kind of guarded the baby and things didn't get across. But more recently in 2019, researchers at Imperial College uncovered using electron microscopy techniques, basically particles at the fetal side of the placenta. So we could see particles on the mother's side, but then we now saw them on the baby's side of the placenta, which made us realise that these particles were in contact with the babies in the womb. Any way of knowing how much?

So obviously there are different levels that have been checked and seen in those studies, but it's more, you can see a general picture. So you dye it and you can actually see all the particles and the black carbon matter all within the placenta. And that pollution that you're seeing, where is it coming from? I mentioned air pollution, but is it as mothers are walking around, breathing?

Talk me through. Yeah, so in terms of air pollution, it will be generally in the air, but it also gets into the soil. It gets into the water as well. So it may be partly through the lung, it might be through some of the food when we're thinking about how we wash our food, clean our food, but also in the water as well. So these particles are everywhere because they're a part of our everyday life. Air pollution, we can't see it, but it exists and it's there. So let's talk about the impact of this potential exposure. So they're quite significant. The RCOG also launched a statement in 2021, really outlining

that they're quite significant effects that we're seeing, particularly mothers who live in cities or towns of high areas of air pollution. We know in the UK, one in three babies are born in areas where the UNICEF has defined that air quality to be poor. And the effects that we're seeing if we look at those areas are preeclampsia, low birth weight, miscarriage, implications in stillbirth, metabolic syndrome such as diabetes, cardiovascular change is and the list goes on and on and it doesn't only just stop there we we used to actually think that it was perhaps just related to that pregnancy but when we're looking at studies and we you know long longer term studies we're seeing that these particles have the ability to change the genes at the level of the womb because you have this

critical period where the babies are forming where we all know you know all of us in society know that the baby's just more susceptible and it appears that if these babies are exposed to these particles at those times it's making long-term changes in terms of their health potential from lung volume potential, diabetes, autism, cardiovascular risks, lung volume, and so it's really quite serious. So these are potential risks of what you outline when it comes to pollution. But with this, I mean, people might be listening to it of what you outline when it comes to pollution.

But with this, I mean, people might be listening to it and feeling incredibly alarmed. We talked there about people not being, they felt sufficiently educated on this. If somebody is in an area that they know has high air pollution, what are they supposed to do? So it's really, first of all, it's just starting to inform people so they can make life choices about where they choose to do? So it's really, first of all, it's just starting to inform people so they can make life choices about where they choose to live. That's the first

stage. And then they can make slightly different adaptations to their everyday life. So really thinking about where you walk. So whereas you might walk across a busy road, you might actually then choose to have a slightly longer walk through a park. It's coming down to thinking about, you know, your fruit and veg, how you wash it, where where would you buy it from from a store by the roadside versus you know thinking about how you would wash it also thinking about what you do on your indoor so again having plants which help to mop up pollution indoor plants are really good way of really thinking about that all the way down to dietary modification so you, you know, when we talk about healthy diets and gut microbiome, it's about having things which really help to mitigate against those effects.

So these are mitigating factors that I hear you outline. But would they really, on balance, in any way, counteract some of these horrendous potential effects that you've talked about? Not to the extent that we need for our society. And the reality of it is that, you know, even as I looked at this report, and I know that initially we started off looking at the effects of the black communities, it was a very humbling realisation that it's affecting us all. And it's a bit of a health issue, which we are really not understanding or having action at a national level

fast enough to make change. We're concerned about the planet, but actually the people are dying from the air pollution. Our generations are changing, our health is changing before the planet will die. But with this, and we are talking about Black maternal health, are you seeing Black women disproportionately affected by this and why, if so? We are. Already the study shows that if we look at direct effects from air pollution,

for example, if the population is 15%, we know that 18% of those affected by air pollution will be from these communities. So there is a slightly higher disproportionate effect and we know that's related to socio-economic factors where people choose to live or where they have access to there's no doubt about it um but what we um you know unfortunately but you know many times people put it down to this is um these societies it's their own problem but what we're really starting to see actually is a problem that's been created by the structures. And it's a problem that affects everybody, regardless of race or background. And we say choose to live,

but of course, many won't have a choice and where they live. And I want to underline that as well. I'm speaking to you from London today. People will know London as a high pollution zone. But where else are you looking at or seeing? So we're seeing it every, I mean, all the major cities across the UK,

all the sort of towns across the UK, the slightly larger towns. If you're looking at WHO data, it says 70% of our areas and where we live in the UK are not within the defined limit. So that means 70% of the population are exposed to these effects, which are leading to what we call the epigenetic changes within the baby. And these are passing down through the generations. We know it's also

implicated even in fertility as well. We've seen a decline in sperm quality. We feel that that's a factor as well, if you look at the research, as well as things are contributors to autism. So we know the postnatal period is are contributors to autism so we know the postnatal period is very critical and if we're seeing that babies are being born into these environments we have to recognize it's part of our health issues within the UK. And that is a risk with autism there could be many factors as people have talked about when it comes to people being on the autism spectrum disorder. But going back to this, and I'm going back to my listener who is potentially listening to you, doctor,

who is pregnant, who does live in a high pollution zone. I know you've talked about some of those mitigating factors, but as we said, they're not enough. I mean, what would your advice be? So again, some of the mitigating factors can actually go a long way.

