The Importance of Being Social (E14)

Happiness for Cynics podcast – episode 14

Human beings are social animals, which is why forced isolation is driving so many of us up the walls. We discuss the science behind why we need to be social, and how best to be social, and offer some tips to keep your sanity in today’s locked down world.

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer and speaker, focused on change and resiliency. My co-host is Peter.  

P: Hi I’m Peter Furness and I’m a roof gardening, garage exercising, sometimes carpenter of strange door frames. Each week we will bring to you the latest news of research in the world of positive psychology. Otherwise, known as happiness.  

M: You can visit us at www.marieskelton.com and on that site you can send us ideas for people to interview or topics to cover or just tell us we’re wrong! [laughs] So today’s podcast… what are we talking about today, Pete?  

P: We’re talking about socialising and isolation.  

M: Sounds like a plan. Cue music.  

[Happy music] 

P: Happy music, it just it still makes us laugh. You said it wouldn’t, but it does.  

M: It does. I hate and love it at the same time. Okay. All right. Well, Pete, today we’re talking about being social and particularly in light of coronavirus and being socially isolated for a lot of us. I think this is going to be a great conversation because of our personalities the introvert and extrovert, we’re on almost polar opposite ends.  

P: Almost. There’s a bit of each of each of us in the other.  

M: Definitely. And they say about introverts and extraverts that you’re never 100% one or 0% the other. There’s a mix in there. It’s a good mixed drink. 

P: Yeah, but you’re loving the isolation. You’re getting in there, you’re in a happy space.  

M: I’m thriving. Yeah, definitely. I am finding my passion in delving into creative pursuits and not being bothered by pesky people.  

P: Haha, Pesky people almost sounds like a tongue twister. It’s actually my first quote for today is “solitude is not negative for everyone.”  

M: Absolutely love it.  

P: It is a balancing act though it’s, even for introverts, there’s the whole thing about how much social isolation is too much and people in the research that I’ve done, and the people have read, they have talked about even introverts can have too much isolation and too much alone time. And that’s kind of the space that I think I’m going to dive into a little bit today, is how to find the right balance with social isolation.  

M: I absolutely agree. I think the other distinction here is being alone is very different from being lonely, and that for me is the line that you cross. You can thrive while being alone, but at some point if you’re alone too much, you may become lonely, and that’s a really dangerous place to be. And I think we mentioned that we did talk about the benefits of being alone in one of our previous episodes.

So just to give us the same the same grounding. In order for our species to survive, we needed to be social. And it’s a uniquely human trait. To have the ability to be compassionate and to care.  

P: Yes, definitely. It’s one of our really important mechanisms that our species has used to survive because we inherently care about the other person and we’ve got that pack mentality.

M: Yeah 

P: Shultz, Opie and Atkinson from Oxford University and we’ve got the University of St Andrews in Fyfe in the UK that have all done studies that prove this, and they talk about the way that communication was needed for our primates to survive, and also that communication was invented to go beyond the geographical. So we started using language. We started using symbols and hieroglyphics and all that sort of stuff to communicate, even though we couldn’t be next to somebody. So that’s been one of the chief aspects that has allowed us as a species to evolve.  

M: Yeah, absolutely. And along the way, as we’ve evolved, we’ve become craftier and craftier at designing tools to enable us to communicate. And one of the, I think the ironies of all of this is that face to face communication, time and time again has been proven to be the deepest and most beneficial form of communication. And all these tools that we’ve designed lately are actually taking us away from what is essentially the best way to communicate. So, writing on people’s Facebook, Twitter feeds, etcetera… all these other social media channels, email, even telephone. All of that is not ever as good as face to face communication.  

P: And there’s a reason scientifically for it Marie.

M: [Laugh]

P: I’ve got some information here that talks about face to face interaction by Susan Pinker, she talks about stimulating neurotransmitters primarily it’s oxytocin, which is the big one that’s concerned with the reward and pleasure and then we’ve also got dopamine and serotonin, which are also secreted during that face on face interaction. [Laugh] Now you could say that face time and zooming –

M: [Laughing] Hold on, hold on –

P: What, what, what, what?

