The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025


#160： How Face-to-Face Contact Can Make You Healthier, Happier, and Smarter


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:00:18.360 So for this past year, I've been doing a lot of research on the benefits of face-to-face
00:00:22.360 conversation and looking for ways to incorporate it more in my life.
00:00:26.440 And one of the books I found extremely helpful in my research is a book called The Village
00:00:31.620 Effect by Susan Pinker.
00:00:34.400 And in it, she highlights all this research, not just the psychological benefits of face-to-face
00:00:38.940 contact, because I think that's what we usually focus on when we talk about the benefits of
00:00:42.600 conversation, but also there's physiological benefits of face-to-face conversation.
00:00:47.540 It reduces blood pressure, increases longevity, and that's just to start with.
00:00:52.740 So today on the podcast, I have Susan Pinker on, and we're going to discuss how face-to-face
00:00:57.700 contact can make us healthier, happier, and smarter, and how you can get more of it in
00:01:02.240 your life.
00:01:02.960 Let's do this.
00:01:09.160 Susan Pinker, welcome to the show.
00:01:11.180 Thank you very much.
00:01:12.500 So your book is The Village Effect.
00:01:14.180 It's all about the science of face-to-face conversation or interaction.
00:01:17.980 I'm curious, was there an experience that you had that inspired your decision to research
00:01:22.640 and write about the benefits of face-to-face conversation?
00:01:25.840 There was, in fact.
00:01:27.560 You know, when I finished my last book, which is called The Sexual Paradox, I was struck by
00:01:32.240 a puzzle, and that's that everywhere in the developed world, women live on average five
00:01:40.080 to seven years longer than men do.
00:01:41.860 And this sex difference in longevity really puzzled me, and I decided to pursue the question,
00:01:48.460 why is that?
00:01:49.780 And I found out a couple of things that started me off on the journey of writing this new book.
00:01:54.820 One was, there is one place in the world where men do live as long as women and where people
00:02:01.120 live extraordinarily long lives in general, and that's a place in Sardinia, part of Italy.
00:02:06.640 And I decided to go there and explore a little bit more about what's going on there.
00:02:12.280 So that was one of the reasons.
00:02:15.200 And the other is that I found some emerging research from the field of social neuroscience
00:02:19.540 that was very clear that our relationships have a huge impact on how long we live and
00:02:25.920 how healthy we are.
00:02:27.080 Well, I think that's interesting.
00:02:28.180 Most people think about, when they think about social interaction, they think how it affects
00:02:31.820 you emotionally, all right?
00:02:32.800 It's good for if you're depressed and you get out there and speak with people.
00:02:35.280 They don't really think about the physiological benefits of it.
00:02:38.640 So what did you discover in this small town in Italy?
00:02:42.680 What was it about social interaction that contributed to longevity in both men and women?
00:02:49.720 Well, I'm going to give you two answers to that question.
00:02:52.700 In terms of Sardinia, what was most striking in terms of the experience is that older people
00:03:00.380 and people there live into their hundreds and many till, you know, 105, 110.
00:03:07.040 And what's extraordinary is that unlike here in North America, they are never left alone.
00:03:13.800 They are always surrounded by friends and family.
00:03:16.200 And that struck me, especially since I was creating a radio documentary about this phenomenon
00:03:21.420 and I could never get any clean tape because they were always surrounded, as I say, in their
00:03:26.480 living rooms with, you know, four, six, sometimes eight people who were constantly with them,
00:03:33.140 which is very much in contrast to the way we age in America where, you know, essentially
00:03:40.480 you're left alone most of the time, you know, where solitude is part of your experience.
00:03:49.160 So that's one part of the question.
00:03:51.700 And the other part of the question is that there's new emerging evidence from the field
00:03:57.160 of social neuroscience that your body and brain really don't distinguish between emotional
00:04:02.180 and physiological benefits or harms.
00:04:05.000 In other words, if you feel lonely or if you feel sad or abandoned or isolated, that is
00:04:12.020 going to have a direct impact on your heart rate, how well you heal from wounds, how, you
00:04:18.940 know, easily you're going to lose your memory, how well you're going to recover from cancer.
00:04:24.780 And this was like completely shocking to me and very new.
00:04:28.980 And I thought it was interesting throughout the book, you talked about the differences between
00:04:33.140 men and women.
00:04:34.060 And you talk, you call it the female effect.
00:04:35.620 How does socialization affect men and women differently?
00:04:40.180 Well, for one thing, women have evolved specific hormonal pathways that allow them, they, we've
00:04:46.360 evolved them initially to allow us to communicate with nonverbal babies and children, small children.
00:04:51.880 So when women reach out to others, oxytocin is released and this makes them feel great, but
00:04:57.380 it also tamps down their stress levels and increases their immunity, not just oxytocin, but dopamine
00:05:03.740 and other neurotransmitters and hormones.
