Phone calls can be inconvenient, stressful or actively unpleasant – especially if you’re part of my generation. At 27, can I survive seven days without texts or group chats? And will I still have a social life at the end?

In the listless early weeks of January – my resolutions for self-improvement already gone to the dogs – I was asked to conduct an experiment that those in my life who are over 40 deemed “lovely”, and everyone else regarded with unbridled horror: I was asked to spend a week picking up the phone and calling people rather than texting.

What a cakewalk, you say. Not quite, say those aged 18 to 34 – 61% of whom prefer a text to a call, and 23% of whom never bother answering, according to a Uswitch survey last year. Such is the pervasiveness of phone call anxiety that a college in Nottingham recently launched coaching sessions for teenagers with “telephobia”, and a 2024 survey of 2,000 UK office workers found that more than 40% of them had avoided answering a work call in the previous 12 months because of anxiety.

Ditching hanging out for isolated scrolling on our sofas is a dangerous habit that warrants help on a par with gambling

Over the decades, research has chipped away at our most cherished ideas about human specialness: it turns out that we share such things as theory of mind, empathy, and time perception with many other creatures .

But there is one feature of humanity that we can claim to be uniquely our own. Animals – unless captured by humans or infected with zombie parasites – tend to act staunchly in their own interests. Why is it that this frog or that bat or this humming-bird behaves in the peculiar way it does? The answer is almost always the same: to further its survival and the propagation of its genes.

Maeve thinks Richard should chip in more as he’s home all day while she’s in the office. Richard says a 50/50 split is fairest. You decide which of them is on a power trip
Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I’m in the office four days out of five, while Richard works at home and racks up the energy bills

Looking back through her post bag, Observer Magazine’s Philippa Perry answers her readers most commonly asked question: why are other people so awful?

From my many years as a therapist and advice columnist, I’ve started to see clear patterns in the problems that bother my readers the most. And I can confirm that Sartre was right: hell is other people. It’s difficult relationships with those around us that cause the most anguish. It’s such a common theme that I’ve given a lecture on the subject: Why are other people so awful? To help you into the new year, here’s my advice on this most commonly experienced problem.

Struggles in connecting to others – or, more specifically, the tension between wanting connection and feeling disconnected – can manifest in many ways. As well as difficulties in existing relationships , such struggles can also make you feel lonely or alienated .

Writers, therapists and academics give advice on how to make, and strengthen, meaningful bonds with mates and friends

Emma Reed Turrell , psychotherapist, author and host of the podcast Friendship Therapy

You can keep balance in friendship by showing your working out, rather than making assumptions and mind-reading. This might sound like: “I’d like to invite you to a party but I’m wondering if it might not be your thing and I want you to know that you can absolutely say no, or just come for an hour.” That way you get to express your wish and your friend gets to be honest in their choices, rather than people-please you or dodge the question. Look for the ‘both/and’ of a balanced friendship, rather than an ‘either/or’ situation, and negotiate how to both get what you need from your communication styles or time together, rather than create a one-way street in which one of you is always keeping the other happy. Not everyone wants a two-way street in friendship and you might find you get push-back if you seek to rebalance an existing relationship but a true friend will welcome your honesty and one that doesn’t might not have been a friend at all.

We’d like to hear from people who are childfree about their experiences of friendships with those who have children

While medical issues can mean some people who want children are unable to have them, others choose to be childfree.

In recent weeks the Guardian has explored how friendships can be affected when one party has offspring and the other does not. With this in mind we are keen to hear from people without children who have had to navigate this scenario in their own friendships. Have some friends been lost? Or did you find ways to stay close? What advice would you give others?

Brandon, 28, and Christine, 27, became close friends when they worked together at a Covid testing lab. Now they live in different countries, but make time to continue their friendship

When Brandon and his boyfriend moved to London from Wales in April 2021, there wasn’t much going on. With the city under lockdown, he took a job in a Covid lab at Gatwick Airport. “I was processing PCR tests for people who were travelling,” he says. “I didn’t know anyone in London except my boyfriend, but luckily the team I was working with were great.”

In June, they were joined by Christine, a biology graduate who lived in London and had transferred from the PCR testing lab at Heathrow. “When I arrived, they seemed like a tightknit team, so I was a bit anxious about fitting in,” she says. “But Brandon was super friendly and that drew me to him straight away. I really wanted to be his friend.”

Think you always know what your mate is thinking? Forever making elaborate plans together? You might be doing your friendships more harm than you realise, say these experts

“It’s very British to joke and tease to show affection, but it can tip over into being unhealthy,” says the friendship coach Hannah Carmichael. Her online community, Friendshift , coaches adults to build authentic friendships and navigate social situations. “At the heart of every healthy relationship is the ability to show up fully as ourselves,” she says.

Loosening the grip of a conspiracy theory is a complex task, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith . Aim at changing the relationship with your friend, not their mind

• Read more Leading questions

My friend has started sending me lots of links and articles on UAPs [unidentified anomalous phenomena, also known as UFOs]. I’ve tried to gently assert that I don’t find the sources reliable or credible and that I do not believe respectable news outlets are conspiring to conceal the truth, but they still persist. Should I ask them to stop? I think these conspiracy theories are really harmful.

Eleanor says: One question is: can you stop your friend believing these conspiracy theories? Regrettably, almost certainly not, at least not without a huge investment of time and patience. People are free to think whatever they want and some of us put that freedom to the weirdest uses. At least we can be thankful the conspiracies your friend has latched on to are about objects in the sky and not, say, which reptilian species is secretly controlling things.