There's something called a CO monitoring that we do in pregnancy. And that was primarily looked at to think about people who smoke or exposed to it. You do get your levels done when you book in pregnancy. You get them done again at 36 weeks. If they are slightly higher, discuss it with your sort of health professional to be able to get some tailored advice. We do know there are certain things that we've always advised women to take such as folic acid, which is really good for the DNA protection. But there are also other things such as omega three, and also choline, which are also very good at DNA protection in your baby as well. So we know that combined with a really good healthy diet exercise, we can help to mitigate some of those effects as well and also there are things

such as indoor air filters as well that you can consider using indoor air filters as well do you feel the message is getting out coming back to that uh no no really i think it's fantastic that you're really talking about it because even at health professional level the message is not necessarily getting out i'm working with a group of clinicians at King's College Hospital together with Great Ormond Street. They've already developed resources to train up health professionals. This was recommended in the recent coroner's report from the girl that sadly died from air pollution in South London, together with Chris Ritty also saying that we really need to make sure that health professionals and organisations start to train doctors, nurses and other clinicians to be able to deliver the right messages so that our population can be aware and start to protect themselves.

Dr. Karen Joash, Consultant, Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at Imperial College NHS Trust. Thank you so much. And we will put some of those links on the Woman's Hour website. Thank you so much. Thank you. Many of you getting in touch with your book recommendations. Here's one. I like the generosity of strangers in discovering a good read. Free book exchanges in stations and phone boxes are great. I picked up Francesca Wade's Square Haunting, Women, Freedom and London between the wars at this station yesterday. Perfect for an early morning train ride into London. That's Emma in Norfolk. Katrina, I like recommendations from friends,

recommendations from other authors and recommendations from staff and bookshops. I'll also pay attention to which poetry collections, novels and non-fiction win awards. We're taking your messages because we're going to talk about the Book Talk Awards a little bit later. Keep them coming.

84844. Let me turn to Frances Haugen next. She is the former Facebook product manager turned whistleblower who extracted more than 22,000 pages of documents from the company, revealing some of its inner workings. In 2021, the documents formed the basis of a series of stories by the Wall Street Journal, which Frances believes shows that the company prioritises profit over the safety of its users. She has since campaigned for greater transparency and accountability for social

media firms, giving evidence to the US Senate, the EU Parliament, as well as MPs here in the UK. And now she has written a book, The Power of One, about that experience. But what prompted one woman to take on one of the biggest companies in tech and what has been the personal cost? I was able to speak to Frances yesterday and began by asking her what made her leak thousands of documents. In the wake of the 2016 election, Facebook received a huge amount of blowback because there were a variety of what should have been fairly obvious problems on the platform. For example, there was a whole industry of troll news farms out of Macedonia that were making money using online ads off of traffic that was driven to them from Facebook. And so that's where stories like Pope endorses Donald Trump had come from. And Facebook had just been entirely asleep at the wheel.

In the wake of those disclosures, Facebook founded a group called Civic Integrity that was meant to make sure that Facebook was a positive force in the world. And it focused on things like ethnic violence, election protection, protecting elected officials, activists, making sure that people had freedom of speech. And during my time working on Civic Integrity, it became very clear to me that Facebook had gone way over its head in some of the most vulnerable places in the world. And that, you know, they should have been doubling down on making it even safer. Instead, they dissolved our team. So this prompted you to walk out the door taking 22,000 pages of documents along with you, which formed the basis of a series of stories by the Wall Street Journal.

So let us turn to these disclosures. You were concerned about what you saw as a lack of moderation and safety resources that Facebook was putting into protecting users in conflict zones. But in your opinion, the public were more interested

in the research that you disclosed about teenage girls. Now, according to Facebook's own internal research, it says 32% of teenage girls surveyed said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse. Why do you think the public latched on to that? So I think in places like the UK or the United States where most users speak English, you know, some of these allegations around Facebook neglecting other languages, Facebook acting like the Internet in some countries, it seems so foreign. It seemed hard to imagine. But most people know at least one child who's been impacted by social media. You know, they see them in their lives.

They see them struggling. And so it's a much more immediate and urgent issue. I'm not saying that we should get rid of these social platforms. I'm saying that there should be accountability so that we can begin bringing down the harm for the kids who are harmed. Well, Facebook say that the body image headline

is a, quote, mischaracterization of the research into how Instagram affects young people, unquote. And for global safety, Facebook has said, this is in 2021, that it had a comprehensive strategy to keep people safe, including global teams with native speakers covering over 50 languages. So there's these two different narratives. But do you feel any real change has come from your disclosures when the debate continues? When it comes to what change have we seen in the world, we've seen huge, huge generational laws get passed in places like the European Union. The European Union was able to pass something called the Digital Services Act, which for the first time anywhere in the world gave European Union citizens the right to ask questions and get real answers about

