Hello, stranger: How brief connections boost happiness
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Summary
It turns out, talking to strangers is actually a good thing. While we tend to focus on our close relationships, psychologists have noticed that even “minimal social interactions” can make us feel happier and more connected.
Guest: Kirsten Weber, professor of communication at Central Michigan University
Summary
In this episode of The Search Bar, host Adam Sparkes sits down with Kirsten Weber, professor of communication at Central Michigan University, to discuss how going outside your comfort zone and talking with people you don't know can have big benefits. Worried about the potential awkwardness of talking with strangers? They dive into that, too.
Chapters
- 00:00 Introduction
- 01:28 What are minimal social interactions and why are they valuable?
- 07:40 What advice do you have for people who want to be more open to talking with strangers but feel shy or nervous?
- 13:16 How do interactions with strangers differ in their impact compared to those with close friends or family?
- 22:31 How can we get past the “awkwardness” of talking to strangers?
- 28:06 How are you applying these habits to the classroom?
- 30:10 How does talking to strangers increase the feeling of community?
Transcript
Introduction
Kirsten: It's very easy to feel alone and isolated in our daily lives, especially because if you think about the way that different technologies have augmented our experiences, you can literally go through your day without interacting with anybody. And it's not necessarily great for us because we need to feel connected to other people. Everybody has a story. Everybody has something that's fundamentally interesting about them, and if you just take the time to ask some questions and really listen to what they're saying, they're going to want to share more with you.
Adam: Turns out that talking to strangers? Actually a good thing. You hear that, Mom? Welcome to The Search Bar. I'm your host, Adam Sparkes, and on today's episode, Kirsten Weber, professor of communication at Central Michigan University, joins us to talk about the benefits of making connections with people that you don't know and why it might not be as scary as you think. Hi, Kristen. Thanks for coming in today.
Kirsten: Hey, I'm glad to be here.
Adam: Yeah, we're going. Let's talk like we're perfect strangers here for a minute. You're here today to talk about having interactions with people that we don't know and the benefits of that, which I feel like I'm a little bit of an expert at this myself because I don't shut up, even in public places, which is sometimes a defense mechanism for not liking quiet, but I'm curious the more scientific take on it.
What are minimal social interactions and why are they valuable?
Adam: And one of the things I have in my notes here is that these can be referred to as minimal social interactions, and I was kind of hoping you could define what that is for us. I got to look it up before we talked. That's the benefit of having-
Kirsten: I’m curious to hear what you heard. Tell me, what is the internet telling us these are?
Adam: Well, I didn't find it to be, I don't know if this is a term that you feel you coined or not, because it's not like a common one anyway, but yeah, it seemed to be, at least what I looked up, it seemed to kind of infer that these are interactions that we would otherwise feel are superficial. They might not be adding value. They might just be passing time, but the reality is that they're adding value. I guess if I could summarize it, that was sort of what I ran into.
Kirsten: That's exactly right. I mean, a lot of times when I tell my students, I teach this class, I tell my students like, “oh, you should talk with strangers.” And they're like, “no, that sounds terrible. We don't want to do that. Why would we do this?” But there's so much benefit to being able to do this, and a lot of times what we think is going to be an innocuous, superficial conversation about the weather can actually turn into a really great exchange with somebody. So the other day I was picking up one of my kids from dance practice, and so I am sitting down and there's this lady over there sitting down and she's sort of sewing something. And so I was like, “oh, I get to talk with a stranger today. This is great.” And so I was like, “oh, do you sew a lot? What are you sewing?” And so she starts telling me about, she's sewing a, she doesn't really sew, but she's sewing her grandkids Halloween costume, but she does quilt and there's, I guess in the world of sewing and quilting, this is a big-
Adam: It's very different.
