We are constantly moving in and out of interactions, but are they quality connections? In this podcast, Communication Professor Andy Merolla, University of California Santa Barbara and Communications Professor Jeffrey A. Hall, University of Kansas discuss why the quality of our everyday communication has a direct correlation to our health. In their new book Social Biome: How Everyday Communication Connects and Shapes Us, they identify 7 strategies to everyday communication that will nourish your soul. Find out what you can do today to improve your interactions and your well-being.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everyone, please take a moment to subscribe to our
YouTube channel. Your subscription is free and it allows us
to generate some money on YouTube so that you don't
have to pay for the podcast, So thank you for
clicking subscribe. You can also follow us at ten seconds
to Air on Instagram. In today's podcast, we're talking about
the value of every single connection you make throughout your day,
(00:22):
no matter how big or small. When we communicate with
our loved ones, people at work, or the barista at
our favorite coffee shop, we make connections that can impact
our health and shape our beliefs. Joining me today to
talk about their latest research are two communication experts, Andy
Morola and Jeffrey Hall. Andy is a professor at UC
(00:42):
Santa Barbara. He studies social connections, hope, conflict management, and forgiveness.
Jeffrey is a professor at the University of Kansas and
is a faculty affiliate at Harvard Law School. He wrote
the award winning book Relating Through Technology and has written
articles for The Wall Street Journal runs the Relationships and
Technology Lab at his university. Andy and Jeffrey have come
(01:05):
together in a new book called The Social Biome. They
joined me now to share the science behind socialization and communication.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Grand bye, We're going live, going live, going live.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Welcome to both of you.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I'm an advocate that good communication is the key to
happiness and success, so I'm eager to.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Hear all about your research and dive in.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Happy to be here.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
Thank you, Yeah, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So I have to start with my first question, which
is what goes through your mind before communicating, connecting having
this conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
We'll start with you, Jeff.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Every time I do a podcast, I'm always like anxious
of whether or not my background makes any sense or
whether it's not my care first functioning, because these days,
no matter how many times I do it, I'm still
in doubt. So I'm like, I hope this works.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Okay, all right Andy?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
How about you?
Speaker 5 (02:11):
Yeah, Usually in these type of situations, other than trying
to remember the first thing I'm going to say, trying
to remember to smile and and to not look at
my own my own video, right.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
It's so hard.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
We all looked at we all look to check to
see what we look like, what's going on? And so
what is the first thing that you that you have
in your mind that you want to say?
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Thank you?
Speaker 5 (02:36):
I already did it, so thanks for having us. So
I've accomplished my goal.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Yeah, sometimes I do the to the lips to the teeth,
the tip of the tongue, from my lips to the
teeth to the tip.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Of the tongue.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Trick hack and mice to do forensics in high school.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
So so communication just give us the fundamental science behind communication.
Why so important? Why so important to study and to
share that?
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Well, communication is obviously how we connect with people, but
it's also how we come to know ourselves. Is so
as we engage with people and we see how they
respond to us, and we hear ourselves conveying our thoughts,
we come to crystallize a vision of who we are
(03:22):
and what we believe in and what we value. So
communication doesn't just bring us together with other people, but
it also kind of encapsulates who who we are as
people and how we change over time.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeff anything, if you're nodding, anything you wanted to add
to that.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Well, it's one of those things that's so much fun
to study because you actually get to talk to people
like you and share things that we do. Like if
we did you know, scientific research that was really hard
to relate to others, it's not as much fun. So
I think the part of why I study communication and
passionate about it is I love trying to convey to
people how important it is to relate to one another,
to make friendships, to con that sense of connection to
one another, because it's some of the most important things
(04:02):
we can do in our lives.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And what is the research that you do? What does
that actually look like? What are you studying? How are
you studying it?
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Yeah, so both Jeff and I research communication in similar ways.
A lot of times we're using surveys of people, and
sometimes those surveys are you know, done what we call
cross sectionally, just one time. But increasingly we've been really
interested in doing longitudinal research, especially something called intensive longitudinal research,
(04:31):
where you're trying to ask people multiple times per day
to report on their experiences. So we like to do this,
for instance, on people's smartphones, because they're carrying those phones
around with them all day, so we might send them
multiple surveys a day and say what are you doing
right now? And so this is a this is an
established methodology that a lot of other folks use, and
(04:53):
we found it really interesting to try to get into
the kind of every day mundane interactions that you know,
we wrote about in the book. But the so that
so that's been a method that we we often use
though though it's just one of the approaches we use.
But the nice thing is it allows us to get
into both those moments when people are alone and those
(05:15):
moments when people around different types of individuals, and you
can see how those things are are.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Related, right, and how are they related?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
What are you finding?
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Yeah, so one of the interesting things is that they
they operate together. You know. So how you feel alone
is at least in part based on how you feel
in general in your in your social world, and you're
more you know, interpersonal interactions. So when your interpersonal communication
experiences are going well and you feel really connected to
(05:47):
other people, you're in a better position to have what
we like to refer to as contented solitude. So you
know that that solitude you have is recharges your batteries
so a little bit better and it and it's the
kind of solitude you want, right, you need to kind
of retreat a little bit, and then as you retreat
and again recharge, you're ready to go back into that
(06:10):
social world. So there's this this homeostatic process. And Jeff
has written a lot about this this process, and so
so the better interaction makes us feel better alone and
then more restorative alone time kind of prepares us to
engage in interaction.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Jeff, do you want to do you want to add
anything to that?
Speaker 4 (06:34):
I never know if you want me to go on
or yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
I do want you to go on. I mean, he's
saying that.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
You you have the details, And I'm really curious about that. Also,
between the two of we think of communication as just
the time that we spend communicating with other people. We
don't think about it in our alone time. So I
find that really interesting that you're putting those two together
now and saying they have a direct correlation.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
What is that?
Speaker 4 (06:58):
I mean, So, what's so exciting about this kind of
way of approaching things and Andy talking about the intensive
longitudinal sampling is that you get the sort of sense
of how people's kind of days play out, you know,
kind of the ins and outs of everyday behavior. We
know that people don't actually spend every moment of their
days in communication. We actually spend more of her time
not communicating than communicating. We spend our time working, we
spend our time in front of media of various types,
(07:21):
But how we feel about the connection carries over in
those moments. So there's a couple of findings that we
find that it's amazing about this, one of which is
that when you have a very positive, nourishing interaction, when
you're alone later in the day, you feel contented to
be there and you don't feel a great deal of
hunger to go on to the next interaction because you've
already felt that sense of connection. If you're alone for
a long period of time, you have the sense in
(07:43):
which that you desired to communicate with others, Your desire
to connect rises, and when you seek out action to
communicate with people, you actually feel more satisfied and associated
in that process. What some of the things that's really
fascinating about that is that it includes which modality of
communication you're using to do that, whether it's a higher
lower quality communication event, who you're talking to, and the
(08:04):
kind of access you have to all of the people
in your world. And our idea of the social biome
is sort of encompasses all those different characteristics. Who would
you talk to, what you talk about, what modalities used
to communicate, and in that kind of complex interplay of
the way that we spend our time alone and in
communication tells us a lot about our social health.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, well you've raised a lot of issues right in
there about who you're talking to. Also, what comes to
mind for me is the type of person that you
are like. For me, I really enjoy a lot of communication,
a lot of interaction. I know there are other people
who don't enjoy that much of it. So how do
you differentiate And is there a sweet spot for us
(08:42):
to have enough of something? And how do we know
when we have enough of it to then be satiated
when we are alone.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
You know, that's a great question. One of the researchers
I really call on this is Patricia Hockley, who says
that we need to be careful about that pathologize loneliness
because loneliness is hunger. So if we looked at the
fact that we were thirsty and said that was a problem,
If we looked at the fact that we were hungry
and thought that was a problem, we're missing the idea
that loneliness functions to push us to be in connection
with one another. So feeling lonely is actually part of
(09:12):
a normal social system. And how we know we're actually
well nourished, in part, interestingly, is because occasionally we long
for people, we miss them, we want to have them
close to us, we want to feel connected, and when
we respond to that feeling in a way that actually
pushes us toward social interactions, we tend to be happier
and healthier in our overall way of being.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
And is it true that there are some people that
need more than others or yes.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
This is the thing that's curious about that is that
there are two parts to it. One is that people,
generally speaking, whether introverted or extroverted, whether they tend to
be older or younger, whether they tend to be at
different parts of their life, needs social contact. There is
very little evidence that having no amount of social contact
is healthy for people. Long term study suggests that it
predicts mortality and morbility, our morbidity, Your ability to fight
(09:57):
off diseases is less when you're alone, so lots of
reasons to stay that zero probably doesn't work. But it's
even more interesting is research on introversion and extroversion sex
suggests that it's actually not that different. So what's fascinating
is we're going through this moment say introverts don't need it,
introverts can be alone, But the research actually finds that
both tend to be really happy when they're more likely
(10:17):
to be social when they take those social opportunities, or
even if they get into a social state of mind.
So even if they sort of adopt a feeling says
I want to be social in those world you are
actually more likely to feel happier and more connected, even
if you're an introvert, because just that feeling of trying
to become more social tends to benefit people in experimental studies.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
And what are you calculating as an interaction? Does it
have to be really big? Does it have to be
a big party? Can it be you know, at the
grocery store, Can it be with at the coffee shop?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Yeah, so this is this is a research question that
a lot of people approach from different in different ways.
So some researchers will in fact stipulate this interaction has
to be at least three minutes or five minutes to count,
or something along those lines. What Jeff and I like
to do, though, is make sure we're scraping some of
those really small interactions too. Like you mentioned talking to
(11:11):
someone at the grocery store, These small acts of kindness
with someone you just happen to run into at work,
you don't normally see, and they may not be especially
long in terms of time, but you know that positive
interaction or enjoyable interaction, especially a surprisingly enjoyable interaction, even brief,
(11:33):
that matters. You know, that matters for how you feel
in your environment, and it sets the stage for subsequent
interactions because you know, a small but satisfying interaction today
maybe encourages you to do something a little bit different
either later in the day or next week when you
see someone. So there's there's a cumulative and iterative quality
(11:54):
to interaction, which means that even the small ones matter.
So for us, an interaction can be rather fleeting, but
it can also, of course be the longer interactions or
the ones.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Required of us.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
You know, so so often in our day to day life,
we don't get to choose the interactions we have. They're
required of us from work, or they're required of us
from other responsibilities, family responsibilities, and so it's all of
those things. And so when you're studying interaction, you can
choose to either isolate all those different features that demarket
(12:33):
this type of interaction versus that type of interaction, and
that's helpful, or you can try to get that at
the core features that make say, an interaction really rewarding, right,
And so there's decades now worth of research showing, you know,
what makes an interaction, whether it's that fleeting one arning yeah,
that that tiny interaction again at the grocery store with someone,
(12:56):
or or even a quick text you know, because we
haven't really talked about the digital we'll get there versus
you know, these these long, extended interactions. And there's some
really wonderful concepts in the literature, you know. One of
them that that we borrow upon from some social psychologists
such as Harry Reese is the concept of perceived partner responsiveness.