these products. It sounds really kind of basic, but nowhere else in the world do they have the right to know what risks the platforms know about. Or to even say like, hey, researchers have the right to get independent data. Like Facebook, you can't control access to what's happening. So we are seeing big movement in those ways. And with regard to kids, the Surgeon General in the United States came out with an advisory just a couple months ago saying, we have a mental health crisis in the United States that is for children that's driven by social media. For context for your listeners who might not follow the U.S. Surgeon General super closely, there have only been on the order of 10 or 15 of these advisories since the 1960s. They're things like cigarettes cause cancer, seatbelts save lives. And so I think this is a big monumental moment in terms of the conversation

is beginning to reach, we're willing to at least admit we have a problem, move on from there. Now you photographed thousands of documents. Tell us about the physical toll that that took. I was working on counter espionage before I began my documentation project. And I thought very carefully about, you know, if I were to go and try to detect what I was doing, how would I do that? And I came to the conclusion that I need to keep an air gap between me and Facebook systems. And so I took a small camera, like a phone, and I took pictures over and over again until I had 22,000 pages of documents. And one of the consequences of that was, you know, I had to sit there hunched over hour after hour, day after day for a couple of weeks. And by the time I reached the last night that I was documenting things, I was literally in a posture brace for my back because the muscles

in my back were no longer able to hold me up anymore. And so what I always like to say is any system where you have to rely on individuals making that level of personal sacrifice cannot be intrinsically safe. We need to actually pass systemic changes because that's what will keep us safe over time. You know what I was also thinking when I was reading your book, that so much that you did kind of goes against what has traditionally been asked of women in society to fit in, to not make waves, to not cause, you know that sense of self or self-possession to be able to move forward with something. I talk about making waves that was going to cause a tsunami. I conform in general to most of those stereotypes.

You know, I grew up in the Midwest. I really like helping people. I don't like attention. Like one of the things I talk about in the book is, you know, I've had maybe two birthday parties in the last 20 years. I eloped the first time I got married and I was really determined to actually have a wedding the second time. And I still ended up eloping. Though we got married on the beach in Puerto Rico. So, you know, not the end of the world. But when I got to Facebook, it was so odd because like, you know, I'd spent close to 15 years working on algorithmic systems, you know, being really in the weeds with data at places like Google working on search or Pinterest working on how pins are picked for the home feed. And I showed up and people would tell me that I was

incompetent. You know, they'd be like, you know, what you're saying is crazy, you know, whatever. And it was a real trial by fire process because I had to at some point decide, did people outside need to find me or did these years of experience I had and the teams that I had helped, did that define me? Where did that process of self-definition come from? And I think if I hadn't had such a strange, bizarro, through the looking glass kind of experience for that first, you know, 18 months I was at Facebook, I don't think I could have ever blown the whistle. And so that's one of the things I always remind people is that if you find yourself in a situation where you think people are gaslighting you, you know, they're trying to tell you things that aren't true to shape your perception of reality, figure out what you can ground yourself to. And in that case, for me, it was I lived with my parents during COVID. And so I got this interesting chance to reset, because I could be like, this happened to me,

and this happened to me, and this doesn't make sense. And they could be like, what you're going through is totally unreasonable. Like you are, you are not the one that's seeing things like they're the ones that are saying, you know, things that are absurd. With transparency, you decided to go public, you know, not stay anonymous. How difficult was that decision? And do you regret it in any way? You know, it's interesting. The decision to become public, like to actually attach my identity onto this was much harder than the decision to blow the whistle. So I had never expected to, like, be a visible face of it. You know, that's part of why there are so many files in the Facebook files. You know, I wanted

it to be big enough that it could stand on its own. And my lawyers were really clear with me. They said, you know, if you don't take responsibility, you know, if you don't stand up and say that that was me, one, you can actually put other people at risk because, you know. But the second is I would be having to trust Facebook went out me when it was useful to them. You know, every, you know, everyone has skeletons in their closet. Everything you do can be interpreted in a generous way or in a way that's really harsh. You know, did I want to live the rest of my life waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know, waiting for Facebook to paint a portrait of me that, you know, bared very little relationship to reality. And so I decided that the best way to protect myself was actually to trust in the public, that the public would come and protect me if I took responsibility. You actually made a contingency plan that

involved a camper van. Tell me about that. Oh, it was more of a thing of saying like, you know, worst case scenario. So for context, my original goal with the book was I wanted to explore the idea of people have a lot of reasons for not following their heart. You know, they're afraid they'll lose their job. They'll lose whatever wealth they have. Their partner will leave them. They'll end up estranged from their friends. In my late 20s, I lived through all of those experiences over the span of maybe 18 months.

You know, I got horribly sick. My husband left me for a man. The house I'd been renovating, there was a great deal of messiness around it. You know, thing after thing. And I came back from it, you know, I was able to reboot my life from basically the lower than most people will ever get. And so when I was thinking about, you know, what could my life be like after if I were to blow the whistle on Facebook, you know, I said, you know, even if they took all my money, let's say they sued me, you know, I bet my parents

would give me at least like a starter grant to go renovate a van, you know, is a life where you get to spend it in nature, where you, you know, I'm clever enough, I figured I could figure out some way to make money on the internet. Would that really be so bad? And I came to the conclusion that at least for me, it wouldn't't and the impact of that decision and I have been shocked at how um relatively effortless my whistleblowing has been you know I have open dms on instagram and on twitter my email address is open on my website um I and yet I don't I don't I don't get harassed why I don't get threats why is that? I don't get threats. Why is that, do you think? You know, it's interesting.