Kirsten: This is a big divide. I don't know. So I was like, “oh, tell me more about this.” And so then she goes on this whole probably 20-minute discussion about her quilting and how she has been quilting for a long time, and she has the group that she quilts with and they go on quilting retreats, which I didn't even know that was a thing. And then this is the thing that I loved toward the end, she was like, “it's not even about the quilting anymore. The first day we don't even do any quilting.” She's like, “we just sit and catch up.” And I was like, yeah, that's absolutely what you do. You've been doing this for 30 or 40 years and you're connecting with these people and this thing is bringing you together. And the thing that I just left with the big smile on my face, I'm never going to see this woman again. I just loved that. I loved learning about her. I loved learning that she's so passionate about this thing. I love that she shares this with other people. And so yeah, when you talk with strangers, those are the moments that you can have, and it's just so fundamental to who we are as humans because we're social creatures. We need to connect with people. And so striking up those conversations, I mean, that's the beginning of a great conversation. It's maybe the beginning of a friendship. It's maybe the beginning of something more than that. So lots of potential there.
Adam: It seems like that's sort of the foundation of communities though too, because the communities that we live in, and by communities I mean places where we have proximity to one another. A lot of our relationships are based on these sort of insignificant social interactions, but they just kind of accumulate over the years. If you live somewhere long enough, there's a clerk in a store and you start to know a lot about them. In fact, maybe come the holidays, you bring them a little tin of cookies or something like that. You've never been to their house, you don't know their mother's name, but you feel like you know them and it's not unsubstantiated. There's some sort of value to that in terms of the community that we're building if we start to be less anonymous to one another.
Kirsten: Yeah. Well, I think what you're saying is so true because we become a lot less alone. Then it's not just that I'm going to the bank and I'm having an interaction with a stranger. It’s I’m going to the bank, and I get to see Pat, right? And I've seen Pat every two weeks for the past four years, and we have this sort of connection, and so it makes us just feel a lot less alone in our environments, in our sort of worlds.
Adam: It's the more innocent side of people who think that their waitresses in love with them. Maybe you were never a man in his twenties, but that was the thing a lot of my friends went through. “I think she likes me.” “I think she's good at customer service, my guy.” But there's I think a more socially innocent version of that, which is that some people that we interact with, if they're in a retail situation, it's their job to be nice to us. But them getting that kindness back is also, it's a bit of a gift because if you spend all day, maybe you're ringing people up or you're taking their orders. If someone's interested in you, that feels good, right?
Kirsten: I mean, absolutely. I we're all, you're sort of butting up against, we're all a little bit egotistical, so we feel really validated and maybe even a little bit cared for when somebody notices something like that or just takes the time to chat you up a little bit about your quilting hobby. If you think about how busy are we all of the time, just sort of rushing through our days and having maybe not even invisible interactions with each other, driving past people or walking past people and not even noticing them. And so if somebody does take time to say, “oh, I really like your beaded bracelet right there. Why do you have this? I want to know more about where you got this from.” It makes-
Adam: Monk in Chicago, for real.
Kirsten: I feel like this is for me. I want to know more about this. I'm innately very curious about this. But then it makes you feel like seen, “oh, somebody took the time to notice this. They took the time to ask me something.” And I think that one of the other things that you sort of hinted at, and maybe I can explicitly pull out, is that it butts up against kindness. Just being kind to another human, to take five minutes to listen to them. That can be so powerful. You don't know what came before that moment. You don't know what's going to come after, but in that moment, you can just be present for that person. You can sort of listen and validate who they are and what their needs are in that moment.
What advice do you have for people who want to be more open to talking with strangers but feel shy or nervous?
Adam: And I think there's also just this social affirmation that comes with it too, which is that I'm pretty chatty. I've been called the D-1 yapper in the lower thirds of this podcast before, but anytime I do talk to somebody who I've never spoken to before, there's a sense of anxiety that exists there where it's like, “do they want me to talk to them right now?” And I think when people do stop and have even quick conversations, it's affirming and it feels affirming to be listened to, and it feels affirming to have someone want to talk to you, even, even just for you to receive their story. I think as brief as it may be, we're all a little bit, we are all a little bit scared to go talk to someone.