(13:20):
And so this is this is the kind of quality
of reward that can cut across all those interactions, large
or small, and it's about how much did the person
make you feel respected, how much did the person make
you feel cared for, how much did they make you
feel validated in whatever it was that you were talking about,
whether it was talking about the weather or talking about
(13:42):
something really meaningful to you, even a conflict. So there's
different ways to either isolate what makes each interaction unique
or what features of the interactions may be cut across
and demarcate that that rewarding versus a less rewarding interaction.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Well, dive into that just a little bit. What makes
it a quality interaction? What do we need to have
in order for us to feel that that was a
quality interaction.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Well, it's going to depend on your goals, of course,
because sometimes you have very straightforward goals, and that goal
might be marked by say efficiency, like when you need
something from maybe a member of your staff and you
need it quickly. What's going to make that equality interaction
is is the efficiency with chat happened and the timeliness.
So in those situations where you have a very straightforward goal,
(14:33):
maybe those features like we talked about responsiveness aren't quite
as silient. That doesn't mean it doesn't come into play.
But then there's interactions where our goals are actually highly relational.
It is to connect, and so you know, goals are
going to come into play always at the same time,
(14:55):
what we want is to have someone they don't have.
When we say something like that aidation, we're not saying
that they necessarily agree with us. You know, so it's
not that we are always looking for people to agree
with us. What we want is to perceive that there
was some level of effort given. And that's that's a perception,
some level of effort given to see where we were
coming from, to give us their.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Time to feel, to feel, to be heard.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
And one way you can think about this is and
and you know we've written about this is like the
energy you spend. And it's almost like when you think
about we have limited energy every day, we have limited
you know, ability to put ourselves into things. And when
you perceive that someone right here, right now is spending
that energy on you, giving you their time, giving your attention,
(15:42):
which is is hard and valuable, especially in you know,
modern day uh situations we live in. That that's a
way to think about that that that we wore value.
So when we feel like someone's being say, responsive to
us or validating us, showing us respect, you know, it
operates along with the actual words and the content, but
(16:04):
it's also like, you know, a more subterranean perception sometimes
of is this person giving me their their time and
attention and effort, you know, are they being intentional with
how they're they're interacting with me again, whether that interaction
is is momentary or much longer.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
And how about an interaction that's not of quality or
that is a negative interaction?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
How do you determine that.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
So one of the things that we talked about in
the book too, is that you know what, when people
feel as if that they're not being heard, they feel
as if they're not being shown dignity. These things reverberate
over a long period of time. Right, They feel as
if that they're not connected, they feel as if their
need to belong is not being satisfied, and they can
actually even change their perception of whether they even feel
like their community is safe, or their workplace is safe,
(16:51):
or it's a place that you want to continue to be.
What's interesting is is are we talk about this research
in the book, but one of the things that we
talk about is that the effect of a negative interaction
in terms of statistically speaking, is like eight times or
ten times larger and its effects size when it does
it positive.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
That was really interesting.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
So say that again, so statistically speaking, we talk about
these concepts of effects, right, so how big of an
effect does something have? And so what's nice is that
most negative interactions are rare, they don't happen a lot,
so most people are not experiencing lots of negative interactions day,
but when they do, the size of that effect is
much bigger and positive effect, and it's as much as
(17:29):
eight or ten times larger. And the reason that it
tends to be larger partly is that it is takes
so much out of us when we feel undermined, when
we feel uncared for or undignified. So one example of
this that we talk about that I think is really
interesting is though people who have workplaces where there are
conflictual situations, customer service circumstances where they're dealing with angry customers,
(17:52):
you know, they're having workplace and dignities where people in
their own job don't respect them. Well, happen is is
that at the end of the day they turn to
their friends and family to fill stored and renewed. But
those carryover effects makes it harder to get what they
need at home to feel connected and cared for, because they're,
as you might guess, going home and like, oh my god,
today was awful, and all these things are happening. So
we rely on our closest partners to heal us because
(18:15):
people who are taking, you know, having those negative interactions
with us tend to be ones with carry over even
in circumstances after the day is over into the night,
and in that study, even into the next day. So
I think what's really interesting about this is not only
are those negative interactions palpably you know, sensorily experienced stress, arousal, sweating, anxiety,
(18:37):
negativity and all those things, but in terms of correcting
or being able to get back to a state of
homeostasis to feel cared for, you've got to actually really
call on your energy reserves and the people that you
care about to get you back into a good state.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And can you really do that?
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Or you you going home at a real deficit and
then you're having to build back. So you were at
zero when you walked out the door, and now or
even of fifty or however you calculate it, and now
you come home at a negative fifty, can you restore that?
Speaker 5 (19:07):
Well?
Speaker 4 (19:07):
I think that this fits into the idea that we're
actually constantly in a process of moving in and out
of social interactions that are both good and bad, that
are mundane, but that are exceptional. There are ones which
are really really stressful, and there are ones that are
at ease and throughout that we kind of have a
kind of a baseline sense in which that we are
feeling stressed. So the concept is that when you're constantly
(19:29):
feeling unacknowledged, not cared for, that you're having these experiences
that you have generally are more negative than positive, and
your needs are not met in that sense of feeling belonging,
your connection to others, that you are generalized as generalized
feeling and of unsafety. You are just constantly feeling as
if you're not in a safe space. That this level
of stress carries on throughout our days and actually is
(19:50):
probably why that people who are unsocially supported or lack
in their lives why they're more likely to have disease prevalence.
They're less able to kind of fight off infections when
they happen that they tend to also have other kind
of characteristics which make them sick. So when we think
about this, why is it important for us to be social,
but why is it also important to show dignity to
our colleagues at work? To show care and concern for
(20:12):
somebody that is in our day to day lives. Is
because that generalized feeling of sense of safety creates a
stress level that throughout all of your days affects whether
or not you're a healthy person.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah, so the toxic work environment is really toxic.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Truthful, I mean truthfully, it could be any environment. It
could be your whole environment too.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Right, And we know for a fact that folks who
are raised in environments in which that they never developed
a sense of secure attachment struggle throughout their lives to
be able to form those attachment relationships. Not that they can't,
but they have to work harder at doing so and
need to have that sense in which that their connection
to others is restored.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Right right.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Social biome, how'd you come up with that name? That's
an interesting one.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
This concept to his kind of years in the making
and pinpointing the moment it arose is difficult. But one
thing that we distinctly remember is we were talking about
the first study we ever worked on together, which again
was kind of that intensive longitudinal design study where we
were sending people surveys on their smartphones to try to
(21:16):
get at these everyday interactions. And after we talked about
that study and completed that study, we were kind of
thinking about, you know, what are the good and bad
interactions of our day, you know, and if these these
small moments of interaction accumulate and shape us at the
same time, our moments of interaction only partly.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Under our control.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
And it kind of reminds us of, you know, not
only the biome concept from say ecology biology and talking
about the climate of a place or the animals or
the plants of a place, which kind of defines life
in a place, but also, you know, we've all probably
read a lot of articles and stories and maybe books
(21:58):
about the human microbiome, you know, how we are the
product of these trillions of microbes in and on our body,
and you know, we start thinking about if, just like
say you're the microbiome, you are both the product of
your choices when it comes to you know, the foods
you eat or the places you go, but you're also
(22:19):
kind of like subject to a lot of things beyond
your control, the environments you just happen to be born in,
or the people around you that you don't always get
to choose, and that notion of these these tiny, these
tiny phenomena having outside influence on us in combination and
only partly under our control. It was a lot of
things we were either saying in our research and just
(22:40):
talking to each other about. And so we start thinking
that you not only have to say a human microbiome
or we live in regions characterized by.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
A biome, but.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
We have a social bio the people around us, the
interactions we engage in. These are the small things that
shape us, some of them being good, some of them
being bad, of them being under our control, and a
lot of them not. And in combination, we think they
shape your health and both shape and reflect. And so
it was a metaphor that just gave us a lot
(23:13):
to think about, and it was fun for us to
talk about, and so that led us to think that
maybe this would be fun for other people to hear
about as well.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
And I think a lot of people don't think about
it like that. We really take communication for granted. I
know in my work when I get into it, I
realize a lot of people just don't spend any time
thinking about it, the small interactions, the small connections, and
the big connections as well, the negative ones and the
positive ones. Which also leads me to the digital communication,
(23:48):
the technology that we're all dependent on now. Communicating through
technology and how that affects us because we don't really
look at it and say this was good, this was bad,
but I feel and there's been research that it leaves
us with a feeling, which is what you talked about
about having a good interaction that you can go and
(24:09):
sort of get your battery charged, and that left of
feeling really good.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
So I know, Jeff, you.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Have a lab on all of this and what does
the research actually find when it comes to digital technology.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
So in the chapter on the social biome, we offer
seven actionable items things that you can do to actually
nourish or social biome, and one of the ones we
talk about is this idea of moving up the ladder
of connection. So the concept there is that each type
of interaction that we have through digital environments has kind
of a greater level empirically based on research, but also
in how much we can get connected with one another.
(24:43):
And the lowest level is probably using social media just
passively consuming it, reading it, seeing it, and that may
have no difference in being alone in terms of your
overall wellbeing, it's no particular benefit socially. One step up
might be things like actively sort of seeing pictures of
her friends and family commenting on those having a group chat,
something that you're actually kind of keeping in touch with
(25:04):
what's going on in the world around you, very much
like people watching, but it tends to be better than
there's social media that you're consuming that's more like television
or kind of broadcast. One step above that is an
interaction that's done through text. One step above that is
one that we might be done on the phone call
or video chat and then face to face. And what
we want to encourage people to do is to think about,
as you say, it's not a case of just it's
good or it's bad. It's both good and bad. And
(25:26):
in that sense that you can use technologies and ways
to extend connection, you can improve the number of connection
options you have. And I'll give you a simple example.
There's research that finds that when you send a text message,
even to an old friend, a person whom you haven't
talked to for a while, and say hey, just thinking
about you, that they enjoy it so much more than
you know, like you estimated that they'll like it, like this,
like it, Yeah, they really appreciate it, and in fact,
(25:48):
it usually precipitates a further interaction right that person writes back,
they say, I'd love to see you again, so good
to hear from you. So it's interesting, these these tiny
moments of connection that are made possible through our digital devices.
We often have reasons we don't do that. Either we
don't do it because like, oh, they don't want to
hear from us, or I don't know, I don't know
what to say. Yeah, what's fascinating as the research on
this is just saying, hey, I saw this thing that
(26:09):
reminded me of that time we went to dinner that
one time, or I remember you know that would reminded
me of something you love, or a band that you
were into, or you know, a hobby that you enjoy.