So I think if I had gone after Twitter, like when Elon was CEO, there are so many Elon fanboys that are just like passionate about Elon. Passionate is an interesting word. Yeah, his fanboys, they're intense. Yeah. I would have unquestionably gone death threats. But I think there's very few people who stand up for Mark Zuckerberg. I think I might be one of the only people who's like, you know,

rooting for the excellence that Mark can achieve one day if he moves on to other things. I have to stop you there for a second. So you consider yourself a cheerleader for Mark Zuckerberg? Oh, yes. Like, I think he has a huge amount of potential if he goes on and does something else. So, you know, he's only 38 years old. You know, he's spent half his life. Maybe he's 39 now.

He's spent half his life being the CEO of Facebook. And he's stuck in a rut. You know, he's going on podcasts and saying, you know, when I open my phone in the morning and look at my email, it's like getting phone in the morning and look at my email, it's like getting punched in the face, which sounds like a cry for help. And I think there's just like, you know, he is he is he's so bright, he has functionally limitless money. If he wanted to cure malaria, he could cure malaria. And so I always like to say I'm gonna I'm gonna keep pushing for for Mark to pursue greatness, and I won't give up until he does. But you want him to leave Facebook?

I think he's stuck in a rut. You know, I think Facebook is not going to change as long as he is the CEO. He hasn't really shown that he's learned. I haven't got a response, of course, from Mark Zuckerberg, although I might have a look

and see exactly what he said about his future as well. But interesting to see how you see yourself there. There are people who despair of social media, but you do believe there's a better way. What is it? Well, you have to remember,

when I were to ask you, like, so what is Facebook for? The average person, if you were to ask them, like, what is Facebook for? They say, you know, Facebook is for connecting with my family and my friends. And that's what Facebook was in, you know, 2008 when they first got a news feed, right? They didn't get an algorithmic news feed until 2011.

The alternative is building social media that is at the scale of human relationships. So that means it's about connecting with your friends and your family. It's about connecting with your real communities. And we see little role models for this in things like Discord servers. So for context for listeners who don't know what that is, imagine it's almost like a series of chat windows that within a single community, a single server, you might have different conversational threads. And it's true, there's some Discord servers out there that are quite bad. But in general, Discord servers are human scale social media. You know, if you talk too much, other people tell you,

hey, you're talking too much, like join the conversation. You know, you can have a 20,000 person Discord server that still functions as a community and there's no algorithms involved. There's no computers telling you what to focus on. And so I think human scale, human centric social media is something we can have that's good for us or, you know, enables more good than bad. But having systems where algorithms and computers tell us how we should spend our lives are only going to lead to more bad consequences. Francis Haugen, and we did approach Facebook for a statement. They referred us to a post that Mark Zuckerberg wrote in 2021, which you heard reflected throughout the interview. On his future, he has laid out a 10-year plan, so I don't think he is publicly anyway any plans to go anywhere else

for the moment but thanks to Frances her book is The Power of One I want to know here's a question for you, are you a member of a unique female team or hobby group, maybe it's an improv class a feminist film club, a bee keeping group, I don't know, a rewilding project

whatever it is that you do and enjoying your free time, we want to hear about it. And if you have an upcoming meet-up, so much the better. Get in touch and who knows, we might even come to you as part of our listener week. That starts on the 21st of August. You can text Woman's Hour, 84844.

Texts will be charged at your standard message rate. And on social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour. To email us, that is through our website. So lots of ways to get in touch. We hope you will as we look forward to Listener Week.

Lots of you getting in touch with recommendations. Here's one. I read a lot. There's book recommendations. I read a lot, but sometimes I get jaded with my usual selection.

To get out of a slump, I picked up The Pretender by David Belbin in my local independent bookstore in Nottingham. Reader, I could not put it down. It certainly jump-started my reading. Why am I asking about this? Well,

I just want to know where you're getting your reading recommendations from because you might have heard about a whole new community that has formed on TikTok, which sees creators, book-talkers, as they're known, give their top picks, review the latest releases and then bring characters and story plots to life. TikTok has now decided to get in on the action with their very own book awards. It includes categories like that one that our listener responded to.

Best book to end a reading slump. There's also another. Best book I wish I could read again for the first time. House of the Spirits, maybe? I'm thinking for myself. Anyway, this book club is going, you know, we're just wondering, is this kind of going virtual

or just another online trend? Does it have staying power? I am joined by book talker Holly McLaughlin, otherwise known as the caffeinated reader on TikTok, and has amassed over 40,000 followers with her reading content. Holly, welcome. Hello, thank you for having me. You're so welcome.