M: You just said face on face.

P: Face on face interaction. It means you’re looking at someone.

M: No, face on face is like ‘I got to second base’.

P: [Laugh] it’s, okay… I’ve lost my train of thought now.  

M: I’ll pick up, then I’ll keep going with that. So, apart from all the feel-good chemicals in there, there are a raft of benefits, so face to face communication is the best. The other ways that we communicate and bond with other people are still valid in the absence of face to face. So before you all run screaming for your… bedroom – like you can’t go far right now with COVID-19 wherever it is that you run to, to hide in your house – because you’re there alone and we’ve just told you face to face is the best way to communicate. There are still other ways that you can communicate and still get the benefits, but they just won’t be as strong. And that’s probably a lot of what people are missing right now, particularly the extroverts who thrive off those positive chemicals

P: I’ve got some statistics here that from Professor Matthew Lieberman at the University of California in Los Angeles. He talks about the fact that that social motivation, social contact helps to improve memory formation and memory recall in your brain. So it’s keeps your neuro plasticity going, which is a huge aspect which we’ll talk about later in terms of the Super Ages, the people who are over eighty and all that cognitive, behavioural stuff that goes on. So being social and having a social conscience actually really triggers all that sort of stuff. And the other big one that he, he talks about is the neurodegenerative diseases. So it protects the brain from falling into that space where you’re not using certain pathways, you’re not using your links and they can die. If we’re not using all that, as we age as well, it becomes more important and I’ll talk about that more when we get down to that section.

M: What section? Let’s talk about it now.

P: Oh, okay. So super ageists, people over 80, they have, the ones who do really well have a really good quality of life. There’s one thing that they have identified with the research that they all have and that’s close friendships, and it’s funny that they liken this to teenagers. When we’re teenagers we have lots of really good friends and we’re hanging out, we’re going to the mall. We’re doing all this sort of stuff and they say that the Super Ages, who have those kinds of friendships into that later years actually have the behavioural cognition of teenagers.

M: Yep

P: So their brains are like teenagers. The contact with fellow ages provides a support for when times are tough. So when you are going through a bad time, or you are having issues with financial issues or personal relationships or just not feeling great, if you’re with a closely bonded group, people pick up on that. It only takes one person to go. Do you need a cup of tea Beryl? Maybe an iced vovo?

M: [Laugh] I love that you switch into 80 year old country Australian lady.

P: [Laugh] everybody had 90 year old Beryl or Aunty Esme.

M: [Laugh] Esme, we all watched ‘A Country Practice’.

P: [Laugh] Yeah, exactly.

M: What I love about the Super Ages and for those of you who may not be familiar with the term of super agers, Pete mentioned is over 80 and they are living a good life, free of major health concerns. So the main ones, the big ones, are any of the degenerative neuro[logical] or brain diseases.

P: Dementia and Alzheimer’s.

M: And Diabetes is another disease that can severely impact your wellbeing later in life. And I think it’s great, there’s a community and a concept that came out of this community in Japan called Ikigai, and if you haven’t looked up Ikigai it is a great way to do a bit of self-reflection about what’s important to you in life in general, and to help find your purpose and passions so Ikigai all about finding a purpose and passion. And they’ve got this group of super ages in Japan who were not only over 80 they’re all over 100.

[Laughter]

M: Right?! And they’re all great, like they’re just killing it, right. And they’ve got these great cultural norms in that town that mean that their society is so tight knit and they all look after each other. And it’s all about the social aspect.  And when you look at super ages in, they call them blue zones around the world. So where are the pockets of the people that are living good lives later in life? There are definitely things to be said for not smoking, not consuming too much alcohol. Having good diets, doing exercise but all of those things vary except –

P: The one constant.

M: The one constant is your social connections and the depth of social connections. It’s really fascinating.