Kirsten: Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's actually a whole bunch of research on this, and they've looked at it in different contexts, but some of the original studies were looking at people who were traveling on trains, and I can't remember, maybe it was New York City, but a big city. And so people are commuting and they wanted to see if people experienced traveling on a train, if they talked with somebody versus traveling on a train, if they just sort of sat there in isolation. And so that's what they did. They had people and they were like, okay, you're going to go on there and you're going to just chat up the person next to you, and you're going to go on there and just sort of do your normal thing. And they find that overwhelmingly when you're talking with other individuals, you just feel a lot better. There's just tons of research, not just with this study, but tons of research in general that shows that human connection matters to us. Being connected to people matters. Now, what they did is they also were like, well, why aren't you doing this? We know that this is good. This feels good to you. Why aren't people doing it? And by and large, people are just very afraid to do it, right? They're like, well, if I talk with this person, stranger's going to think I'm a weirdo and I don't want to be a weirdo. So then they were like, well, we need to investigate this. Do people think that strangers who talk to them are weirdos? And the answer is no, nobody, you're not a weirdo to them. They're actually very excited and they feel even better about their commute if you're talking with them. And they replicated this in a whole bunch of different situations. So going to a doctor's office, if you're sitting there sitting alone versus if somebody like, oh, nice shoes, nice bracelet, whatever it is, people experience that more positively than if they're just sitting there alone. And even if you are doing things where you are not, seems sort of, low-value things. If you're eating even a piece of chocolate with somebody, right? Chocolate's good. Nobody's going to be like, oh, chocolate is terrible. So there's this good thing. But if you do it with other people, if you eat chocolate with other people, it tastes even better than if you're just doing it alone. So I mean, the bottom line is being with other people and doing good things with other people, doing things that are difficult, sitting in a doctor's office, it's going to be better for you. You're going to benefit from it. You're going to feel better about that experience. And the stranger also leaves that thinking, wow, I felt so great. The lady I imagine quilter lady, she went to her retreat that weekend and she was like, oh, I had the nicest conversation with this young woman and all about that. She had a good experience being validated in that moment.
Adam: Yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of going to a concert and a little bit, you're having this really big social experience with people. When you're at a concert, you don't really know any of them, but there's an energy to going and doing that because other people are there. You can listen to live music at home on Spotify. You can listen to it as loud as you want in the car, but man, it's different when you're at a show. You walk away from that and you feel like something happened. It's a little bit religious, it's a little bit transcendent, I think, to go to a show. Let's say you're listening to Dave Matthews all week long, and when you go to that concert, even though it's the sixth one, you've been to this year. I’m giving Aaron some-
Kirsten: Dave Matthews was one of my first concerts.
Adam: Oh, wow. Well, you should talk to Aaron Mills over who I think’s been to 150 Dave Matthew's concerts. Yeah. He's like one of these Bruce Springstein people. He's nuts. But you go to the concert, even if you've listened to it all the time, it's so different. It's so utterly different. When you're there, that energy becomes palpable. And I think there's something about that. There's something about being encircled with people and being comfortable, right?
Kirsten: Yeah.
Adam: I mean, certainly you could be at a concert and feel really unsafe. I'm sure that happens to people, but for the most part, I think the common experience is that we go there and we feel safe and that we're enjoying something together, and we don't even necessarily have to have any meaningful social interaction with anybody at all. Right? We're just kind of supporting each other and all staring in one direction.
Kirsten: Yeah, I mean, I think that there's some evidence that would suggest that absolute thing. Just being around other people sharing in a common positive experience is something that's going to connect us. I mean, it's really validating that we're all there because we presumably all like this artist. And so then because of that, it makes us feel good, like, oh, I'm not the only one who likes it. Hundreds of thousands of other people like this. I think it just sort of bonds us together. It gives us some commonality to sort of move forward, because if you talk with one of those people, you definitely have at least one thing in common with them, which is this shared love of this band. And so then automatically you're going to feel a little bit more similar and a little bit more connected to them.