And also Susie Goldsborough, who is assistant literary editor for The Times, who has been following the growth of this community for some time now, right, Susie? Yes, it's always big news in the literary world. You see, and some people might be coming to it fresh. Others will be very much steeped in it. Holly, let me start with you. How did you get into it? I actually downloaded TikTok pre-pandemic and it was lots of people dancing and I have absolutely no rhythm. So I quickly deleted it. And then the pandemic happened. I was on furlough. I had absolutely nothing to do. So I thought

I'll re-download it. The algorithm very quickly got me onto BookTok. And once I was on it, I was like, oh, this makes sense. This is the community for me. So that's kind of how I got started. So what are you posting for people that haven't seen you or it? Lots of book recommendations. I'm primarily focused on young adult fantasy and contemporary books, especially those with a focus on queer representation. And Susie, I've seen that fantasy and romance seem to go up to the top of the charts, shall we say, when it comes to genres on TikTok. Why do you think that is um i suppose um

they traditionally uh those kinds of genres traditionally track quite closely with the type of person that's on booktalk and i mean it's a massive community and it's huge but i think you can you can see just by scrolling through that it skews quite female and quite young um and that is the kind of i think the traditional the big marketplace for romance in particular how big are we talking um I mean it's it's very hard to tell um but when you look at the kind of the purchasing power um of book talk is absolutely massive so um for like if you look at last year um women aged 13 to 34 were the biggest book buyers in the UK. That's very much BookTok's market and that represents about 83 million in terms of sales. So a really kind of big segment, especially in economic terms.

Holly, how do you understand it? Why do you think women are drawn to that sphere or forum to kind of express their love of books or, you know, having community there? I think that's, I think it's the community aspect. I think it's a very low pressure environment, as much as there's a lot of FOMO and fear of missing out in the sense of there's lots of popular books and you feel like you have to read them. I think once you get past that, it's just such a supportive community. I mean, I've made so many friends on that we have an absolutely massive book talk group chat everyone is um I think there's about maybe 50 or 60 of us in the group chat and every time we go to a new event and meet new people they just get added in we're just we're collecting book talkers like pokemon um so I really do think it's just the community aspect

and how supportive and welcoming it is and it's just that kind of idea read whatever you want and there's a community here for it and it's just encouraging it and let me get really specific like what are people coming to you for what would they what would i see if i go to your tiktok account today um mainly book recommendations but like you're sitting there telling the person this is what I read that's what I read like the way you're speaking to me now yeah so that kind of thing or it's um funny videos using like trending sounds that fit a specific maybe trope or something that happened in the book and we'll kind of make a funny video about it especially like popular tropes like the one bed trope or what's that it's it's in romance or fantasy novels where they've they've done a really long journey and they finally arrived at the inn or wherever they're

staying and unfortunately there is only one bed and they have to cuddle for warmth and we love it on book talk so people make funny videos around that or similar things. Susie have you what would I say signed up taken on book talk are you excited about the book talk awards? No I don't think I'm excited I mean I think there's some lots of fantastic aspects to book talk and that as you can see from the impact it has on book sales the fact that it's get that it gets loads of people reading is obviously brilliant but um i think there are some questions to be asked about the uh the money making aspects of it of how impartial these recommendations actually are and i think if you look at the book talk awards it's quite an

interesting example i mean i mean sounds great um let's you know reward um let's reward writers authors uh books of the year books that are getting people reading. But there's no mention of prizes until you go into the terms and conditions. And I mean, the kind of the function of book prizes right now is to is really to bring money to authors, because the economics of writing books is pretty treacherous in the current climate. And there's no prize money for these BookTok awards. I mean, there's one category that gets prize money i think um that's if you're a book talk creator um so it's not actually for writers or authors everyone else gets a physical trophy which is very exciting uh but not necessarily uh something you can live off whereas uh today is actually the day that um the uh the booker

longlist has come out the booker has a 50 000 pound prize and that's actually something that will make an enormous difference in the in the life of someone trying to be a novelist. So I think that BookTok makes a lot of money for TikTok. I don't know how much money it makes for anyone else. as well whether the followers they may get an attention from being featured whether that then translates into money holly what do you think um i think that's a very good point i hadn't realized i didn't really look at the terms and conditions but that i didn't realize there wasn't a monetary price so i definitely agree that especially for some of the books where they're newer or debut authors that would be obviously so beneficial to them um I do think like for specific categories like the book talk book of the year I suppose those books have kind of already

had the success of their books on book talk and the community really boosting it probably has helped with the sales and that financial aspect but again I suppose now that I'm thinking of it, how much of that goes back to the author versus the publisher and how much does it get fed back down to the author at the root? I understand. And of course, I don't have a statement from the BookTok Awards either. They're very welcome to send one to us. Should I go through where some people are getting their recommendations?

Because so many people have got in touch on this topic. It's not as new and cool as BookTok, but I get a lot of reading recommendations. Aha, from Radio 4. I heard a programme a few months ago on Persuasion by Jane Austen and it set me off reading her books that I hadn't seen the film versions of. After struggling with the old-fashioned

writing as a teenager, I found them now unputdownable. Here's another one. I hadn't read for two years after my partner died. My librarian has been great. I started with the 80 page books for reluctant readers. I read Louise Candlish, a short story. Then we found two full length novels by Louise Candlish. And now I've read both and have just got another one out. I'm so pleased. I was sad to think I would never read a novel again, but I'm on the way now.