00:05:07.500 So that's one of the physiological clues.
00:05:10.080 But it also has to do with the way women live their lives and the priorities that they set
00:05:16.560 for themselves.
00:05:17.560 I mean, research from social science tells us that women spend a lot more time building,
00:05:24.300 grooming, prioritizing their relationships.
00:05:26.540 I mean, most people can see that they spend more time initially, you know, talking over
00:05:32.680 their porches or back fences than using telephone.
00:05:37.100 Now it could be using Skype.
00:05:39.480 But in general, they choose jobs where they work with people they like and respect, where
00:05:45.260 they have a lot of social contact.
00:05:46.780 And they tend to enjoy life much more when they spend time with friends and family.
00:05:52.960 And they make that priority number one.
00:05:56.660 On average, this is not the same for men.
00:05:59.420 So one of the really huge sex differences is what happens when you lose your spouse.
00:06:05.640 This is a piece of research called the widowhood effect.
00:06:08.880 We've known this for several hundred years, that men who are single die faster than men who
00:06:14.660 are married, and especially men who are married who lose their wives are at tremendous risk
00:06:20.660 of dying themselves within the first six months to a year after they've been widowed.
00:06:26.180 This is not as true for women.
00:06:28.100 And it's not because women aren't as sad to lose their spouses.
00:06:32.040 It's because women tend to have established huge support networks outside their marriage.
00:06:39.160 And so they have lots of friends and family who are there for them.
00:06:42.480 Whereas for men, it's much more often the case that their wife is their only intimate
00:06:47.460 contact.
00:06:48.740 Not only that, but their wives bring in friends and family.
00:06:53.100 Their wives are the ones who invite people for holidays, who send the cards, who make
00:06:57.780 the phone calls, who send over, you know, the casseroles or cakes when someone is sick.
00:07:03.120 So when they lose their wives, suddenly their social, their face-to-face social network falls
00:07:09.440 away.
00:07:09.840 I thought it was interesting how you pointed out how the differences between men and women
00:07:13.920 socialize.
00:07:14.400 It's not that men don't socialize.
00:07:16.960 You said that women focus on more of those tight-knit, close relationships, and men are
00:07:21.260 more focused on weaker ties or bigger groups.
00:07:24.980 Is that correct?
00:07:25.420 Yeah.
00:07:26.020 I'll tell you a little anecdote of a couple of people I profiled in the book.
00:07:30.700 And this was another occasion when I was very much surprised by my research.
00:07:36.540 So I interviewed one fellow who I introduced to the reader at the beginning of the book,
00:07:40.900 John McCogan, who's a musician and he needs a kidney transplant.
00:07:45.340 And he had four compatible people in his network who stepped forward.
00:07:49.060 And this was partially because of the type of outgoing, gregarious person he is.
00:07:56.080 But when I asked him, oh, like, give me an example of some of your friends, he flipped
00:08:00.780 open his phone and he had 350 social contacts.
00:08:05.220 So he had this enormous network, but many of them were people he hadn't seen in many years.
00:08:10.100 And in contrast, one of the women who I thought was fantastically socially integrated into a
00:08:16.500 community was a great civic participator, had a lot of friends, swam on a swim team, etc.
00:08:22.980 You know, when I said, well, how many people are in your social network?
00:08:26.100 She said 15.
00:08:28.140 And what was striking about that is that that surprised me, but that's actually very typical
00:08:33.620 because women tend to have very tightly knit, well-integrated, well-interwoven networks of
00:08:40.360 people who will step forward and help them when they need it.
00:08:44.880 Men tend to have much larger, more dispersed social networks, weaker ties.
00:08:51.780 So think of, for example, all the men that someone might know who's been in the military
00:08:58.040 or who's been working in a huge multinational corporation.
00:09:03.620 Are these people who are going to step forward to bring him to his chemotherapy appointment?
00:09:09.380 Probably not.
00:09:10.600 Or there will be very few.
00:09:12.360 Or who will step forward if he needs to borrow $1,000?
00:09:15.940 Probably not.
00:09:17.360 So when we look at networks, men's networks on average tend to be larger but shallower connections.
00:09:24.420 Women tend to have smaller but more tightly knit, interwoven social lives.
00:09:29.720 So many more intimate contacts that they keep in touch with.
00:09:33.620 And social scientists distinguish between those two kinds of contacts, and we need both of them.
00:09:40.600 We need the close-knit contacts, and we need the kind of looser ones that we have with neighbors,
00:09:46.680 colleagues, and friends in the community.
00:09:49.420 So the close ones we call social support, and that's a hugely powerful predictor of our health
00:09:57.320 and how long we live, how many of those contacts we have and how strong they are.