P: There’s another doctor who studied at an island in Greece, Dr. Archelle Georgiou and she studied Super Ages in Greece, who had a very strong family ties and spent the majority of their time with family, so um, and I think this is something that there’s also very indicative in Asian cultures is that grandma lives with the kids. So there’s Mom and Dad, there’s kids but Grandma and Grandpa are there as well and there’s a real family unit and you see it as well in other cultures, like the Italian culture and the Greek culture. Nonna and Nonno, they’re always around and there’s a really sense of commitment to that generational gap and being a part of each other’s lives. And I think that ultimately that helps, that helps create that sense of community and that sense of support. So again, reaching out to those people who are who are older is really vital because everybody benefits.

M: Yeah, I think the sad thing about what you’ve said there is that a lot of Western countries started off that way, too. But as our social safety systems have evolved, it has enabled our older people to remain independent for longer, and I don’t think that, that’s necessarily helping them. So when you have the pension and you can stay in your home, even though your significant other may have passed away. You can stay there by yourself because you could afford to. Then it really can lead to isolation. Being lonely is such an epidemic right now around the world, and they’re saying a lot of the reasons people are lonely is because we’ve actually progressed so much in society that we can be. We’re choosing it without realising the negative impact.

P: Definitely.

M: And it’s really something that people have grown up learning to covet and cherish, [it] is the ability to have your own space.

P: Yeah.

M: But just like you were saying before Pete, if you’re an introvert, you need to be careful. Well, if you live alone, you also need to be really careful.

P: Yeah, I’m going to cut in there, Marie, because there’s a there’s a couple of tips in there for people that can actually monitor their alone time. And this comes from psychology today in the States and its basically checking in and asking yourself a couple of couple of really easy questions. And the first one is how does alone time make you feel on a scale of 1 to 10. Do you feel great when you’re alone or do you feel slightly depressed, or not even depressed that just a little bit sad when you’re alone? If you’re checking that in on daily basis, if you’ve got two weeks of social isolation. If you’ve just come off a ship or something and you’re on your own that first week, you like, ‘yeah, I’m good. I’m watching … series, you know, having a great time, I’m ordering pizza, it’s really good.’ And then, towards the end of that second week your rating might be down to the down to the twos and the threes because you’re starting to crave a little bit of contact. And I think that’s a really good, easy way of checking in with yourself and just going. ‘How does being alone make me feel today?’

P: The other one that they talk about is having a weekly quota of social time. So this is a really interesting one for introverts, because for some introverts, it’s really difficult to clock up two hours of community social time for the extroverts they’re in there at [Click, click, click] six or seven.

M: Pete’s clicking his fingers if you’re wondering what that sound is. Remember it’s a podcast Pete [laugh].

P: Oh, I thought we were recording.

M: But I think a really good point there, though, is that for introverts. A lot of them thrive in one to one conversation, and that is their comfort zone. And that’s where they get their really solid social interaction.

P: And that’s still social time. It’s still valid.

M: And we’re not… We’re not having wild parties right now because we’ve tried it on Zoom and we just end up talking over each other and it doesn’t work. But I think, I think it’s, it’s important to point out that introverts won’t shy away from one on one conversations that often. They actually quite enjoy them and are drawn to those so that could actually suit the way that introverts enjoy communicating.

P: Okay, yeah, I’ll definitely give you that. I still think that the idea of having a quota of hours that you’ve got to clock, I think it’s a good recognition, like if you’re easily clocking [click, click, click] three or four hours a week, there’s me clicking again.

[Laughter]

P: It’s the inner dance teacher in me, ‘5,6,7,8.’

[More laughter]

P: Sorry, if you’re clocking that quota time easily, then obviously it is working for you. But if you’re not, if you’re only managing 30 minutes of social time a week, that’s an indication that you might need to look at other ways to try and make yourself a little more social you’re in that danger area of possibly falling in too much alone time.

M: So I love what you said about clocking it. I’ll just snap my fingers. [click, click]

P: [Laugh]

M: Clocking the time that you feel you need, but how much you need? I wouldn’t quantify that because I think everyone differs.

P: OK

M: And I think you could go an entire week loving your life and being left alone by the world and not need to see anyone. And the next week you might need to talk to someone every day.