Please go and chat to your librarian. That's Jackie. Thank you, Jackie, for sending that lovely message. What about that, Susie, though, like where people get their recommendations? I've heard this morning

people like randomly coming across them in book exchanges, and we've heard a couple of stories there too. Yeah, I mean, I think the thing people always want is they want a kind of personal word of mouth recommendation. They want someone to say, I've read this book and it's really good. And I think that's that part of the power of book talk is the kind of the video element where you're seeing someone sitting in front of you saying from, you know, straight from the horse's mouth, this is excellent. And also the kind of the tone of book talk,

it's very kind of emotionally hyperbolic almost. If you ever flick through these videos, there's a lot of crying, a lot of kind of big gestures, a lot of i stayed up all night reading this book people kind of um uh sort of it's very emotion driven and i think when when somebody sees someone be sort of physically moved by a book they might uh be more likely to to think oh well kind of that might be worth a try um but um i mean also i would obviously as a literary journalist, I would argue that, you know, kind of longer, maybe slightly more critical perhaps reviews can be useful too and might cut through hype. So, you know, I would direct you to newspaper reviews. I'm going to come back to you in a moment, Susie, for a recommendation. Holly, where do you get your recommendations? Is it BookTok, other BookTokers or elsewhere?

Other BookTokers. I think it's definitely that word of mouth thing. I've made friends on that. So if I see them reviewing a book that I know I like, or there's a selection of books that I know they enjoy that I also enjoy, if I see them recommending something else, I'm more likely to think, oh, I'll probably really enjoy that book as well. So that's kind of why I go to BookTok. To be fair, I'm just on BookTok a lot. So it's why I see lots of books. I'm hearing that. Would you ever recommend a book that you didn't like? No, I tend to just, if it's got issues within the book in terms of how it's representing specific people, I would discuss that. But if it's a book that just wasn't for me or I didn't enjoy,

I'm more than likely just won't talk about it. And instead, I'll prioritise the books that I really love and really want to rave about and get people reading. Do you think the raving about something, as Susie was outlining the crying, the staying up all night, etc. Is that part of the appeal of book talk? I think so. I think those videos definitely do the best because people respond. If they see someone crying, they're like, people love side books. So if people see like, I want to read that book because I want to absolutely sob and be heartbroken over a book as well. So I think it definitely helps. And because those videos do the best, it's the type of content people are creating or looking to create.

What would you recommend? Putting you on the spot. Oh, just because I'm reading the sequel at the minute and I talk about it all the time. She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan is absolutely brilliant. It's not young adult. It is adult. It's kind of a historical fiction with magical elements, but it's absolutely brilliant.

It's like genderqueer, Song of Icalise meets the Poppy War. I fully recommend it. Here's one from Ellie. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell is the book that brought me back to reading. I thought initially it would be too Shakespeare focused,

but my daughter recommended it as a story about a woman and her life, as she predicted, heartbreaking and life affirming. Susie, your recommendation? Well, since this book, A Long List Day, I will take something off that, which is Western Lane by Chetna Maru, a debut about a South London family of squash prodigies. Kind of surprising, but it's sort of a lovely coming of age tale about grief and squash. So if that floats your boat. Lots of suggestions there.

Another one, another fan of free book exchanges at train stations. Shout out for the bookshelf at the Obel Tube station, the best in London. I've transformed my reading habits and also my daughter, whose reading choices have intrigued me. I've just finished the night Watchmen, which best in London. I've transformed my reading habits and also my daughter whose reading choices have intrigued me. I've just finished the night Watchmen, which is life

changing and I'm going to pass that on to my old friends. Susie Goldsborough and Holly McLaughlin, thank you both so much. Thank you. Now, let us move on to a little bit of football. If you're a regular listener to Woman's Hour, you'll know we have been following

the Women's Football World Cup. It's been hosted in Australia and New Zealand. Later today at noon, England play the third and final game of their group against China. And the win would secure a passage for the Lionesses to the knockout rounds. Lucy Brown's MBE is one of the names you'll certainly hear if you watch the game at midday today. She was FIFA's World Player of the Year in 2020. She's a two-time BBC Women's Footballer of the Year, three-time Champions League winner.