Adam: You probably, even in that case where it's almost like a group kind of small interaction. You're almost removing some of that weird feeling, am I going to be the weirdo that talks in public? No. In fact, we're all going to sing poorly and slightly out of time together right at this person.
Kirsten: But then you're going to remember that. You're going to look back on that and be like, oh, it was so amazing and then we all spontaneously sang together.
How do interactions with strangers differ in their impact compared to those with close friends or family?
Adam: What is the difference between these types of social interactions and close social relationships? How are they different from each other? What are we getting from them that is different?
Kirsten: Well, I mean, I think it's very easy to feel alone and isolated in our daily lives, especially because if you think about the way that different technologies have augmented our experiences, you can literally go through your day without interacting with anybody if that's how you set up your day, right? Because right now we have apps and technology to get people to deliver us food. We don't even have to answer the door. We can just write in there, leave it at the door and I’ll come get it.
Adam: Leave it on the porch. Don't even look at me.
Kirsten: Yeah, exactly. Right. We can do all of our grocery shopping online. We can either do a Target pickup, which I'm addicted to.
Adam: Same.
Kirsten: It's problematic though, because do you do this? I do a Target pickup, but then I'm like, “oh, I'm here. I should run in and get this other thing.” And so I just ended up buying twice as much stuff from Target. They have figured me out, okay,
Adam: There's a study in that alone. There's got to be a phenomenon.
Kirsten: There's something going on there with Target, right? But we could do a pickup. And a lot of these places you just are like, yeah, just put it in the trunk. I don't even have to interact with you. Or you can have them just deliver it to your doorstep. The other week a neighbor was having the groceries delivered, and she was like, “we're not going to be home in time to put them inside. Can you go put them inside?” So I just put her groceries away for her. We didn't interact. I didn't interact with the delivery person. Working remotely now. There's so many ways that we can isolate ourselves, and it's not necessarily great for us because we need to feel connected to other people. It's sort of vital for us as social beings. And so those sort of everyday low-hanging fruit interactions, I mean, they give us a connection to people, give us a connection to humanity, and they also are the opportunities that we have to further develop relationships. So one of the things that's pretty startling to me is every seven years you lose half of your friends.
Adam: Oh, sure.
Kirsten: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because that makes a lot of sense to you. I mean, to younger folks, maybe you maybe go through high school, maybe into college or whatever, and you're sort of making a lot of different friends. Once you hit that point, it's all downhill from there. And I think the other statistic is in the past five years on average, people haven't made a new friend, so it's longer than five years. So you're losing more friends than you are making. And so if you don't have a lot, you have friends, but then you're losing them every seven years and you're self-isolating. It's these sort of interactions with somebody at the grocery store or somebody at the bank that's going to help to connect you. It's like hygiene, sort of maintenance.
Adam: The bank clerk is the floss of your socialization.
Kirsten: Yeah, I think that's perfect. So basically, we need the equivalent to a dentist to just harp on us and be like, “Hey, you got to go out and do this.” This is just basic maintenance that you need to interact with people so they can turn into more significant relationships. And when you have those acquaintance-level individuals or people that are in that bigger social network that you have, I mean, that's when you start to be able to also rely on them for if your car breaks down or something like that. You need a ride somewhere, you can rely on those individuals. So it's a gateway for you to be able to do that, to have bigger, more meaningful connections. I mean, I should say too, that we need a variety of types of social interaction. I mean, that's what the research says is that you can't just have one or the other and have your sort of bucket of, I don't know, floss, whatever we're using now. Right? The analogy, right? You need some different types. You do need really meaningful relationships. You need some acquaintances, but then you also need these lower-level interactions with folks.