You just say you are in my mind right now,
and I'm taking an opportunity with my mobile communication to
tell you right now I care about you. Interesting to me.
So this can be done with people you care about
a lot, family, friends, romantic partners. But this can be
(26:32):
done with people that you haven't seen for a long time.
You're just bringing them back into your recall, back into
your social environment that you're in. So I like to
use that example because it's a low energy, low stakes
way to build connection, and it's one of the seven
different strategies that we offer in the book.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Go back to the baseline one because you said that
that first one is just sort of it sounds like
it's passive, but is it really passive?
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Well, no, media use is completely passive, right, especially if
since we know that algorithms shape what we watch, meaning
that you are providing information to media corporations and companies
to tell you how we will we stay on media
for longer periods of time. I mean there's a few
fact Yeah, it's also not passive in the sense in
which that we are actually engaging in it, and the
(27:18):
more we engage in it, the more pleasure we get
from it. So I was just watching a Series of
Unfortunate Events on Netflix with my eleven year old daughter.
She's way into that show right now, and we really
think it's well done and we talk about it. So
we are actively engaging while we passively sit and watch television.
So all media has the potential to be actively engaged
(27:39):
in in a way that shares the experience of what
media ultimately is great about, sharing the human experience, emotion, ideas, tragedy, learning.
I mean, there's all kinds of great uses of it.
The big issue here is is that you have to
transition the idea away from media is something that you
passively consume without any sort of way of feeling connected
to one another. And in that sense, the research suggests
(28:01):
the more and more you see as media as a
way of supplementing or substituting for human connection, the more
likely it is that you're also going to experience the
negative effects of feeling more lowly or disconnected.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Let's hold on to that for just a second, because
that's where the piece that I've sort of wanted to
dive into. I feel like we're talking a lot about
the positive of interaction or the positive of the media
interaction digital, but the negative side of that is are
you missing out on a human connection? And would that
(28:33):
be better? So let's say, you know, how many times
do you see a group of people and they're all
on their phones?
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Right, They're all looking for something.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Maybe they're having an interaction through their phone, whether it's
you know, sending a message to someone, hey, how have
you been? I miss you or something, or or they're
seeing something. But aren't they missing out on a bigger
reward by not having an actual human connection.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
I think there are two answers to this. The first
is is that we talk about in the book that
there has been a downward trend since the nineties in
terms of people spending time in communication face to face,
and this happens in the United States, the UK, Australia,
throughout Europe. It's growing people are spending less time talking
to each other for pleasure, right, just to talk to talk.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Right.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
We also know that social media consumption is going higher
and higher and higher, right, amount of time spend. What's very,
very tricky is that we also know that people who
are alone tend to turn to social media in order
to make use their time. This is not dissimilar to
people who had lots of time in the past and
spend it in front of a television set. It's a
very similar phenomenon. What's tricky about it is to actually
make the argument that you're saying, are people displacing one
(29:39):
for the other, And generally the research is it does not.
And the reason it doesn't is that social people find
ways to use social technologies in a social way, right,
So they find ways to share means, they find ways
to share tiktoks, that group that you mentioned, they may
be playing a game together and are like nudging each
other and joking with each other as they do it.
If I'm in a waiting room also and then thinking,
(30:00):
you know, like in a doctor's office, I'm talking to
my mom because I'm concerned or I'm worried, I am
also being social. So I think what's interesting here is
we tend to, from a third party perspective, look at
people who aren't interacting but they could, as if that's
somehow a negative thing. But really the possibilities of being
social are always there and with us, and we don't
know the full extent in which they're reaching out to
(30:22):
one another. So that all said. That all said, it's
generally not a good idea to ignore the people around
you with your phone. There's pretty good evidence, especially when
you're getting to know somebody or meeting a new person,
that never looking up for your phone or ignoring them
is considered rude, not effective, lower quality communication. So I'm
not advocating it. I'm saying, is generally speaking, don't do that.
(30:46):
That said, a lot of times when people are in
groups with one another, they're actually sharing more media than
we think.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
So back to some of your research. I'm curious if
you've tested this at all. Is you talked about a communication,
a live communication with another human, in person communication?
Speaker 3 (31:05):
What do you call that?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
By the way, in person communication, social interaction. Social interaction
does not include a digital interaction.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Is that right?
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Oh? I'm sorry, No, when we talk about it, our
social interaction could happen through any technology.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Okay, So what's the interaction called if I'm human to
human face to face? Okay, so face to face interaction
versus a digital interaction? My using the terminology, right, Okay,
So the reward that you get if you were to
have a similar or this is what I'm looking for
I guess is is there a similarity between a face
(31:39):
to face interaction and a digital interaction? What's the equivalent?
It's like it's like if you're a runner and you run,
but then you can't run, so you walk. How much
walking do I have to do to get the same
benefit of that three mile run? So how much digital
interaction do I have to do to get the same
benefit of that face to face interaction?
Speaker 4 (32:00):
That's a very that's a very good question. I like
the way you made it really specific, because social scientists
like us love specifific question.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
I'm really really being very careful with my words here.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
It's fabulous. Bottom line is that there's very very good
evidence that a phone call is probably just as good
as face to face. The research, like historically contembraneously, phone
calls tend to carry as much of the high quality
sense of connection than to face to face. There's good
reason to think that video chat will. But what's the
(32:31):
tricky about that is a lot of people conflate video
chat conversations with work, and work conversations are not particularly connecting.
But people, young folks particularly, quite enjoy having Like I
see them walking on campus constantly, they're talking to a friend,
they're video chats on while they're doing it. It's they're
using in a way that I might have seen people
use the phone in the past. That said, once you
(32:53):
kind of go down to text messages, group chats and
the rest, that is much tends to be study after
study lower quality, and probably, to be honest, I doubt
that there is a sufficient amount of those amounts of
things you can do to get your needs fully met.
I think that there's very good reason to believe that
a person who lives a one hundred percent mediated experience
(33:14):
through texting, our social media is probably fully feeling connected dollars.
It's doubtful.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
It's doubtful. It's doubtful that they're okay with.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
One big caveat and maybe all they've got and maybe
the only thing they've got. One of the stories I
told recently that I think is very important is a
man who worked out in the oil fields of near
my not not too far from where I live in Kansas,
and his contact that he had while he's working in
these fields was primarily with his sister through text, didn't
keep in touch otherwise, didn't really talk about that young
(33:43):
man end up committing suicide right losing taking his life,
and for years he just did not have that the
amount of connection face to face or otherwise to make
him feel nourished and cared for. But Andy brought this
terrific story up during the book that we tell about
about Beatri Slomini who goes down into a cave and
she stays there for tons of time and the only
contact she has with people is by text, and she
(34:05):
comes out She's like, I love it. I could I
could do this all the time. This was great what's
really tricky is is that it's conceivable that people can
get their needs met through an only text interaction, but
they also have to choose that solitude. They also also
have to be someone who is ready to experience that
level of social deprivation. And most of us, it seems,
just are not built to be able to be like
(34:26):
Beatrice for Meini and go to you know, down to
a cave and survive without human contact. Most of us
do not seem to be capable of doing that. The
story was so fun because when when I think, when
did where did you find that one? Andy? Where did
you find the Beatrice? For Meani?
Speaker 5 (34:39):
I think it was like driving in the car and
I heard it an NPR or something like that, or
BBC or something like that.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
Those kind of things I think challenge a researcher's point
of view if they want to say something like absolutely never,
and you come upon a case like that, you go,
well no, not necessarily.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
She said, what did she say, like, I'd do it again?
I was right, you know, but the ka there is
this was also a very controlled situation, right, so she
did have people caring for her in a sense. They were,
you know, checking in on her taking care of even
her waist, right. I mean, so it's not as if
this so context matters. Choice matters, And what Jeff is
(35:19):
getting at that's so important is it's about what we
have available and the choices we make. So we can't
say that someone's making an inherently bad choice if they
choose to use digital, you know, forms of communication over
face to face, because that assumes that they have the
option for face to face and it assumes they have
all the requisite psychological personal safety that makes that okay
(35:44):
for them. And we know that a lot of people
just don't or they don't have sufficient social networks that
just make it an easy choice of like, why is
that person choosing not to engage with others face to face?
It's not always their choice.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
So yeah, that brings up an interesting question for the
two of you, not your research, but what you do
on a day to day basis, what do you actually
choose for your own communication?
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Well, one of the things that we like to mention
is when we're writing about the challenges of communication, and
we write about it a lot in the book or
in other places, we're including ourselves in that process. You know,
this challenge of connecting is real for everyone, it's not
(36:34):
even Some people are thriving and some people have a
lot of options, a full calendar, are feeling really great
about where they're at. But the average person goes through challenges,
some more than others. Second guesses themselves regularly in social interaction,
overthinks interaction, wonders if they're doing it right or if
(36:54):
people around them like them. Also, the average person feels
disappointed sometimes in the people around them. That is seemingly
to us, at least inseparable from social connection. You don't
get that difficulty, that challenge, that disappointment, you know, uh,
you know, if you're endeavoring to connect, it's all part
(37:15):
of the same process. Right to be vulnerable is to
leave yourself open to disappointment and rejection. So I mentioned
you know, when thinking about ourselves, sometimes what this this
insight can offer you is context for why you're experiencing challenges.
Why is it that I'm feeling frustrated? Why is it
(37:37):
why am I making the choices that I'm making. It
doesn't always lead you to an easy prescription to fixing it. That.
That doesn't mean there aren't answers, but sometimes just knowing
that oh, maybe maybe there's some good reasons that I'm
choosing digital interactions over social interactions. If I have those
(37:57):
choices that can give you a lot of insight, it's because,
you know, one thing we haven't talked about is we
do pile up the pressure on ourselves. We are sometimes
our harshest critics is, you know, ourselves when we're interacting.
Is a fair amount of research now on something called
a liking gap and something called miscalibrated expectations, and oftentimes
(38:20):
interactions go better than we think they actually will.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
So what are you saying.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
You're saying that we don't read the room the right way?
Are you saying that our we.
Speaker 5 (38:32):
Tend to we tend to be harder on ourselves and
seems warranted when it comes to everyday interaction and interpersonal communication.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
We think it didn't go well when maybe it did.
We think somebody else is thinking something and they really weren't.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
That's right, Or we think it went worse than it
actually did. You know, so even if it was a
you weren't your best, you know, you drop some jokes
that didn't quite land, maybe it's not as bad as
you think. So why that is such a vital realization
is it keeps you trying despite the disappointment, right, because again,
(39:05):
social connection doesn't come without risk, it doesn't come without disappointment,
it doesn't come without making mistakes. So so keeping that
in mind, you know, again, better calibrates what our expectations
are going into interaction and what our expectations for in
terms of the returns. So it's important to have a
(39:26):
much more humane view of the challenges. And we say
that because even if we study communication all day, every
day and that's what we teach and that's what we
write about, sometimes what that offers you is a better
contextualization for the challenges rather than some you know, get
out of jail free card around it.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Good.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Good point.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Okay, good point, But it still goes back to my
question of how do you operate with your communication on
a daily basis? I want to know what you guys, do,
what you choose.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
So one of the things that one of the one
of the most important things is I try to be
when I can, as responsive as I can to the
people around me, and especially in the times when I
might otherwise not do that. And just be clear, that
doesn't mean I don't get it wrong. But if I
(40:19):
am in the office and somebody's coming down the hall,
I try to remember just to acknowledge them and say hi,
I know. And even if I'm rushing, or I try
to give flash a smile to someone if it's appropriate
hit and I'm in you know, on campus or something.