Her mum, Diane, is a teacher in Sheffield and she recorded a special message for Women's Hour to wish Lucy and the team luck ahead of the game. We're so glad that the Bronze Family Expedition managed to get down under to support the girls. It's been great so far fantastic to meet all the other families and to to experience the support that the team have for each other and from their families uh the two-year-old and the three-year-old are coping

well they've been to all the big stadiums and are loving every minute. So here's hoping we'll have a great success against China because we want to be top of the group. Let's go, girls. And especially Lucy, obviously. Obviously. Thank you so much, Diane. Bron's recording that message for us and we join her in wishing daughter Lucy

and the rest of the Lionesses good luck in the game against China. You can hear that coverage of that match 12pm on BBC Radio 5 Live. Now I want to turn back to loneliness. Lots of you getting in touch on that as well. Here's one from Linda. I heard there was an older

lady in Birmingham with a bus pass who used to sit on any bus doing a circular route and she got to make new friends and then could stop off at the start point. I want to know, have there been particular times in your life when you felt lonely, perhaps more than other times? What helped? Do get in touch, 84844. Yesterday we heard from Rachel and Beth. They're two women in their 30s. They say they're lonely. We're discussing it all this week on Women's Hour. The statistics tell us that women and young people in particular

are more likely to say they're lonely. And we're going to take a look a little closer about what it is on our mind, on our body, why it happens. But first, I want to play you a clip from Beth and Rachel, who spoke to me yesterday about their experiences of loneliness. It was sort of like a lens had been slipped down over my vision and it was warping things and I would go about my life as normal. I would go on these trips alone. I would be writing at home and instead of finding this really empowering,

I just felt drained. I would go in public and people would seem hostile and my friends almost, I would feel this yawning distance between us it was it was so bizarre you know I kind of feel it in the pit of my tummy a little bit it sort of like sits there under everything that I do and it's like I find it for me it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy actually you're sort of lonely and you're desperate for something but you're sort of isolating yourself at the same time. Thanks so much again to both Beth and Rachel. I'm joined now by Dr Farhana Mann a psychiatrist at University College of London who's been studying loneliness and its effects for over 10 years. What about Beth and Rachel there?

I thought it was so interesting Beth talking about like almost her vision being different of the world. And Beth talking about, or sorry, and Rachel talking about the feeling in the pit of her stomach. So physical. Yes, absolutely. I think loneliness itself is a very powerful emotion. I think we're, you know, many people are trying to better understand it by talking to people. But one thing that comes up is that it's very powerful and it has strong links with mental health and also with physical health so it's not surprising that you get those kind of physical feelings just like you might if you're particularly anxious or you're particularly distressed in other circumstances. And why does it have that impact on the body? Well so this is an

active area of research trying to understand what it is. I suppose a good place to start is sort of defining what we mean by loneliness when we're talking about it in the research that we do. And essentially, a little bit like your guests talked about yesterday, it's a subjective experience. So it's this distressing experience, where there's essentially a mismatch between the level of social connectedness that a person has in their life and what they would like. So of course, that varies from person to person. And so when we do research we very kind of have to focus in on that specific aspect of relationships other than for example objective things like whether or not you live alone or other things that we can count. So

it's that emotional experience. Exactly how it has the obvious effects it has on mortality, so premature mortality, risk of dying earlier is higher in people who are lonely over time there's a number of possible explanations one of those is health behaviors so people who are lonely tend to take more risky health behaviors so in terms of think other risk factors for health whether it's smoking or physical inactivity etc other aspects are impact on the immune system so there's increasing work we're not sure exactly how that sort of causal those steps happen but there's increasing work we're not sure exactly how that sort of causal those steps happen but there's clear evidence that to do with your sort of inflammatory processes and so we see differences in outcomes in things like heart problems or respiratory

problems and also in mental health and depression and what's clear is if you already have an existing mental health problem you're or physical health problem you're at risk of becoming lonely but also the other way around if you don't we've looked at people in the general population who don't have existing mental health problems and loneliness predisposes you to developing those problems over time. So it's kind of both ways. What about sleep? Yes, sleep is something that has come up. Again, exactly what the mechanisms are could be to do with those inflammatory processes and a sort of stressor effect on the body. But it certainly is linked with poor sleep and sleep. We know poor sleep is linked with poor health outcomes in a

range of different ways. So it's working in many different fashions in different people. So there isn't a kind of one size fits all solution in that sense. Rachel and Beth that we spoke to yesterday are both women in their 30s. You know, they talked as well about, particularly Rachel saying, you know, feeling embarrassed that you shouldn't be lonely at that age. Is it possible to predict who will or won't be lonely? Not in the sense of having an exact formula. And I think that's the thing that keeps coming up

when we look at interventions. What do we do to help people? And part of that process is, well, how do we know who we're meant to help and what works? But there are certain things when we look at interventions. What do we do to help people? And part of that process is, well, how do we know who we're meant to help and what works? But there are certain things when you look across a population, you sort of look at statistically, what puts us more at risk. And one of the things that people are trying to do is look across the life course. And so, for example, if you look at adolescence and young adulthood, which we're focusing on today in women or men, it's a huge time of upheaval of change.