Adam: Yeah, I mean, because kind of getting different things from different people, I mean, it's easy. I think if you're somewhat socially isolated and you only have a few meaningful connections, you can burn those people out, especially if you're having a hard time. I mean, I think spouses deal with that with each other a lot. Sometimes I joke with my wife, I go, I don't need anybody else, I have you. That's probably the most daunting thing I could ever say to her. But I think those things, they seem healthy and appealing to me too, because you talk about the potential to have friendships and are losing those friends, losing the friends every seven years, resetting half of your friends, and I'm sure you have similar experience. Some of my best friends, I'll see them four times a year. So these are friends that I've had for a long time. The ones that have stuck onto the seven-year cycles for me, they were my friends back when I'd see them four times a week. And now it's like, “see you in three months, bud.” And you might never have that type of a connection with someone you've known most of your life with someone that you have a casual connection with because they're in town and you guys crossed because of a similar interest or grocery shopping or whatever. But that person's doing some of the work that your friend who you only see four times a year can't do for you anymore too. And I certainly don't want to treat people and their personalities and their stories, they have to tell as a means to an end just for your own mental health. But look, we're all sort of doing that for each other to a certain extent. You don't know how much value what you're giving to somebody has to them.
Kirsten: I mean, this is kind of taking that conversation in a slightly different direction, but you sort of jokingly said, you have your wife and you don't need anybody else. So I'm super introverted it, and I'm actually really, really shy. And so I sort of feel that way about my spouse. I'm like, I don't need anybody else, but I just need you. And I feel like that is true to some extent, but all the research shows we need a little bit more than that, and that person can get burnt out. So if you're relying on just one person for all of your social needs, that can become a little burdensome to them. And so it's also like it's healthy for you, and it's healthy for that relationship, and it's healthy for that person if you spread around that a little bit.
Adam: Especially if that person is a wife and a mother. I mean, not to dip it into the perilous gender norms of our society, but I do think that's the common person who's hearing everyone's stuff. I know in my family, when I joke about my wife like that, I'm sort of acknowledging that my teenagers go to her first. I'm gone from the house more often. But usually when I get involved with one of their problems and need to talk to them, she’s like, you should go talk to that one. And I'm like, I'm going to go talk to them because she's taking that on.
Kirsten: Well, and I mean, you're talking about some longstanding gender norms about how women are socialized. Women and girls are socialized, and there's research to show that people do turn to women more for social support, that they're evaluated better in terms of the support that they're giving, and people feel a little bit better after they talk with them. And so that's not to say that men and boys shouldn't do that. We should absolutely be going to them, but it's just sort of recognizing that this is a pattern that exists, and maybe we need to do some things to change that because it comes down to some fundamental aspects of the way that support is provided. And if you provide the support in that way, which just happens to be the way that women are traditionally socialized, but if men do it that way, people also evaluate them really, really highly. So recognizing that that's pretty good.
Adam: Yeah, I mean the broader implication there for our communities is if we learn to talk to different people who don't always look like the person who's given us that most common and familiar comfort, we're doing something for all of our ability to be able to talk to somebody and show them. I mean, having a conversation is just empathy. Hearing somebody out, even if you're like, I will never quilt, right? That's an expression that's an empathetic expression to that woman. And I'm not saying, I'm not suggesting that you're giving her some charity doing that, but it is empathetic. It's stretching that empathetic muscle. Men probably could do a better job of that at times. I would agree. But I think it's worth, if you're hearing this as a man, go, “well, maybe I need to listen a little bit more.” I know I do. I know I need to listen a little bit more than I do. Well, you're
Kirsten: Well, you're sort of talking about can we be better listeners? And I think, yeah, we can do a better job of listening to people. Sometimes we aren't really present. Sometimes we're getting a little distracted, because we are busy parents, and so we're trying to do the dishes and listen to our kids. But yeah, if we turn toward them, if we sort of look at them, if we're hearing their messages and kind of repeating them back to them, that can go a long way in terms of making somebody feel heard. And like you said, exercising that empathy muscle.