P: OK, I’ll give you that. I’ll agree with that one.

M: Woohoo. Yeah, that’s a win that’s the first time in season.

[Laughter]

P: Oh, come on. You’ve had a few wins. I’ve let you have a few ones.

M: We do tend to not agree a lot though, don’t we?

P: We agree surprisingly well on a lot of this stuff actually.

M: Yeah, we do.

P: It’s a little bit concerning [laugh].

M: So what I do love as far as tips so obviously face to face is better. So the next best thing while in self-isolation is to do video chatting. And obviously we’re doing too much because you, you know, working from home in an office type of role where you’re having meetings, then you might want to scale that back in your after-hours time. But for everyone else, we should be trying to make eye contact with people and see facial expressions and bond Pete, just like what we’re doing now.

P: [Laugh] I’ve read something recently about, talk to your neighbours, that sense of doing that whole thing and talking to your neighbour, which I think in a city like Sydney, we’ve kind of, especially in the city, we’ve lost that. We don’t talk to our neighbours much anymore.

M: No, because they could be crazy! That’s what happens when you move to the big city Pete. Only the crazies actually talk to you, which is why everyone else doesn’t talk.

P: Oh, no, I’m not going to give you that one. I’m not going to give you that one. It takes for one person to actually say something, and it could be that you’re putting your head over your neighbour’s back fence to tell them to turn the bloody workout music down. That’s fine.

M: I’m trying to find my neighbour, I’m in apartment block and I was trying to find my neighbour the other day who was playing music, that I wanted them to turn up and I was like ‘this is awesome, where are you?’

[Laughter]

P: And that’s what I’m saying, I love some things that I’ve seen. There was a wonderful Facebook video of Joyce Mayne, who’s a very butch drag queen here in Sydney. And she was on the rooftop of her apartment building in Potts Point and she had a stereo system blasting, and she had someone filming and she got into full drag. And she did a full Robin take off of dancing on my own on her rooftop, and everybody stuck their heads out the windows and watched and clapped and that’s, and that’s face on face.

[Laugh]

P: It’s face to face time.

M: It went from drag show to…

[Laughter]

P: But that’s what I mean, those sorts of interactions are every bit as vital, and it is about that thing of recognising the person that you actually do see so it can be your neighbour going ‘Yeah, I saw the cat the other day, how’s she doing?

M: So I have heard of some really good things that people can do while they’re on video chats. So if you’re getting bored with just calling friends, I’ve got some tips and ideas. Virtual coffees, so we’ve been doing those with colleagues at work, so you’re going to grab a coffee anyway. You’ll just cheque in, have a bit of a chat. No work conversations allowed.

P: It’s the old fashion, smoko.

M: Yeah it is or water cooler conversations because they’ve stopped, right? Yes. So the gossip mill has just died in all these corporate [environments].

P: [Laugh] Oh, dear. Beryl’s not going to be happy about that.

M: No. And then the one I love is quarantinis.

P: Oh, that sounds fun.

M: We should schedule one of those for later in the week Pete.

P: Oh dear, that could be dangerous.

M: And then the last one is fitness classes or fitness with friends. Or just seeing what your local gyms doing a lot of gyms and personal trainers and now during classes online. And there is still some social interaction with that. If you do it with someone else, you know, you’re more likely to do it. It keeps you more motivated and the benefits of the exercise are improved or increased.

P: Definitely, yeah. Science says so and it’s all about the science Marie.

M: Science says!

[Laughter]

M: And before we go, the one thing that we didn’t say being social is critical for your happiness. We didn’t come..  

P: Oh.

M: Why are we here Pete? What’s the name of our podcast?

P: [Laugh] Well, it’s sort of inherent, really. I mean, we could talk for hours about that. We probably have over several different episodes to be honest.

M: Yep and I think we might call it an episode. Thank you for joining us and visit us.

P: Done! Done and dusted.

M: Please join us @marieskelton.com to find all of our podcast episodes and accompanying research. Until next time.

P: Stay happy people.

[Happy exit music]