These are tiny things. These are tiny things. But if
(40:42):
if I'm not willing to put in the effort like that,
then how would I be willing to put in the
effort in the in a more challenging moments. So I
think in some ways I like to think of these
small moments, these little extra efforts, as like practice. You know,
this is the training ground. This is where we we
get comfortable with social interaction that goes well. We're comfortable
(41:05):
with social interaction that doesn't.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Go so well.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
So when it's most consequential, in those really really important interactions,
two things happen. Number One, We've built up a storehouse
of maybe positive emotion that we can benefit from. But
also our skills are a little bit sharpened. You know,
if we don't engage when we can, we don't endeavor
(41:29):
to engage when we can, we risk social skills atrophying
a little bit. You know, and if we can't muster
the effort to practice on a day to day basis,
I think it's expecting a lot of us ourselves to
go into these really consequential moments and nail it right,
you know. So, so that's that's something that's a tangible
(41:50):
consequence of doing this work to try harder, try harder,
because I'm going to get it right necessarily all the time,
but I'm going to go down try it.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
But I like that.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
I like that idea or that concept that in those
small moments, even when with a stranger, even we talked about,
you know, the barista or whatever, the supermarket or or
in the hallway at work, to have those positive or
just kind interactions because it fills you up to then
(42:23):
be ready for the bigger interactions. To put that forward,
I think of just some curmudgeon person who probably is
a curmudgeon to everyone. It just doesn't happen at home,
or it just doesn't happen when they're interacting with someone
at the supermarket, but it's probably what they're practicing. And
if you're going to continue to practice that, that's what
(42:45):
that's your go to.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
So I like that you formulated it like that.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
I like how you set that up to say, practice
those things or they'll atrophy. So be kind, you know,
be put a smile on your face, put your best
foot forward when you're intacting with people, because when you
think it's meaningless, because it is meaningful, it will it
will come about somewhere you'll need to pull from that.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (43:11):
You know. Outside of our conversation, we were talking about
why is interpersonal communication or where communication is important? Well, again,
we come to know ourselves in how we interact with others,
not just based on their response, but also how we
perform every day. And I don't mean performance in a
bad way. I mean and just the natural way. We
all have to play roles. If you're endeavoring to do
(43:31):
you know, to be kinder, say to others. You're inhabiting
a worldview that says this is important to me, right,
And I think that that matters individually. But imagine across
a community, a social biome, if you will, right, you know,
these these small moments maybe add up across an organization.
And to be clear, this is not a prescription to
(43:53):
fix all these social problems just because people are endeavoring
to be a bit more kind you know that that's notice,
but you know, it's hard to figure out the way
forward to making people feel a little bit better in
a world in which not everybody's feeling great right now,
if at the very least we're not trying in those
small moments. And so that's why we see this as
(44:16):
a very hopeful perspective, because it's it's there's a lot
of challenges of communication to be ironed out, but maybe
starting small is an entry point for a lot of
us that this is this is the place to begin
venturing out into sociality a bit more. In an era
when a lot of us intentionally or feel it's forced
(44:40):
upon us, we're retreating a little bit.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Does your research suggest that being face to face is better?
In other words, should everyone be going back to work,
you know, and being face to face as opposed to
remote That's that's kind of a topic that some people say, no,
I want to stay remote, it's better.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
And then there was there were.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Reports that executives and higher ups preferred people to be
face to face and the argument was that they thought
it was better for business. And then there was another
sidebar argument. There was one report out that said, oh no,
it's just so executives feel better, so that they have
you know their people around them. So what is it
though on a communication scale? Do you support does your
(45:20):
research support that people should be face to face it
in the office.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
I've written about this a bit on and for the
Wall Street Journal as one of the topics that I've
covered a bit, and I think that one way to
think about it is that issues of loneliness at work
won't be fixed by just bringing people back to the office.
The reason that people lonely at work have a lot
to do with the kind of things that Andy's talking about,
and day to day interaction, dignity you're being shown, Even
things like the corporation cares whether or not you are
(45:46):
friendly with your coworkers matters. This has to do with modeling,
This has to do with leaders actually showing that you
show concern for a person's well being beyond what they
perform at work. There are lots of factors. So I
don't think the solution is bring everybody back to work
and everyone's more connected. I don't think that's true. On
the other hand, I think that there are also something
to be said about if you do not have moments
(46:06):
of interaction which are casual, easy, you know, part of
your routines. It's hard to find opportunities to have them.
So one way to think about this is, if I'm
talking to you on Zoom, chances are you and I
are not having the side conversation about how your kids
are doing, rather having the side conversation about the weather
or about traffic or whatever you talk about in Los Angeles.
(46:27):
Right we're talking, We're only talking about what we talked
about on that screen in that moment. What there we
believe to be true is that these casual moments of
interaction with our neighbors, with our co workers, with our family,
they build up in a way that's actually really meaningful.
So when you work remotely but you are not making
time or the employer doesn't allow for time to have
(46:48):
that kind of casual opportunity to check in see how
you're doing, it just doesn't happen. And a lot of
times people on zoom get really frustrated if someone's taking
up that time to chat. They're like, we gotta keep
on track, we better keep going. But what's weird is,
I'm sure you've had this experience too. If people are
sitting around a table and they're chatting with one another,
animated and excited. Right, I mean, that's the proporate thing
(47:09):
to do. It's it's actually good for the meeting energy
for everybody to be doing that. But on zoom or
on other things, people like stop wasting my time. So
I think that there's kind of a two ways to
look at this. This isn't a solution to workplace loneliness.
It's definitely the case that if you only experience interactions online,
you're missing a lot of that casual, easy, routine waves
(47:31):
of communicating with one.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Another, which, as you say in the book, is a
direct correlation to your well being and to shaping who
you are and your beliefs.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
So, yeah, so we need we need the interaction. So
what if we want to start today. If I'm listening
and I want to start today to be a better communicator,
what can I do?
Speaker 5 (47:53):
Well? The first thing you can do is take an
inventory of your day to day communicative life. Think about
the options you have. Where do my opportunities lie. So
we've talked about workplace just a moment ago. If you're
working remotely, that the answer to that question might be
(48:15):
different than if you're in the office. Every day. Right,
So if you're in the office every day and you
regularly pass colleagues you know, or customers or clients or
whoever you work with, just trying at least start with
one interaction a day where you give it a little
bit more effort on the on the responsive side, right,
and and see how you feel, see how it goes,
(48:37):
take inventory of what went well and what didn't, what
your expectations were going into it, and what they were afterwards. Essentially,
be your own researcher. And then if if you catalog
that a little bit every day and you start to say,
here's what I liked about this, Here's what felt weird
about that, you know, you get a sense for what
your what what makes sense for you. So so taking
(49:00):
that inventory is important, you know for your job. What
about it home? Well, you know, you could think about
how are you handling, say digital distraction. It's a reality
that we all have a lot of digital demand right
now on our phone, either because it's easy way to
escape a moment or there's something demanding our attention on
(49:22):
our phone. I think a good place to start is
just trying to be mindful at least when you get
home or in a certain segment of the day to say,
I'm going to try to keep my phone focus.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
A little lower.
Speaker 5 (49:37):
Right.
Speaker 4 (49:37):
So I really like.
Speaker 5 (49:38):
This idea of starting small and being very intentional about
starting small and then scaling up in the place where
you feel like you're making some inroads, and then when
it's not going well, trying to ask yourself why that's
the case. Because everybody does have unique needs. But as
you start small and start having success, I think it
(49:59):
becomes it builds your confidence to try it again. And
if you find yourself trying and it's not going well,
then you can start to say, all right, what's missing?
How do I find those things?
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (50:10):
You know?
Speaker 5 (50:10):
And if you can find that in person through meeting
new people, great, If you can't, that's when the digital
world can be really wonderful, you know, finding online communities
or something like that. So just starting with an inventory first,
where are the opportunities starting small, building up, and then
finding where the gaps are and seeing if you can
(50:33):
plug some things there. And then one other, one other
point that we both think it is important or missed
opportunity is we have a lot of people from our
past that we only kind of occasionally interact with. And
it can be really difficult sometimes to reach back out
to someone because if you wonder, do they want to
hear from me, maybe that would be awkward or you know,
(50:55):
and sometimes if there's somebody from your past that you
would like to reconnect with in an appropriate way, you know,
and reach back out just to say, hey, you know,
think seriously about taking that opportunity. You know, there is
something that can be really wonderful about rekindling old relationships.
It's not always just about creating new ones. So you know,
(51:17):
we could go on and on with other other other tips,
but those are some of the ones that come.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
Yeah, we just want to get started.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
We just I think we want to let people know
that they can they can get started. Anything I didn't
ask you about that you wanted to mention that we
didn't that we didn't touch on.
Speaker 5 (51:35):
Well, one thing I would bring up is, you know, communication,
don't we use it as this singular term. You know,
I communicate, you communicate. That was a social interaction or so.
You know, people have very different understandings of communication. You know,
some people we meant we talked about earlier need more
interaction than others.
Speaker 4 (51:55):
That's true.
Speaker 5 (51:56):
But other people just have different standards for what makes
interaction good, and so.
Speaker 4 (52:01):
This is one of the inevitable.
Speaker 5 (52:03):
And inherent challenges of interpersonal communication and by extension connection.
Some people do want things to just be brief and
to the point, and you know, you say things if
you have something to say, and you don't when you don't.
And then there's those among us on the other side
of the continuing we just love to talk for the
sake of talking, and so when we say what is
(52:24):
good communication or bad communication, we have to realize that
that's filtered through our standards. And I think that is
both a recipe sometimes for our disappointment of like, oh,
why didn't that go so well? Well, it's not because
you did anything wrong. You were just applying your standards
for how this should be, and the other person was
applying a different set of standards. That can be if
(52:46):
acknowledging that is really important, because I guarantee there's people
in our lives who we love dearly, are friends in particular,
who when we first met them it was somewhat awkward
or you didn't know this person if they were your
kind of person, And if we stop there just because
maybe we were filtering our communication through different standards or expectations,
we would have missed out on this really amazing relationship.
