S36 Ep6: Dr. Glen Moriarty - Human Connection in a Digital World

Update: 2025-09-30

Description

Today, Steve speaks with psychologist Dr. Glen Moriarty, founder and CEO of Seven Cups, a free emotional support service with 570,000 trained volunteer listeners who support users in 189 countries. Steve and Glen explore the origins of Seven Cups, its background and its global user base, and discuss why so many feel alone in a hyper-connected online world. Glen also explains the nature of the gift economy and how we can avoid getting addicted to technology.

Key Takeaways:

Even as more things move online, human interaction remains important.

Technology can be good and bad, it depends on how it’s designed.

The mental health care system needs better triaging so that people get the right help.

Tune in to hear more about:

How and why Seven Cups began (1:58 )

Technology addiction (4:59 )

Whether Seven Cups is replacing humans with computers when it comes to mental health (9:54 )

Standout Quotes:

“Technology can be used for good or bad. And so the internet can be a source of amazing compassion and love. But it has to be deliberately designed that way. It won't happen by accident.” - Glen Moriarty

“Certainly there are cultural differences and different pushes and pulls, but humans we're a lot similar. The way we read emotions are universal, so it doesn't matter where you live. The emotional expression is similar. Human societies are pretty similar. Relationships are similar. There's different assumptions about I'm part of more collective society, or I'm part of a more individualistic society, but by and large, people generally struggle with feelings of sadness, feelings of worry, fear, and relationship difficulties.” - Glen Moriarty

“Therapists should be seeing people that can't be helped by a volunteer or a family member or a friend. They should be helping people that are in higher levels or more complex levels of distress. And so in the States, part of the challenge is that you can think about it like a pyramid or a triangle. They're at the very top and it's all clogged up there. But if we could take some of the folks that can get help for free or low cost to other folks, then that opens up the channels for more people that really need help to get help by those expert professionals.” - Glen Moriarty

Read the transcript of this episode

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