The Power of Getting Together

Yes, indeed, socializing is good for your mental health. I mentioned it in reference to children in my prior post, but here is a supplementary analysis by University of Kansas Professor Jeffrey Hall.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal Hall notes that we have increasingly been choosing to retreat within ourselves, thus avoiding other people. He considers it to be monastic, but it seems to have three other important causes.

The first is the therapy culture obsession with introspection, which tells us to look within our souls to discover what we really, really feel. Thus, what with the therapy culture’s bias toward the feminine and the interior, we have lost the habit of getting out of ourselves and of participating in social rituals.

The second cause, in America, at least, involves forced multicultural diversity. As Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam explained in his paper “E Pluribus Unum” when people from different cultures are forced to live in close proximity, they tend to avoid each other. They tend to hunker down within a small circle of trusted friends.

This effect is magnified when members of different cultures become radioactive, when the least disparaging word is taken to be evidence of bigotry. In some ways the same effect was produced by the #MeToo movement, when more than a few wives of senior management forbid their husbands ever to mentor young women. Why risk your family’s well-being?

The third cause, most notable among the young generation, is that far too many people have very bad manners. Young people are insolent and obnoxious, so why would anyone want to have in-person more than is necessary?

As it happens, people around the world are retreating from social interaction and getting lost in their minds-- or perhaps in their social media and video games. 

All over the world, and for decades, people have been embracing their interior lives more and interacting less, and they are doing this by choice.

I analyzed time-diary data from three countries and found that time spent talking to other people—both inside the home and outside of it—has been in decline for nearly 30 years. Telephone and video calls haven’t made up for that loss.

In effect, we are falling further and further away from one another. And not only are we not thinking about the broader price we may be paying. We probably think it’s actually a good thing.

How does Hall explain this?

In short, people are exhausting. Humans have an innate desire to conserve our energy in social interactions, and interacting with others takes work. It’s tiring to act in a certain way for the benefit of others. Sometimes people have disagreeable opinions or talk about uninteresting things.

Then again, someone taught us that interacting with other people requires us to falsify who we really are, and to remove us from the self-exploration regimes that therapy promotes:

At the same time, introversion seems to be having a moment. For World Introvert Day, we learn how to celebrate the introverts in our lives and cultivate our own introverted self. Self-care regimes focus on cultivation of a mindful, inwardly focused life.

There are increasing efforts to cut out other people in the name of removing toxicity. And all these tendencies are pushed forward by frictionless technologies that remove social obligations to leave home, talk to others and engage in our community.

As I have noted, our culture has made other people toxic. It has made interactions risky and has produced more introversion.

And yet, Hall continues, this retreat into ourselves comes with a price:

The contemporary shift toward interiority has very different consequences than in the past. Removing the routine obligations of social life drains presence, conversational practice, relational effort and friendship from all of us.

What do we stand to lose in this climate of interiority? I’ve written about how in-person routines at work facilitate conversation and friendship. Many companies also warn of lost innovation and creativity without the trust forged by face-to-face interactions.

Obviously, the issue has gained importance with the current urge for more people to work at home. As you know, many corporate executives have insisted that staff show up in the office. And, as you also know, many younger staff are rebelling against this diktat.

What are the advantages to in-person work?

Simply being around other people has benefits. Classic studies of the power of proximity show how just living near people increases the chances of friendship. Such familiarity lowers individuals’ perceptions of risk and increases our effort toward interacting in more responsive and attentive ways to one another.

A shared space, especially when complemented by a shared task, requires conversation. Simple, everyday conversations are more valuable than they seem on the surface. Exciting new research shows that talking with responsive communication partners softens our viewpoints, reduces our need to be right, and helps us become less self-focused.

So, face-to-face conversation gets us out of ourselves, which is largely beneficial for our mental health:

A societal shift toward interiority also may justify putting less effort into caring for each other. Consider the conversation about cutting out people from our lives in the name of removing toxicity. This way of thinking suggests people are a barrier to our self-preservation and happiness. It makes sense, then, that people would look to themselves for solace when they feel disconnected. But such behavior is self-defeating, only exacerbating the underlying discomfort of isolation.

If we need time to make and enjoy friends, then a downward shift in social time for all of us means there is simply less time to go around. After all, your time given to me is my time gained. Neither of us profit from having no time together at all.

Happily enough, Hall does not recommend that we all go into therapy. Most therapy, especially the psycho analytic, forces patients into a dysfunctional conversational mode. So, Hall recommends that we work our atrophied social muscles by building social routines. Excellent advice:

 In my research, I found that people who build social routines that balance choice and familiarity find it easier to maintain their relationships and social health. Routines are gardens where relationships grow.

We all need a social regimen that trains our atrophied muscles, even if there is some short-term discomfort, and even if it means encountering people with disagreeable or uninteresting opinions.