(53:09):
So sometimes exploring how we evaluate communication can really open
our eyes to say, like, oh, Okay, maybe there's some
real opportunities I'm missing here, maybe I'm evaluating things, especially
myself a bit harshly.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Andy, Jeff, thank you so much for your time. This
is very helpful for all of us. I mean, who
doesn't want to be better at communication and better understanding,
you know, how we're doing it, why we're doing it,
and just for our own well being, just makes us
all better.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
Absolutely, thank you
Hey, everyone, please take a moment to subscribe to our
YouTube channel. Your subscription is free and it allows us
to generate some money on YouTube so that you don't
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clicking subscribe. You can also follow us at ten seconds
to Air on Instagram. In today's podcast, we're talking about
the value of every single connection you make throughout your day,
(00:22):
no matter how big or small. When we communicate with
our loved ones, people at work, or the barista at
our favorite coffee shop, we make connections that can impact
our health and shape our beliefs. Joining me today to
talk about their latest research are two communication experts, Andy
Morola and Jeffrey Hall. Andy is a professor at UC
(00:42):
Santa Barbara. He studies social connections, hope, conflict management, and forgiveness.
Jeffrey is a professor at the University of Kansas and
is a faculty affiliate at Harvard Law School. He wrote
the award winning book Relating Through Technology and has written
articles for The Wall Street Journal runs the Relationships and
Technology Lab at his university. Andy and Jeffrey have come
(01:05):
together in a new book called The Social Biome. They
joined me now to share the science behind socialization and communication.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Grand bye, We're going live, going live, going live.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Welcome to both of you.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I'm an advocate that good communication is the key to
happiness and success, so I'm eager to.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Hear all about your research and dive in.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Happy to be here.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
Thank you, Yeah, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So I have to start with my first question, which
is what goes through your mind before communicating, connecting having
this conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
We'll start with you, Jeff.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Every time I do a podcast, I'm always like anxious
of whether or not my background makes any sense or
whether it's not my care first functioning, because these days,
no matter how many times I do it, I'm still
in doubt. So I'm like, I hope this works.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Okay, all right Andy?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
How about you?
Speaker 5 (02:11):
Yeah, Usually in these type of situations, other than trying
to remember the first thing I'm going to say, trying
to remember to smile and and to not look at
my own my own video, right.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
It's so hard.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
We all looked at we all look to check to
see what we look like, what's going on? And so
what is the first thing that you that you have
in your mind that you want to say?
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Thank you?
Speaker 5 (02:36):
I already did it, so thanks for having us. So
I've accomplished my goal.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Yeah, sometimes I do the to the lips to the teeth,
the tip of the tongue, from my lips to the
teeth to the tip.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Of the tongue.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Trick hack and mice to do forensics in high school.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
So so communication just give us the fundamental science behind communication.
Why so important? Why so important to study and to
share that?
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Well, communication is obviously how we connect with people, but
it's also how we come to know ourselves. Is so
as we engage with people and we see how they
respond to us, and we hear ourselves conveying our thoughts,
we come to crystallize a vision of who we are
(03:22):
and what we believe in and what we value. So
communication doesn't just bring us together with other people, but
it also kind of encapsulates who who we are as
people and how we change over time.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeff anything, if you're nodding, anything you wanted to add
to that.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Well, it's one of those things that's so much fun
to study because you actually get to talk to people
like you and share things that we do. Like if
we did you know, scientific research that was really hard
to relate to others, it's not as much fun. So
I think the part of why I study communication and
passionate about it is I love trying to convey to
people how important it is to relate to one another,
to make friendships, to con that sense of connection to
one another, because it's some of the most important things
(04:02):
we can do in our lives.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And what is the research that you do? What does
that actually look like? What are you studying? How are
you studying it?
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Yeah, so both Jeff and I research communication in similar ways.
A lot of times we're using surveys of people, and
sometimes those surveys are you know, done what we call
cross sectionally, just one time. But increasingly we've been really
interested in doing longitudinal research, especially something called intensive longitudinal research,
(04:31):
where you're trying to ask people multiple times per day
to report on their experiences. So we like to do this,
for instance, on people's smartphones, because they're carrying those phones
around with them all day, so we might send them
multiple surveys a day and say what are you doing
right now? And so this is a this is an
established methodology that a lot of other folks use, and
(04:53):
we found it really interesting to try to get into
the kind of every day mundane interactions that you know,
we wrote about in the book. But the so that
so that's been a method that we we often use
though though it's just one of the approaches we use.
But the nice thing is it allows us to get
into both those moments when people are alone and those
(05:15):
moments when people around different types of individuals, and you
can see how those things are are.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Related, right, and how are they related?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
What are you finding?
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Yeah, so one of the interesting things is that they
they operate together. You know. So how you feel alone
is at least in part based on how you feel
in general in your in your social world, and you're
more you know, interpersonal interactions. So when your interpersonal communication
experiences are going well and you feel really connected to
(05:47):
other people, you're in a better position to have what
we like to refer to as contented solitude. So you
know that that solitude you have is recharges your batteries
so a little bit better and it and it's the
kind of solitude you want, right, you need to kind
of retreat a little bit, and then as you retreat
and again recharge, you're ready to go back into that
(06:10):
social world. So there's this this homeostatic process. And Jeff
has written a lot about this this process, and so
so the better interaction makes us feel better alone and
then more restorative alone time kind of prepares us to
engage in interaction.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Jeff, do you want to do you want to add
anything to that?
Speaker 4 (06:34):
I never know if you want me to go on
or yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
I do want you to go on. I mean, he's
saying that.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
You you have the details, And I'm really curious about that. Also,
between the two of we think of communication as just
the time that we spend communicating with other people. We
don't think about it in our alone time. So I
find that really interesting that you're putting those two together
now and saying they have a direct correlation.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
What is that?
Speaker 4 (06:58):
I mean, So, what's so exciting about this kind of
way of approaching things and Andy talking about the intensive
longitudinal sampling is that you get the sort of sense
of how people's kind of days play out, you know,
kind of the ins and outs of everyday behavior. We
know that people don't actually spend every moment of their
days in communication. We actually spend more of her time
not communicating than communicating. We spend our time working, we
spend our time in front of media of various types,
(07:21):
But how we feel about the connection carries over in
those moments. So there's a couple of findings that we
find that it's amazing about this, one of which is
that when you have a very positive, nourishing interaction, when
you're alone later in the day, you feel contented to
be there and you don't feel a great deal of
hunger to go on to the next interaction because you've
already felt that sense of connection. If you're alone for
a long period of time, you have the sense in
(07:43):
which that you desired to communicate with others, Your desire
to connect rises, and when you seek out action to
communicate with people, you actually feel more satisfied and associated
in that process. What some of the things that's really
fascinating about that is that it includes which modality of
communication you're using to do that, whether it's a higher
lower quality communication event, who you're talking to, and the
(08:04):
kind of access you have to all of the people
in your world. And our idea of the social biome
is sort of encompasses all those different characteristics. Who would
you talk to, what you talk about, what modalities used
to communicate, and in that kind of complex interplay of
the way that we spend our time alone and in
communication tells us a lot about our social health.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, well you've raised a lot of issues right in
there about who you're talking to. Also, what comes to
mind for me is the type of person that you
are like. For me, I really enjoy a lot of communication,
a lot of interaction. I know there are other people
who don't enjoy that much of it. So how do
you differentiate And is there a sweet spot for us
(08:42):
to have enough of something? And how do we know
when we have enough of it to then be satiated
when we are alone.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
You know, that's a great question. One of the researchers
I really call on this is Patricia Hockley, who says
that we need to be careful about that pathologize loneliness
because loneliness is hunger. So if we looked at the
fact that we were thirsty and said that was a problem,
If we looked at the fact that we were hungry
and thought that was a problem, we're missing the idea
that loneliness functions to push us to be in connection
with one another. So feeling lonely is actually part of
(09:12):
a normal social system. And how we know we're actually
well nourished, in part, interestingly, is because occasionally we long
for people, we miss them, we want to have them
close to us, we want to feel connected, and when
we respond to that feeling in a way that actually
pushes us toward social interactions, we tend to be happier
and healthier in our overall way of being.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
And is it true that there are some people that
need more than others or yes.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
This is the thing that's curious about that is that
there are two parts to it. One is that people,
generally speaking, whether introverted or extroverted, whether they tend to
be older or younger, whether they tend to be at
different parts of their life, needs social contact. There is
very little evidence that having no amount of social contact
is healthy for people. Long term study suggests that it
predicts mortality and morbility, our morbidity, Your ability to fight
(09:57):
off diseases is less when you're alone, so lots of
reasons to stay that zero probably doesn't work. But it's
even more interesting is research on introversion and extroversion sex
suggests that it's actually not that different. So what's fascinating
is we're going through this moment say introverts don't need it,
introverts can be alone, But the research actually finds that
both tend to be really happy when they're more likely
(10:17):
to be social when they take those social opportunities, or
even if they get into a social state of mind.
So even if they sort of adopt a feeling says
I want to be social in those world you are
actually more likely to feel happier and more connected, even
if you're an introvert, because just that feeling of trying
to become more social tends to benefit people in experimental studies.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
And what are you calculating as an interaction? Does it
have to be really big? Does it have to be
a big party? Can it be you know, at the
grocery store, Can it be with at the coffee shop?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Yeah, so this is this is a research question that
a lot of people approach from different in different ways.
So some researchers will in fact stipulate this interaction has
to be at least three minutes or five minutes to count,
or something along those lines. What Jeff and I like
to do, though, is make sure we're scraping some of
those really small interactions too. Like you mentioned talking to
(11:11):
someone at the grocery store, These small acts of kindness
with someone you just happen to run into at work,
you don't normally see, and they may not be especially
long in terms of time, but you know that positive
interaction or enjoyable interaction, especially a surprisingly enjoyable interaction, even brief,
(11:33):
that matters. You know, that matters for how you feel
in your environment, and it sets the stage for subsequent
interactions because you know, a small but satisfying interaction today
maybe encourages you to do something a little bit different
either later in the day or next week when you
see someone. So there's there's a cumulative and iterative quality
(11:54):
to interaction, which means that even the small ones matter.
So for us, an interaction can be rather fleeting, but
it can also, of course be the longer interactions or
the ones.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Required of us.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
You know, so so often in our day to day life,
we don't get to choose the interactions we have. They're
required of us from work, or they're required of us
from other responsibilities, family responsibilities, and so it's all of
those things. And so when you're studying interaction, you can
choose to either isolate all those different features that demarket
(12:33):
this type of interaction versus that type of interaction, and
that's helpful, or you can try to get that at
the core features that make say, an interaction really rewarding, right,
And so there's decades now worth of research showing, you know,
what makes an interaction, whether it's that fleeting one arning yeah,
that that tiny interaction again at the grocery store with someone,
(12:56):
or or even a quick text you know, because we
haven't really talked about the digital we'll get there versus
you know, these these long, extended interactions. And there's some
really wonderful concepts in the literature, you know. One of
them that that we borrow upon from some social psychologists
such as Harry Reese is the concept of perceived partner responsiveness.