How can we get past the "awkwardness" of talking to strangers?
Adam: If I want to do this more and my children will be mortified if I do this more. So if Michael or Aaron who are at the producer's table want to do this more, what should they do? What are some good ways? What are some good habits to get past that weird feeling to engage with people in your community who might not know?
Kirsten: Okay. I mean, the thing is you just got to do it and it feels really good. That's the thing. You got to keep telling yourself, if I do this, it's going to feel good. Now, maybe the first couple times you're like, oh, that felt really weird and different. But keep in mind that when you do something that is new, it always is going to feel a little awkward. And so the more you end up doing it, the better it's going to feel. Right? But I mean, for me, the way that I started getting into this, this is very strange, but back in the day, we used to get all these telemarketers and they would call us. And so the game that I would play is, how much can I get a telemarketer just to self-disclose me? And so I would literally just keep these people on the phone for at least a half an hour, and I would just do practice active listening. Just tell me a little bit more. And that's the thing about people. Everybody has a story. Everybody has something that's fundamentally interesting about them. And if you just take the time to ask some questions and really listen to what they're saying, and then really think about some follow-up questions. I don't know, books of just wonder. And so they're going to want to share more with you. So I say, I don't know. You don't want to do it face to face at first. Wait until that person calls you to ask about if you have Verizon service or whatever it is, and just be like, “how is your day? Tell me a little bit more about how did you get into this job? I want to know more about this.” People will just open up to you. So maybe that's low stakes right there, but then I think-
Adam: It's good practice.
Kirsten: Yeah, it's great practice, right? You'll get really good at asking questions. I mean, I love doing it. I always feel good. I always feel like they feel good, right? I don't know.
Adam: They're probably bored.
Kirsten: Yeah, they're probably bored. They're probably, this was the best conversation I had. I got a whole bunch of people who just hung up the phone. And this one lady, let me tell her all about my, I have some stories, but anyway, yeah. So I think like that. But also just anytime you go out, don't take out your phone. If you're going to the store, force yourself to-don't take out your phone, go into the line where there's a person as opposed to self-checkout. Just start talking to them. We are notoriously routinized creatures. So another thing that you can do is try to just get out of your routine that you're always do. If you think about it, you probably park in the same spot, if not a very similar spot
Adam: I do.
Kirsten: And then you probably walk through the same door to get to your office, right.
Adam: Most of the time, yeah.
Kirsten: And then you probably go to the same restaurants over and over again, right?
Adam: Oh yeah.
Kirsten: And you probably go roughly on the same days. So we have all these routines. And so sometimes when we're in those routines, we aren't picking up or noticing on different things, or we're not, the people that we're seeing are just like, they become part of the background. So if you push yourself to go outside of those routines, you're going to see some different things. You're going to interact with some different people, some new people. And so then you can start like, “oh, I've never seen this person before. I've never walked through this part of campus before because I'm always just stuck on my routine.” So I feel like do some low stake stuff, try to mix it up, try to go out and see some other people practice a little bit. I don't know if you're one of those people who's just stuck on their phone all the time, yeah, probably going to feel a little funky to start talking to people face to face. But the more you do it, the easier it's going to get. It's just riding a bike, right? You know how to ride a bike, right?
Adam: Yeah.
Kirsten: Yeah. You probably learned. Do you know how?
Adam: I don’t know, you might not. It’s a fair question.
Kirsten: Okay. But you learn this. I learned this when I was, I don't know, seven or eight. My uncle taught me. It was really wonderful, happy memories. I did not ride a bike again until I had kids. The first time you get on that bike though, you're not going to ride perfectly. You have to do a little bit of practice, and then you get there and then you figure out how to do it. I mean, communication is the same way. If you want to walk up to strangers and get that good feeling and help those other people to feel good, you should practice a little bit. And the thing that you have to tell yourself over and over again, because all my students, when I make them do this, they get super freaked out. They're like, oh, they're going to think I'm weird. They're not going to think you're weird. That's just not what the research says. And it's very low stakes. The chances that you're going to see this person again, it's very low. So I don't know. You had a conversation with them and then maybe they remember that's the best. We had a conversation. I remember you, what's your name? Or you had a conversation, they don't remember you. And then that's it. You don't remember each other and you just keep going on with your days. So there's nothing really bad that can happen here.
