Book cover of The Village Effect: How Face-To-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier and Happier

Book description

In her surprising, entertaining and persuasive new book, award-winning author and psychologist Susan Pinker shows how face-to-face contact is crucial for learning, happiness, resilience and longevity.
          From birth to death, human beings are hard-wired to connect to other human beings. Face to face contact matters: tight bonds of friendship and…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Village Effect as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Susan Pinker, a developmental psychologist in Montreal, demonstrates that online communicating can never replace the benefits we derive from face-to-face interpersonal contact. Strong bonds of friendship and love heal us and keep us healthy, just as they help children learn, and just as they extend our lives and make us happy. Looser, secondary in-person bonds also have a significant effect on us. In combination with our close relationships, they form a personal “village” around us composed of networks of connectedness. Susan Pinker presents numerous surprising discoveries from social neuroscience, as well as stories from people’s lives. In the final chapter,…

If you love The Village Effect...

Book cover of The Rosewood Penny

The Rosewood Penny by J.S. Fields,

2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!

The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.

On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…

Want books like The Village Effect?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 62 books like The Village Effect.

Browse books like The Village Effect

Book cover of The Biophilia Effect: A Scientific and Spiritual Exploration of the Healing Bond Between Humans and Nature
Book cover of Compassionomics: The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence That Caring Makes a Difference
Book cover of The Relational Teacher

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,343

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like The Village Effect, you might also like...

Book cover of Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman

Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman by Alexis Krasilovsky,

Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.

A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…

Book cover of Malcolm Before X

Malcolm Before X by Patrick Parr,

Malcolm Before X is about finding a way to continue moving forward after everything has been taken from you. While in prison, Malcolm Little discovered the power of reading and found a way to transform his character and become a better man. This half-biography focuses on that transformation, especially his…

5 book lists we think you will like!