(13:20):
And so this is this is the kind of quality
of reward that can cut across all those interactions, large
or small, and it's about how much did the person
make you feel respected, how much did the person make
you feel cared for, how much did they make you
feel validated in whatever it was that you were talking about,
whether it was talking about the weather or talking about
(13:42):
something really meaningful to you, even a conflict. So there's
different ways to either isolate what makes each interaction unique
or what features of the interactions may be cut across
and demarcate that that rewarding versus a less rewarding interaction.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Well, dive into that just a little bit. What makes
it a quality interaction? What do we need to have
in order for us to feel that that was a
quality interaction.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Well, it's going to depend on your goals, of course,
because sometimes you have very straightforward goals, and that goal
might be marked by say efficiency, like when you need
something from maybe a member of your staff and you
need it quickly. What's going to make that equality interaction
is is the efficiency with chat happened and the timeliness.
So in those situations where you have a very straightforward goal,
(14:33):
maybe those features like we talked about responsiveness aren't quite
as silient. That doesn't mean it doesn't come into play.
But then there's interactions where our goals are actually highly relational.
It is to connect, and so you know, goals are
going to come into play always at the same time,
(14:55):
what we want is to have someone they don't have.
When we say something like that aidation, we're not saying
that they necessarily agree with us. You know, so it's
not that we are always looking for people to agree
with us. What we want is to perceive that there
was some level of effort given. And that's that's a perception,
some level of effort given to see where we were
coming from, to give us their.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Time to feel, to feel, to be heard.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
And one way you can think about this is and
and you know we've written about this is like the
energy you spend. And it's almost like when you think
about we have limited energy every day, we have limited
you know, ability to put ourselves into things. And when
you perceive that someone right here, right now is spending
that energy on you, giving you their time, giving your attention,
(15:42):
which is is hard and valuable, especially in you know,
modern day uh situations we live in. That that's a
way to think about that that that we wore value.
So when we feel like someone's being say, responsive to
us or validating us, showing us respect, you know, it
operates along with the actual words and the content, but
(16:04):
it's also like, you know, a more subterranean perception sometimes
of is this person giving me their their time and
attention and effort, you know, are they being intentional with
how they're they're interacting with me again, whether that interaction
is is momentary or much longer.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
And how about an interaction that's not of quality or
that is a negative interaction?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
How do you determine that.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
So one of the things that we talked about in
the book too, is that you know what, when people
feel as if that they're not being heard, they feel
as if they're not being shown dignity. These things reverberate
over a long period of time. Right, They feel as
if that they're not connected, they feel as if their
need to belong is not being satisfied, and they can
actually even change their perception of whether they even feel
like their community is safe, or their workplace is safe,
(16:51):
or it's a place that you want to continue to be.
What's interesting is is are we talk about this research
in the book, but one of the things that we
talk about is that the effect of a negative interaction
in terms of statistically speaking, is like eight times or
ten times larger and its effects size when it does
it positive.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
That was really interesting.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
So say that again, so statistically speaking, we talk about
these concepts of effects, right, so how big of an
effect does something have? And so what's nice is that
most negative interactions are rare, they don't happen a lot,
so most people are not experiencing lots of negative interactions day,
but when they do, the size of that effect is
much bigger and positive effect, and it's as much as
(17:29):
eight or ten times larger. And the reason that it
tends to be larger partly is that it is takes
so much out of us when we feel undermined, when
we feel uncared for or undignified. So one example of
this that we talk about that I think is really
interesting is though people who have workplaces where there are
conflictual situations, customer service circumstances where they're dealing with angry customers,
(17:52):
you know, they're having workplace and dignities where people in
their own job don't respect them. Well, happen is is
that at the end of the day they turn to
their friends and family to fill stored and renewed. But
those carryover effects makes it harder to get what they
need at home to feel connected and cared for, because they're,
as you might guess, going home and like, oh my god,
today was awful, and all these things are happening. So
we rely on our closest partners to heal us because
(18:15):
people who are taking, you know, having those negative interactions
with us tend to be ones with carry over even
in circumstances after the day is over into the night,
and in that study, even into the next day. So
I think what's really interesting about this is not only
are those negative interactions palpably you know, sensorily experienced stress, arousal, sweating, anxiety,
(18:37):
negativity and all those things, but in terms of correcting
or being able to get back to a state of
homeostasis to feel cared for, you've got to actually really
call on your energy reserves and the people that you
care about to get you back into a good state.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And can you really do that?
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Or you you going home at a real deficit and
then you're having to build back. So you were at
zero when you walked out the door, and now or
even of fifty or however you calculate it, and now
you come home at a negative fifty, can you restore that?
Speaker 5 (19:07):
Well?
Speaker 4 (19:07):
I think that this fits into the idea that we're
actually constantly in a process of moving in and out
of social interactions that are both good and bad, that
are mundane, but that are exceptional. There are ones which
are really really stressful, and there are ones that are
at ease and throughout that we kind of have a
kind of a baseline sense in which that we are
feeling stressed. So the concept is that when you're constantly
(19:29):
feeling unacknowledged, not cared for, that you're having these experiences
that you have generally are more negative than positive, and
your needs are not met in that sense of feeling belonging,
your connection to others, that you are generalized as generalized
feeling and of unsafety. You are just constantly feeling as
if you're not in a safe space. That this level
of stress carries on throughout our days and actually is
(19:50):
probably why that people who are unsocially supported or lack
in their lives why they're more likely to have disease prevalence.
They're less able to kind of fight off infections when
they happen that they tend to also have other kind
of characteristics which make them sick. So when we think
about this, why is it important for us to be social,
but why is it also important to show dignity to
our colleagues at work? To show care and concern for
(20:12):
somebody that is in our day to day lives. Is
because that generalized feeling of sense of safety creates a
stress level that throughout all of your days affects whether
or not you're a healthy person.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah, so the toxic work environment is really toxic.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Truthful, I mean truthfully, it could be any environment. It
could be your whole environment too.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Right, And we know for a fact that folks who
are raised in environments in which that they never developed
a sense of secure attachment struggle throughout their lives to
be able to form those attachment relationships. Not that they can't,
but they have to work harder at doing so and
need to have that sense in which that their connection
to others is restored.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Right right.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Social biome, how'd you come up with that name? That's
an interesting one.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
This concept to his kind of years in the making
and pinpointing the moment it arose is difficult. But one
thing that we distinctly remember is we were talking about
the first study we ever worked on together, which again
was kind of that intensive longitudinal design study where we
were sending people surveys on their smartphones to try to
(21:16):
get at these everyday interactions. And after we talked about
that study and completed that study, we were kind of
thinking about, you know, what are the good and bad
interactions of our day, you know, and if these these
small moments of interaction accumulate and shape us at the
same time, our moments of interaction only partly.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Under our control.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
And it kind of reminds us of, you know, not
only the biome concept from say ecology biology and talking
about the climate of a place or the animals or
the plants of a place, which kind of defines life
in a place, but also, you know, we've all probably
read a lot of articles and stories and maybe books
(21:58):
about the human microbiome, you know, how we are the
product of these trillions of microbes in and on our body,
and you know, we start thinking about if, just like
say you're the microbiome, you are both the product of
your choices when it comes to you know, the foods
you eat or the places you go, but you're also
(22:19):
kind of like subject to a lot of things beyond
your control, the environments you just happen to be born in,
or the people around you that you don't always get
to choose, and that notion of these these tiny, these
tiny phenomena having outside influence on us in combination and
only partly under our control. It was a lot of
things we were either saying in our research and just
(22:40):
talking to each other about. And so we start thinking
that you not only have to say a human microbiome
or we live in regions characterized by.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
A biome, but.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
We have a social bio the people around us, the
interactions we engage in. These are the small things that
shape us, some of them being good, some of them
being bad, of them being under our control, and a
lot of them not. And in combination, we think they
shape your health and both shape and reflect. And so
it was a metaphor that just gave us a lot
(23:13):
to think about, and it was fun for us to
talk about, and so that led us to think that
maybe this would be fun for other people to hear
about as well.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
And I think a lot of people don't think about
it like that. We really take communication for granted. I
know in my work when I get into it, I
realize a lot of people just don't spend any time
thinking about it, the small interactions, the small connections, and
the big connections as well, the negative ones and the
positive ones. Which also leads me to the digital communication,
(23:48):
the technology that we're all dependent on now. Communicating through
technology and how that affects us because we don't really
look at it and say this was good, this was bad,
but I feel and there's been research that it leaves
us with a feeling, which is what you talked about
about having a good interaction that you can go and
(24:09):
sort of get your battery charged, and that left of
feeling really good.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
So I know, Jeff, you.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Have a lab on all of this and what does
the research actually find when it comes to digital technology.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
So in the chapter on the social biome, we offer
seven actionable items things that you can do to actually
nourish or social biome, and one of the ones we
talk about is this idea of moving up the ladder
of connection. So the concept there is that each type
of interaction that we have through digital environments has kind
of a greater level empirically based on research, but also
in how much we can get connected with one another.
(24:43):
And the lowest level is probably using social media just
passively consuming it, reading it, seeing it, and that may
have no difference in being alone in terms of your
overall wellbeing, it's no particular benefit socially. One step up
might be things like actively sort of seeing pictures of
her friends and family commenting on those having a group chat,
something that you're actually kind of keeping in touch with
(25:04):
what's going on in the world around you, very much
like people watching, but it tends to be better than
there's social media that you're consuming that's more like television
or kind of broadcast. One step above that is an
interaction that's done through text. One step above that is
one that we might be done on the phone call
or video chat and then face to face. And what
we want to encourage people to do is to think about,
as you say, it's not a case of just it's
good or it's bad. It's both good and bad. And
(25:26):
in that sense that you can use technologies and ways
to extend connection, you can improve the number of connection
options you have. And I'll give you a simple example.
There's research that finds that when you send a text message,
even to an old friend, a person whom you haven't
talked to for a while, and say hey, just thinking
about you, that they enjoy it so much more than
you know, like you estimated that they'll like it, like this,
like it, Yeah, they really appreciate it, and in fact,
(25:48):
it usually precipitates a further interaction right that person writes back,
they say, I'd love to see you again, so good
to hear from you. So it's interesting, these these tiny
moments of connection that are made possible through our digital devices.
We often have reasons we don't do that. Either we
don't do it because like, oh, they don't want to
hear from us, or I don't know, I don't know
what to say. Yeah, what's fascinating as the research on
this is just saying, hey, I saw this thing that
(26:09):
reminded me of that time we went to dinner that
one time, or I remember you know that would reminded
me of something you love, or a band that you
were into, or you know, a hobby that you enjoy.
You just say you are in my mind right now,
and I'm taking an opportunity with my mobile communication to
tell you right now I care about you. Interesting to me.
So this can be done with people you care about
a lot, family, friends, romantic partners. But this can be
(26:32):
done with people that you haven't seen for a long time.