You know, even if you haven't had additional mental health problems, but changes in your sort of physiology or your social setting, you may be moving away from social networks at school. The parent child relationship is shifting. So it's already a huge period of change in terms of your social setting and your social identity. And in terms of who's more at risk, you can, so certain things like, say, bullying earlier in childhood, existing mental health problems, young people who say that they perceive their parent, the relationship with their parent to not be a close confiding relationship, that might put them at risk. There are other population factors like being in terms of deprivation and poverty, we see that that's a link in terms of who's more vulnerable being lonely, and other things like

existing mental health problems, existing chronic physical health problems. Why the bullying? So again, it's an important, I suppose, an experience early in life that is kind of teaching you where your role is, what your identity is, where your self-worth is coming from, how you fit in with other people in your environment. And when you're young, or even when you're older, you're constantly learning that. And so early on, you're more vulnerable and receptive to those sorts of, I suppose, messages that you're getting. And if

your early experience at home or elsewhere is one of trauma and stress in your relationships with other people, then that can carry through later in life in terms of how you then interact in social relationships and your risk of being lonely later on. And there are studies that show that if you look at people who are lonely in childhood, follow them up again in sort of 30s, 20s, 30s, and then look later in midlife, that it is linked with not just mental health problems and physical health problems, but also things like earning less, being less likely to be in the workforce. And they're looking at things like your self-esteem and what you bring into your connections

that could be impacted by those early life experiences. People have been getting in touch really since yesterday. Another couple this morning. Here's one from Alexandra. Hello, your feature about loneliness made me think. Since my youngest went to university, I have had times of profound loneliness during the summer holidays. No one needs me to look after them anymore.

It's a feeling I wasn't expecting and it's very difficult to express or explain to people. Very powerful and completely understand. And the key thing I find is that if you look again across the life course at different points in people's life when they become lonely, it's often a sort of life transition. And we can see from your listener there that that's a huge shift in her role

and in her identity that she drew from that role that I was someone who looked after these people in this setting suddenly maybe not suddenly but it feels quite sudden when it happens I no longer have the same sort of social identity there's a whole area of research on social identity theory of how much we draw our sense of self from the groups that we belong to, from the roles that we perform. And when those shift, either in a sort of predictable fashion, or when we're not expecting it, we can find ourselves unsure of where to turn in terms of social support. What does this mean in terms of who I am, etc, etc. What would better support look like in your view?

Better support for people that are experiencing yeah so I think certainly we're talking more about it so that sense of recognizing that I think what I'm experiencing is loneliness and is that an emotional loneliness of a sort of need for meaningful emotional close confiding connection or is it a social relationship right social loneliness rather where I do have a confiding relationship but I would like to be more connected to community so stepping back to think what the issues are in the individual and then looking at yourself whether there's issues like depression or other stresses that are getting in the way and beyond that I would say having a sense of where you can access help and there's lots of evidence that group membership even if it's quite sort of superficial seeming contacts at the start

but a place where places in fact the more groups the better in some sense, where you feel valued, respected, and you have a meaningful connection with other people in the group and then can grow relationships from that can be really helpful for your health. So being proactive, for example, if you're a listener, to start looking at perhaps other people who share that, starting online if that's easier, and then rebuilding that sort of sense of social support

and that network around you if it's something that's fallen out. Do you see, this is also I suppose related to the support, funding or initiatives when it comes to loneliness being prioritised? Because I feel we're just beginning to have those conversations about it as a public health issue. Yes, I think it really does need to be a public health priority. I think in the UK, we are in fact ahead of many places in the world. We have the world's first loneliness minister here, and other places are looking to us in some ways to sort of learn from what we're doing. But I completely agree that we have a long way to go. And I think the patterns that come out repeatedly are often it's the most marginalised groups in

society who most suffer from the health impacts of loneliness. So, for example, I work with people with severe mental illness or other groups. New mothers are a group that come up. And so I think we need to better understand what works for whom and make sure that anything that we roll out, good as that is, doesn't miss out the most vulnerable groups of people. Another story here from Vicky. I survived a toxic 15-year marriage where I was systematically isolated from friends. I cannot seem to bond with others and find friendships difficult to achieve. Crippling loneliness ensues seeing family and groups of friends enjoying time together reinforces that I don't have that

for myself. Seemingly confident woman she says hiding how she really feels. She brings up a few important factors there. One is this sense of comparison, because if you're looking at the level of connectedness you sort of want in your life and what you have, you're comparing it to some sense in your mind of what you should have, what the ideal is. So I think if you're surrounded by people who maybe you don't feel able to share that experience, or there's a pressure to not have that experience, that makes it even more painful and adds to your sense of alienation and loneliness um but yeah so i think i think that that comparison is a big challenge particularly with social media and other other sort of influences that might be telling you how you feel how you ought to feel um just remind me what her

so you know her basic thing is about that she's just finding it very difficult to make those connections. That core part, I think, is doing that work on yourself and getting that help on your own self-worth and self-esteem. Because she sounds like she's been through something very traumatic that will likely impact on her own confidence going into future relationships. It's that transitional aspect as well. We're going to keep talking about it. Thanks very much to Vicky for that message. Dr. Farhana Mann, a psychiatrist at University College London, thank you so much. Thank you.

Tomorrow we'll continue the conversation with economist Noreena Hertz about the impact of loneliness on the economy and democracy and you can listen to these interviews on loneliness on Woman's Hour on BBC Sounds. Now tomorrow I'll be hearing from one of our Woman's Hour powerlisters, the first ever deaf female rugby sevens

international player, Jodie Owensley. She's one of the new gladiators as well. We're going to hear all about that. I will catch you then. Thanks so much for listening

to Woman's Hour today. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Have you suffered from a horrible trauma? Is it affecting your day-to-day life?

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