Adam: No. We sort of have, there's this cultural politeness I think that Americans have, which is like, I might make eye contact with you, but as soon as I go to say something, I think we're on guard A. because it might not be polite to interrupt what somebody's trying to get done or do. And then I think if I get approached by someone and it's not casual, it's usually like, it's money, it’s “will you sign this-will you sign this petition?” Or “do you want to go to church with me?” And it's like, I think we get so good at deflecting those that probably when you get something that's just like, “what are you doing there?”
How are you applying these habits to the classroom?
Adam: It's probably a relief. I imagine for your students, have you found that through exercises like this that they have a high positivity, a high, highly positive interaction rate they're getting?
Kirsten: Oh, yeah. So all of them, I make them journal about this. Oh, you got to talk with strangers. They're like, “don't make me do it.” I'm like, “no, you have to do it. You get a zero if you don't do it, right.” I force them to do this. And so all of them, they go out super freaked out, and then they come back and they're like, “this was amazing. I talked with somebody,” I'm like, “yeah, we're supposed to do this.” So they all have a really good time with it. And they're like, I'm going to do this more. I'm like, this is great. You should do this more. So by and large, this is one of the activities that I have them do that they fear the most, that they loathe the most. But then after they do it, they have the best response to it. And most of them go on and do it. And the thing that you were saying, we do live in a culture where we get solicited to do a bunch of things. So maybe you don't just walk up to a random person. A lot of other situations, there's a lot of opportunities where you're just near people. And so you can capitalize on just being near people. If you're in a line at Starbucks or if you are in a waiting room, if you are, I don't know, going on a class field trip and you're sort of walking across campus, I don't know, talk to the person that's next to you. If you're checking something out at the library, chat up the librarian. They
Adam: They probably have book recommendations.
Kirsten: They probably have book recommendations, talk with the barista, right? And if you just notice anything about people, people just light up. So if you're like, “oh, I really like that bag,” or “I really like the whatever,” I mean, if you get into the habit of that, then you start to do it. And people are, because of cultural norms, they can't just glare at you if you say something, they have to be like, “oh, thanks. I got it. Oh, I've never been there. Tell me more about this place.” You just naturally start to do this,
How does talking to strangers increase the feeling of community?
Adam: And it feels like it would be good for society if we talked to each other in public a little bit more. Do you agree? I mean, it feels like,
Kirsten: Okay, so I don't know. I think we're similar in ages, but do you remember when you went to college and nobody had cell phones, and then we just walked around and smiled at each other? That's the world that I long for, where we were walking across campus, smiling at each other. So it would be, I think, good. I think what the research shows, and as a communication scholar, I'm sort of biased toward this, but more human connection is better. And generationally, we're seeing that trends are changing a little bit. People are doing fewer and fewer-you sort of talked about having that sense of community-they're engaging in fewer and fewer of those opportunities for community. So there's this really famous book that is talking about the bowling leagues that we used to have. And so
Adam: I mean bowling leagues get knocked down everywhere.
Kirsten: Well, people are doing that less and less. And so what then happens is you have less of a sense of community, because if you aren't going to your bowling league and you don't have your knitting club or, sorry, quilting club and you don't have whatever else it is, you don't have a sense of community beyond where you are immediately. And that's something that's detrimental to our well-being because it makes us feel a lot more lonely and isolated. Whereas if you have your bowling league and you have your quilting league and you have your whatever, you have a lot of different people that are out there that you're sort of connected with. And in addition to feeling that connection, those informal connections that we have with people, they also help us do a lot of things. That's by and large, one of the ways that we end up getting jobs. So if you want to get a job, if you expand your informal network, you're more likely to hear about job opportunities. Like, oh, my friend's uncle has a thing and they're hiring for whatever.
