How Popularity Impacts Your Health

In high school, having your home destroyed by party crashers while your parents were out of town was a small price to pay for the ultimate achievement: popularity. Although this preoccupation with being liked at all costs seems dumb in retrospect, popularity actually has a profound influence over your wellbeing, no mater the stage of life you’re at.

Building a network of close friends should be a major priority if you want to live a long (and needless to say more fun) life, because it turns out social isolation is as detrimental to your longevity as smoking. Just let that statement marinate for a moment.

A 2010 study conducted by psychologists at the Brigham Young University collated data from 148 previous investigations into the importance of connectivity. They discovered that, in long-term studies, participants with a larger social network had a 50 percent increased chance of surviving until the study’s end. If those friendships were close and intimate, the survival rate rose to 91 percent.

For those without a stable group with whom to celebrate life’s triumphs and console its tragedies, the effects were pretty devastating. Not being popular was actually more detrimental to their health than obesity, binge-drinking or living a sedentary lifestyle. The only thing on par in terms of overall risk to their life expectancy was a tobacco habit.

While our popularity at school doesn’t necessarily have any baring on our future interpersonal successes—because, as we all know, popularity as it relates to status has very little to do with actually likability—it can have lasting consequences.

As teenagers our brains are developing faster than at any other point in our lives, and during this phase of malleability certain expectations can become ingrained. Women who identify as not being a girls’ girl are usually the ones who were bulled by ‘Regina George’ types at high school. Their lives have moved on but the bias against other women has become hardwired, so spare a thought for today’s teens, who have a whole new dimension of popularity to contend with: social media likes.

A study published in Psychological Science found that the brain circuits activated by likes on a post are the same ones that fire when we eat chocolate or win money. It feels awesome when our virtual acquaintances show us some love online, but when a post goes un-liked it can leave us feeling anxious and depressed.

An engagement with our social media content is now an endorsement of our worth, and given how little effort it takes to like a post, not liking one is the biggest social rejection we can inflict on others.

Since you are here, we would like to share our vision for the future of travel - and the direction Culture Trip is moving in.

Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful — and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special.

Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.

Culture Trips are deeply immersive 5 to 16 days itineraries, that combine authentic local experiences, exciting activities and 4-5* accommodation to look forward to at the end of each day. Our Rail Trips are our most planet-friendly itineraries that invite you to take the scenic route, relax whilst getting under the skin of a destination. Our Private Trips are fully tailored itineraries, curated by our Travel Experts specifically for you, your friends or your family.

We know that many of you worry about the environmental impact of travel and are looking for ways of expanding horizons in ways that do minimal harm - and may even bring benefits. We are committed to go as far as possible in curating our trips with care for the planet. That is why all of our trips are flightless in destination, fully carbon offset - and we have ambitious plans to be net zero in the very near future.