You're just bringing them back into your recall, back into
your social environment that you're in. So I like to
use that example because it's a low energy, low stakes
way to build connection, and it's one of the seven
different strategies that we offer in the book.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Go back to the baseline one because you said that
that first one is just sort of it sounds like
it's passive, but is it really passive?
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Well, no, media use is completely passive, right, especially if
since we know that algorithms shape what we watch, meaning
that you are providing information to media corporations and companies
to tell you how we will we stay on media
for longer periods of time. I mean there's a few
fact Yeah, it's also not passive in the sense in
which that we are actually engaging in it, and the
(27:18):
more we engage in it, the more pleasure we get
from it. So I was just watching a Series of
Unfortunate Events on Netflix with my eleven year old daughter.
She's way into that show right now, and we really
think it's well done and we talk about it. So
we are actively engaging while we passively sit and watch television.
So all media has the potential to be actively engaged
(27:39):
in in a way that shares the experience of what
media ultimately is great about, sharing the human experience, emotion, ideas, tragedy, learning.
I mean, there's all kinds of great uses of it.
The big issue here is is that you have to
transition the idea away from media is something that you
passively consume without any sort of way of feeling connected
to one another. And in that sense, the research suggests
(28:01):
the more and more you see as media as a
way of supplementing or substituting for human connection, the more
likely it is that you're also going to experience the
negative effects of feeling more lowly or disconnected.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Let's hold on to that for just a second, because
that's where the piece that I've sort of wanted to
dive into. I feel like we're talking a lot about
the positive of interaction or the positive of the media
interaction digital, but the negative side of that is are
you missing out on a human connection? And would that
(28:33):
be better? So let's say, you know, how many times
do you see a group of people and they're all
on their phones?
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Right, They're all looking for something.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Maybe they're having an interaction through their phone, whether it's
you know, sending a message to someone, hey, how have
you been? I miss you or something, or or they're
seeing something. But aren't they missing out on a bigger
reward by not having an actual human connection.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
I think there are two answers to this. The first
is is that we talk about in the book that
there has been a downward trend since the nineties in
terms of people spending time in communication face to face,
and this happens in the United States, the UK, Australia,
throughout Europe. It's growing people are spending less time talking
to each other for pleasure, right, just to talk to talk.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Right.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
We also know that social media consumption is going higher
and higher and higher, right, amount of time spend. What's very,
very tricky is that we also know that people who
are alone tend to turn to social media in order
to make use their time. This is not dissimilar to
people who had lots of time in the past and
spend it in front of a television set. It's a
very similar phenomenon. What's tricky about it is to actually
make the argument that you're saying, are people displacing one
(29:39):
for the other, And generally the research is it does not.
And the reason it doesn't is that social people find
ways to use social technologies in a social way, right,
So they find ways to share means, they find ways
to share tiktoks, that group that you mentioned, they may
be playing a game together and are like nudging each
other and joking with each other as they do it.
If I'm in a waiting room also and then thinking,
(30:00):
you know, like in a doctor's office, I'm talking to
my mom because I'm concerned or I'm worried, I am
also being social. So I think what's interesting here is
we tend to, from a third party perspective, look at
people who aren't interacting but they could, as if that's
somehow a negative thing. But really the possibilities of being
social are always there and with us, and we don't
know the full extent in which they're reaching out to
(30:22):
one another. So that all said. That all said, it's
generally not a good idea to ignore the people around
you with your phone. There's pretty good evidence, especially when
you're getting to know somebody or meeting a new person,
that never looking up for your phone or ignoring them
is considered rude, not effective, lower quality communication. So I'm
not advocating it. I'm saying, is generally speaking, don't do that.
(30:46):
That said, a lot of times when people are in
groups with one another, they're actually sharing more media than
we think.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
So back to some of your research. I'm curious if
you've tested this at all. Is you talked about a communication,
a live communication with another human, in person communication?
Speaker 3 (31:05):
What do you call that?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
By the way, in person communication, social interaction. Social interaction
does not include a digital interaction.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Is that right?
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Oh? I'm sorry, No, when we talk about it, our
social interaction could happen through any technology.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Okay, So what's the interaction called if I'm human to
human face to face? Okay, so face to face interaction
versus a digital interaction? My using the terminology, right, Okay,
So the reward that you get if you were to
have a similar or this is what I'm looking for
I guess is is there a similarity between a face
(31:39):
to face interaction and a digital interaction? What's the equivalent?
It's like it's like if you're a runner and you run,
but then you can't run, so you walk. How much
walking do I have to do to get the same
benefit of that three mile run? So how much digital
interaction do I have to do to get the same
benefit of that face to face interaction?
Speaker 4 (32:00):
That's a very that's a very good question. I like
the way you made it really specific, because social scientists
like us love specifific question.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
I'm really really being very careful with my words here.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
It's fabulous. Bottom line is that there's very very good
evidence that a phone call is probably just as good
as face to face. The research, like historically contembraneously, phone
calls tend to carry as much of the high quality
sense of connection than to face to face. There's good
reason to think that video chat will. But what's the
(32:31):
tricky about that is a lot of people conflate video
chat conversations with work, and work conversations are not particularly connecting.
But people, young folks particularly, quite enjoy having Like I
see them walking on campus constantly, they're talking to a friend,
they're video chats on while they're doing it. It's they're
using in a way that I might have seen people
use the phone in the past. That said, once you
(32:53):
kind of go down to text messages, group chats and
the rest, that is much tends to be study after
study lower quality, and probably, to be honest, I doubt
that there is a sufficient amount of those amounts of
things you can do to get your needs fully met.
I think that there's very good reason to believe that
a person who lives a one hundred percent mediated experience
(33:14):
through texting, our social media is probably fully feeling connected dollars.
It's doubtful.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
It's doubtful. It's doubtful that they're okay with.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
One big caveat and maybe all they've got and maybe
the only thing they've got. One of the stories I
told recently that I think is very important is a
man who worked out in the oil fields of near
my not not too far from where I live in Kansas,
and his contact that he had while he's working in
these fields was primarily with his sister through text, didn't
keep in touch otherwise, didn't really talk about that young
(33:43):
man end up committing suicide right losing taking his life,
and for years he just did not have that the
amount of connection face to face or otherwise to make
him feel nourished and cared for. But Andy brought this
terrific story up during the book that we tell about
about Beatri Slomini who goes down into a cave and
she stays there for tons of time and the only
contact she has with people is by text, and she
(34:05):
comes out She's like, I love it. I could I
could do this all the time. This was great what's
really tricky is is that it's conceivable that people can
get their needs met through an only text interaction, but
they also have to choose that solitude. They also also
have to be someone who is ready to experience that
level of social deprivation. And most of us, it seems,
just are not built to be able to be like
(34:26):
Beatrice for Meini and go to you know, down to
a cave and survive without human contact. Most of us
do not seem to be capable of doing that. The
story was so fun because when when I think, when
did where did you find that one? Andy? Where did
you find the Beatrice? For Meani?
Speaker 5 (34:39):
I think it was like driving in the car and
I heard it an NPR or something like that, or
BBC or something like that.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
Those kind of things I think challenge a researcher's point
of view if they want to say something like absolutely never,
and you come upon a case like that, you go,
well no, not necessarily.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
She said, what did she say, like, I'd do it again?
I was right, you know, but the ka there is
this was also a very controlled situation, right, so she
did have people caring for her in a sense. They were,
you know, checking in on her taking care of even
her waist, right. I mean, so it's not as if
this so context matters. Choice matters, And what Jeff is
(35:19):
getting at that's so important is it's about what we
have available and the choices we make. So we can't
say that someone's making an inherently bad choice if they
choose to use digital, you know, forms of communication over
face to face, because that assumes that they have the
option for face to face and it assumes they have
all the requisite psychological personal safety that makes that okay
(35:44):
for them. And we know that a lot of people
just don't or they don't have sufficient social networks that
just make it an easy choice of like, why is
that person choosing not to engage with others face to face?
It's not always their choice.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
So yeah, that brings up an interesting question for the
two of you, not your research, but what you do
on a day to day basis, what do you actually
choose for your own communication?
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Well, one of the things that we like to mention
is when we're writing about the challenges of communication, and
we write about it a lot in the book or
in other places, we're including ourselves in that process. You know,
this challenge of connecting is real for everyone, it's not
(36:34):
even Some people are thriving and some people have a
lot of options, a full calendar, are feeling really great
about where they're at. But the average person goes through challenges,
some more than others. Second guesses themselves regularly in social interaction,
overthinks interaction, wonders if they're doing it right or if
(36:54):
people around them like them. Also, the average person feels
disappointed sometimes in the people around them. That is seemingly
to us, at least inseparable from social connection. You don't
get that difficulty, that challenge, that disappointment, you know, uh,
you know, if you're endeavoring to connect, it's all part
(37:15):
of the same process. Right to be vulnerable is to
leave yourself open to disappointment and rejection. So I mentioned
you know, when thinking about ourselves, sometimes what this this
insight can offer you is context for why you're experiencing challenges.
Why is it that I'm feeling frustrated? Why is it
(37:37):
why am I making the choices that I'm making. It
doesn't always lead you to an easy prescription to fixing it. That.
That doesn't mean there aren't answers, but sometimes just knowing
that oh, maybe maybe there's some good reasons that I'm
choosing digital interactions over social interactions. If I have those
(37:57):
choices that can give you a lot of insight, it's because,
you know, one thing we haven't talked about is we
do pile up the pressure on ourselves. We are sometimes
our harshest critics is, you know, ourselves when we're interacting.
Is a fair amount of research now on something called
a liking gap and something called miscalibrated expectations, and oftentimes
(38:20):
interactions go better than we think they actually will.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
So what are you saying.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
You're saying that we don't read the room the right way?
Are you saying that our we.
Speaker 5 (38:32):
Tend to we tend to be harder on ourselves and
seems warranted when it comes to everyday interaction and interpersonal communication.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
We think it didn't go well when maybe it did.
We think somebody else is thinking something and they really weren't.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
That's right, Or we think it went worse than it
actually did. You know, so even if it was a
you weren't your best, you know, you drop some jokes
that didn't quite land, maybe it's not as bad as
you think. So why that is such a vital realization
is it keeps you trying despite the disappointment, right, because again,
(39:05):
social connection doesn't come without risk, it doesn't come without disappointment,
it doesn't come without making mistakes. So so keeping that
in mind, you know, again, better calibrates what our expectations
are going into interaction and what our expectations for in
terms of the returns. So it's important to have a
(39:26):
much more humane view of the challenges. And we say
that because even if we study communication all day, every
day and that's what we teach and that's what we
write about, sometimes what that offers you is a better
contextualization for the challenges rather than some you know, get
out of jail free card around it.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Good.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Good point.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Okay, good point, But it still goes back to my
question of how do you operate with your communication on
a daily basis? I want to know what you guys, do,
what you choose.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
So one of the things that one of the one
of the most important things is I try to be
when I can, as responsive as I can to the
people around me, and especially in the times when I
might otherwise not do that. And just be clear, that
doesn't mean I don't get it wrong. But if I
(40:19):
am in the office and somebody's coming down the hall,
I try to remember just to acknowledge them and say hi,
I know. And even if I'm rushing, or I try
to give flash a smile to someone if it's appropriate
hit and I'm in you know, on campus or something.