Adam: Yeah, you should talk to them.
Kirsten: Yeah, exactly. That's how we do it. So it's not just warding off isolation and loneliness, but it's functional too. But overall, the research shows that since about the 1970’s, those forms of community connection have just been going down and down and down. Maybe part of that is the ways that we're working now, people are a little bit more remote. Part of that is technology stuff. I think part of it is maybe there's some apprehension about how do you develop those relationships? How do you maintain those relationships? And one of the things is relationships do take work. People usually have this misnomer like, oh, I want to just meet somebody and we're going to automatically be best friends and stay up all night chatting and laughing and whatever it is. And the short of the long, just like a marriage, I am married too, the relationships that are meaningful, they take a little bit of work. And so if you want to have those social connections, you got to invest in them. You got to invest emotional labor into them. You have to invest time into them. But what you put into that, you get in return, right? Those relationships are also going to be supporting you in those different ways.
Adam: And from that bigger picture standpoint too, it puts us in a situation where, again, we are a little more empathetic to different people and stuff like that. And I know there are times-all the time-where you don't want to give people that empathy, but probably you should. And we'd all be a little bit better for it.
Kirsten: Yeah. Well, and I mean, one thing that you're sort of talking about, there's a large portion of the population that doesn't necessarily have the same types of social interactions that we have. And so when you're talking about empathy, I always try to think about these populations that are just a little bit more isolated. So if you think of the elderly, you talked about your wife, and I think about this with my spouse, I've always said, I get to die first. Right? I don't.
Adam: I will. So she's lucky on that one. Yeah, she gets to break.
Kirsten: I just because I don't know what to do socially after that. But if you think about that, and this is all joking aside, my stepmom passed away a little over a year ago. And so then my dad was alone, and I think seeing how not having his spouse, particularly a spouse that was a little bit more outgoing than him, impacted his ability to have social interactions. It makes me really think about that population of elderly individuals who maybe because they've lost a spouse, maybe because they can't drive, they're not as mobile as they used to be. It's restricting their social interactions. But the elderly aren't the only populations who have restricted interactions. If you think about kids over the summer, they can't necessarily drive. Their parents might be off working or whatever. They can't hang out with their friends. And so you feel really restricted. But inmates maybe. They can't necessarily socialize. People who are living in different types of care facilities, maybe people with different types of disabilities that limit their access to other areas, then you're thinking like, wow, there's actually a pretty big population that doesn't necessarily get to interact with the world in the ways that I interact with the world. And so then you have a population of people who are really pretty lonely and chatting up the cashier or chatting up the person, the bank teller, that becomes sort of a lifeline for them to be able to connect with another person. Because when they go home, there isn't anybody at home for them to talk with. So when you start to think about that, I'm always really game for talking with people. Maybe this is the conversation they're having.
Adam: That's why old men in airports give you such good stories.
Kirsten: Yeah, exactly.
Adam: Social circle shrinks the longer around.
Kirsten: Yeah. And they're low, like low risk, right? If you pour your heart out to the old man at the airport, you're never going to see him again. Right? You could tell him whatever you want.
Adam: Probably. I've had a lot of good airport conversations.
Kirsten: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
Adam: Almost as good as this one. Almost as good as this one. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming in.
Kirsten: Thank you.
Adam: I appreciate you. Thanks for giving us your time, and hopefully we can talk about social interactions again sometimes.
Kirsten: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Don't forget, talk with those to strangers.
Adam: Yeah, talk to strangers. Yeah, talk to strangers. Just don't take any candy from them.
Kirsten: Yeah. Or get in buses. Yeah, of course.
Adam: Thanks for stopping by The Search Bar. Make sure that you like and subscribe so that you don't have to search for the next episode.