JENI O’DOWD: Why good neighbours are as important as ever

Fun fact: my street has its own WhatsApp group, which started as a neighbourhood watch tool.

But these days it’s more likely to feature a lost dog, a recommendation for a plumber or a warning that someone’s bins have blown over.

In the group chat, we also organise an annual Christmas party that starts the same way every year, with everyone hovering politely around the Esky and food table.

But it ends with people chatting like old friends. You always find someone you like (and avoid the ones you don’t).

What these neighbourhood WhatsApp groups have created is something increasingly rare in modern Australia: a virtual village.

I like our local group because I feel part of a community. Whenever my family is away, I never feel alone because I know there are people on my street who would help without hesitation if I needed it.

Yet despite all the technology that allows this, I can’t help wondering whether we’re becoming more disconnected from each other.

TikTok has thousands of videos of people celebrating cancelled plans and enjoying solo nights at home. Others have built large followings simply by talking about life without children, partners or even close friends.

Everyone is different, but has technology made it a little too easy to retreat from the world?

Researchers at the University of Canberra released a study earlier this year which found people felt less lonely when connected to their communities.

Walking groups. Community dinners. Local events. In other words, getting people out of the house and talking to each other.

The findings make sense when you consider how much Australian life has changed.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, almost three million Australian households — about one in four — now consist of just one person.

In 1961, the figure was just 11 per cent. Today, it is around 26 per cent. And research shows that isolation affects nearly one in three Australians, despite living in an age when we have never been more digitally connected.

For some, living alone is a choice. For others, it’s the result of divorce, widowhood or simply the way modern life is structured.

Whatever the reason, it means neighbours matter more than ever.

The village, even an online one, isn’t perfect, of course.

My daughters have absolutely no interest in attending our annual street Christmas party. As far as they’re concerned, the people living next door are random strangers.

At last year’s street Christmas drinks, people started talking about a neighbour’s pet rabbit that had been killed by a cat.

It became very awkward when everyone realised the cat in question was mine.

(FYI: I believe the bunny was killed by a local fox, and the case against my Bengal remains entirely circumstantial.)

And maybe that’s the point. Villages were never made up entirely of people who liked each other. They were made up of people who knew each other.

The fact that councils now run campaigns encouraging neighbours to meet each other says something about modern life.

Our parents didn’t need a government-backed campaign to encourage them to introduce themselves to the people next door. It happened naturally because communities were smaller, people stayed in one place longer, and life was lived more locally.

Yet whenever I read stories about loneliness, I think about our street WhatsApp group.

If a strange car sits in our street for too long, somebody notices. If a dog escapes, half the street is looking for it within minutes. If somebody’s bins haven’t been put out, there is a fair chance someone will wonder why.

It isn’t the village my grandparents grew up in.

But in an age where many of us don’t know the people living next door, perhaps it’s the closest thing we have left.