These are tiny things. These are tiny things. But if
(40:42):
if I'm not willing to put in the effort like that,
then how would I be willing to put in the
effort in the in a more challenging moments. So I
think in some ways I like to think of these
small moments, these little extra efforts, as like practice. You know,
this is the training ground. This is where we we
get comfortable with social interaction that goes well. We're comfortable
(41:05):
with social interaction that doesn't.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Go so well.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
So when it's most consequential, in those really really important interactions,
two things happen. Number One, We've built up a storehouse
of maybe positive emotion that we can benefit from. But
also our skills are a little bit sharpened. You know,
if we don't engage when we can, we don't endeavor
(41:29):
to engage when we can, we risk social skills atrophying
a little bit. You know, and if we can't muster
the effort to practice on a day to day basis,
I think it's expecting a lot of us ourselves to
go into these really consequential moments and nail it right,
you know. So, so that's that's something that's a tangible
(41:50):
consequence of doing this work to try harder, try harder,
because I'm going to get it right necessarily all the time,
but I'm going to go down try it.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
But I like that.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
I like that idea or that concept that in those
small moments, even when with a stranger, even we talked about,
you know, the barista or whatever, the supermarket or or
in the hallway at work, to have those positive or
just kind interactions because it fills you up to then
(42:23):
be ready for the bigger interactions. To put that forward,
I think of just some curmudgeon person who probably is
a curmudgeon to everyone. It just doesn't happen at home,
or it just doesn't happen when they're interacting with someone
at the supermarket, but it's probably what they're practicing. And
if you're going to continue to practice that, that's what
(42:45):
that's your go to.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
So I like that you formulated it like that.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
I like how you set that up to say, practice
those things or they'll atrophy. So be kind, you know,
be put a smile on your face, put your best
foot forward when you're intacting with people, because when you
think it's meaningless, because it is meaningful, it will it
will come about somewhere you'll need to pull from that.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (43:11):
You know. Outside of our conversation, we were talking about
why is interpersonal communication or where communication is important? Well, again,
we come to know ourselves in how we interact with others,
not just based on their response, but also how we
perform every day. And I don't mean performance in a
bad way. I mean and just the natural way. We
all have to play roles. If you're endeavoring to do
(43:31):
you know, to be kinder, say to others. You're inhabiting
a worldview that says this is important to me, right,
And I think that that matters individually. But imagine across
a community, a social biome, if you will, right, you know,
these these small moments maybe add up across an organization.
And to be clear, this is not a prescription to
(43:53):
fix all these social problems just because people are endeavoring
to be a bit more kind you know that that's notice,
but you know, it's hard to figure out the way
forward to making people feel a little bit better in
a world in which not everybody's feeling great right now,
if at the very least we're not trying in those
small moments. And so that's why we see this as
(44:16):
a very hopeful perspective, because it's it's there's a lot
of challenges of communication to be ironed out, but maybe
starting small is an entry point for a lot of
us that this is this is the place to begin
venturing out into sociality a bit more. In an era
when a lot of us intentionally or feel it's forced
(44:40):
upon us, we're retreating a little bit.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Does your research suggest that being face to face is better?
In other words, should everyone be going back to work,
you know, and being face to face as opposed to
remote That's that's kind of a topic that some people say, no,
I want to stay remote, it's better.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
And then there was there were.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Reports that executives and higher ups preferred people to be
face to face and the argument was that they thought
it was better for business. And then there was another
sidebar argument. There was one report out that said, oh no,
it's just so executives feel better, so that they have
you know their people around them. So what is it
though on a communication scale? Do you support does your
(45:20):
research support that people should be face to face it
in the office.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
I've written about this a bit on and for the
Wall Street Journal as one of the topics that I've
covered a bit, and I think that one way to
think about it is that issues of loneliness at work
won't be fixed by just bringing people back to the office.
The reason that people lonely at work have a lot
to do with the kind of things that Andy's talking about,
and day to day interaction, dignity you're being shown, Even
things like the corporation cares whether or not you are
(45:46):
friendly with your coworkers matters. This has to do with modeling,
This has to do with leaders actually showing that you
show concern for a person's well being beyond what they
perform at work. There are lots of factors. So I
don't think the solution is bring everybody back to work
and everyone's more connected. I don't think that's true. On
the other hand, I think that there are also something
to be said about if you do not have moments
(46:06):
of interaction which are casual, easy, you know, part of
your routines. It's hard to find opportunities to have them.
So one way to think about this is, if I'm
talking to you on Zoom, chances are you and I
are not having the side conversation about how your kids
are doing, rather having the side conversation about the weather
or about traffic or whatever you talk about in Los Angeles.
(46:27):
Right we're talking, We're only talking about what we talked
about on that screen in that moment. What there we
believe to be true is that these casual moments of
interaction with our neighbors, with our co workers, with our family,
they build up in a way that's actually really meaningful.
So when you work remotely but you are not making
time or the employer doesn't allow for time to have
(46:48):
that kind of casual opportunity to check in see how
you're doing, it just doesn't happen. And a lot of
times people on zoom get really frustrated if someone's taking
up that time to chat. They're like, we gotta keep
on track, we better keep going. But what's weird is,
I'm sure you've had this experience too. If people are
sitting around a table and they're chatting with one another,
animated and excited. Right, I mean, that's the proporate thing
(47:09):
to do. It's it's actually good for the meeting energy
for everybody to be doing that. But on zoom or
on other things, people like stop wasting my time. So
I think that there's kind of a two ways to
look at this. This isn't a solution to workplace loneliness.
It's definitely the case that if you only experience interactions online,
you're missing a lot of that casual, easy, routine waves
(47:31):
of communicating with one.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Another, which, as you say in the book, is a
direct correlation to your well being and to shaping who
you are and your beliefs.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
So, yeah, so we need we need the interaction. So
what if we want to start today. If I'm listening
and I want to start today to be a better communicator,
what can I do?
Speaker 5 (47:53):
Well? The first thing you can do is take an
inventory of your day to day communicative life. Think about
the options you have. Where do my opportunities lie. So
we've talked about workplace just a moment ago. If you're
working remotely, that the answer to that question might be
(48:15):
different than if you're in the office. Every day. Right,
So if you're in the office every day and you
regularly pass colleagues you know, or customers or clients or
whoever you work with, just trying at least start with
one interaction a day where you give it a little
bit more effort on the on the responsive side, right,
and and see how you feel, see how it goes,
(48:37):
take inventory of what went well and what didn't, what
your expectations were going into it, and what they were afterwards. Essentially,
be your own researcher. And then if if you catalog
that a little bit every day and you start to say,
here's what I liked about this, Here's what felt weird
about that, you know, you get a sense for what
your what what makes sense for you. So so taking
(49:00):
that inventory is important, you know for your job. What
about it home? Well, you know, you could think about
how are you handling, say digital distraction. It's a reality
that we all have a lot of digital demand right
now on our phone, either because it's easy way to
escape a moment or there's something demanding our attention on
(49:22):
our phone. I think a good place to start is
just trying to be mindful at least when you get
home or in a certain segment of the day to say,
I'm going to try to keep my phone focus.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
A little lower.
Speaker 5 (49:37):
Right.
Speaker 4 (49:37):
So I really like.
Speaker 5 (49:38):
This idea of starting small and being very intentional about
starting small and then scaling up in the place where
you feel like you're making some inroads, and then when
it's not going well, trying to ask yourself why that's
the case. Because everybody does have unique needs. But as
you start small and start having success, I think it
(49:59):
becomes it builds your confidence to try it again. And
if you find yourself trying and it's not going well,
then you can start to say, all right, what's missing?
How do I find those things?
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (50:10):
You know?
Speaker 5 (50:10):
And if you can find that in person through meeting
new people, great, If you can't, that's when the digital
world can be really wonderful, you know, finding online communities
or something like that. So just starting with an inventory first,
where are the opportunities starting small, building up, and then
finding where the gaps are and seeing if you can
(50:33):
plug some things there. And then one other, one other
point that we both think it is important or missed
opportunity is we have a lot of people from our
past that we only kind of occasionally interact with. And
it can be really difficult sometimes to reach back out
to someone because if you wonder, do they want to
hear from me, maybe that would be awkward or you know,
(50:55):
and sometimes if there's somebody from your past that you
would like to reconnect with in an appropriate way, you know,
and reach back out just to say, hey, you know,
think seriously about taking that opportunity. You know, there is
something that can be really wonderful about rekindling old relationships.
It's not always just about creating new ones. So you know,
(51:17):
we could go on and on with other other other tips,
but those are some of the ones that come.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
Yeah, we just want to get started.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
We just I think we want to let people know
that they can they can get started. Anything I didn't
ask you about that you wanted to mention that we
didn't that we didn't touch on.
Speaker 5 (51:35):
Well, one thing I would bring up is, you know, communication,
don't we use it as this singular term. You know,
I communicate, you communicate. That was a social interaction or so.
You know, people have very different understandings of communication. You know,
some people we meant we talked about earlier need more
interaction than others.
Speaker 4 (51:55):
That's true.
Speaker 5 (51:56):
But other people just have different standards for what makes
interaction good, and so.
Speaker 4 (52:01):
This is one of the inevitable.
Speaker 5 (52:03):
And inherent challenges of interpersonal communication and by extension connection.
Some people do want things to just be brief and
to the point, and you know, you say things if
you have something to say, and you don't when you don't.
And then there's those among us on the other side
of the continuing we just love to talk for the
sake of talking, and so when we say what is
(52:24):
good communication or bad communication, we have to realize that
that's filtered through our standards. And I think that is
both a recipe sometimes for our disappointment of like, oh,
why didn't that go so well? Well, it's not because
you did anything wrong. You were just applying your standards
for how this should be, and the other person was
applying a different set of standards. That can be if
(52:46):
acknowledging that is really important, because I guarantee there's people
in our lives who we love dearly, are friends in particular,
who when we first met them it was somewhat awkward
or you didn't know this person if they were your
kind of person, And if we stop there just because
maybe we were filtering our communication through different standards or expectations,
we would have missed out on this really amazing relationship.
(53:09):
So sometimes exploring how we evaluate communication can really open
our eyes to say, like, oh, Okay, maybe there's some
real opportunities I'm missing here, maybe I'm evaluating things, especially
myself a bit harshly.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Andy, Jeff, thank you so much for your time. This
is very helpful for all of us. I mean, who
doesn't want to be better at communication and better understanding,
you know, how we're doing it, why we're doing it,
and just for our own well being, just makes us
all better.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
Absolutely, thank you
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