00:10:01.940 But our weaker contacts are important, too.
00:10:06.160 And what's really important about that, Brett, is that that's changing now.
00:10:11.780 We have many fewer of both types of contacts than we used to even since the mid-'80s.
00:10:17.960 So in one generation, our face-to-face contacts are diminishing.
00:10:23.240 I mean, it's kind of—I guess that raises the question.
00:10:26.220 So does, like, social media and email and texting, that has no effect on our health?
00:10:31.980 That has no effect on our—you know, the benefits that come with weak ties?
00:10:35.800 So it has to be face-to-face?
00:10:38.680 It's early days, so I can't say it has no effect.
00:10:42.140 I would say it has a differential effect depending on who you are.
00:10:48.240 So I think you could say about your contacts over the Internet that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
00:10:56.760 So people who are already outgoing and gregarious and get out there and meet people and see people,
00:11:02.320 well, they just use whatever online tools they have to do more of that, okay?
00:11:08.940 But what is concerning many social scientists is that people who don't feel comfortable going out there
00:11:15.960 and meeting people, perhaps introverts or people who work long hours
00:11:20.280 or just don't feel that comfortable reaching out,
00:11:23.300 they use sometimes online contact as a substitute as opposed to amplify their real social lives.
00:11:32.100 And that's what's worrisome.
00:11:34.120 So I don't think it's fair or true to say that the Internet is unilaterally a bad thing
00:11:42.660 or erodes our social lives, because I think it's just not true.
00:11:46.980 I think what is true, though, is that people tend to conflate the two types of contacts,
00:11:52.980 and that is a huge myth and a problem.
00:11:56.920 It would be like saying eating a drive-through fast food meal in your car is the same thing
00:12:04.900 as sitting down with a group of friends and having a home-cooked meal, you know,
00:12:10.820 over wine and chatting for a couple of hours.
00:12:14.340 It's just not the same.
00:12:15.640 It might still give you a hit of 2,000 calories,
00:12:18.460 but the impact on your body and brain is completely different.
00:12:21.840 And everybody now acknowledges that there's a difference between, say, you know,
00:12:28.360 eating a chocolate bar and eating a home-cooked meal
00:12:31.260 or going to the store to pick up milk with your car versus walking there or biking there.
00:12:40.100 We all acknowledge that.
00:12:41.380 But when it comes to social contact, which I might add is the most powerful predictor,
00:12:46.860 your lifestyle predictor of how long you will live compared to almost anything that you can control,
00:12:53.640 we still haven't reached the point where we've acknowledged that there's various different types of contact
00:13:00.020 and they're not all created equal.
00:13:02.880 So, I mean, what's going on with face-to-face contact that you can't get in social media or text messaging?
00:13:08.420 I mean, what is going on between the two individuals?
00:13:10.900 Well, for one thing, that the honest signals that are communicated don't come across over the screen.
00:13:21.060 I think we're getting better at it, at getting those signals.
00:13:24.520 But, for example, you know, when you're in person and you're communicating with somebody,
00:13:29.380 you move forward, the other person moves forward.
00:13:32.000 You move backward, the other person moves backward.
00:13:34.240 You might sort of raise your eyebrows, and instinctively the other person does, too,
00:13:38.620 showing their surprise at what you're saying.
00:13:40.280 And all these synchronous little cues and acts that you're together in communicating and receiving the message
00:13:49.700 communicate a sense of trust.
00:13:52.400 And it's very difficult for that to happen over the Internet.
00:13:57.600 There are other things, like even a little pat or high-five or handshake or, you know, a little slap on the back.
00:14:05.680 Those release, those hormones and neurotransmitters that are incredibly powerful in terms of your cognitive abilities,
00:14:16.180 your ability to handle stress.
00:14:18.420 Like, the minute somebody touches you in a friendly or supportive way, you get a rush, a release of oxytocin.
00:14:25.100 And those floods of hormones and neurotransmitters just don't happen over the Internet.
00:14:30.860 What happens over the Internet is you get information.
00:14:34.020 And information is incredibly useful if it's a useful part of communication.
00:14:39.420 But that's not everything that we get out of communication.
00:14:42.840 When we're mammals, essentially, and we've evolved to see the whites of each other's eyes,
00:14:49.760 to be able to understand and generate trust by being near each other.
00:14:54.960 And people who underestimate the kind of nonverbal signals that happen together when you're in the same place
00:15:02.980 are making a huge mistake.
00:15:04.960 So, for example, we know now that in salary negotiations, if people are together in the same room
00:15:12.740 and mimic each other precisely, even saying the same words back and forth,
00:15:18.900 the person who's in the position of requesting a salary increase is going to enjoy a 20% to 30% boost in salary
00:15:26.420 if all they do is mimic the other person.
00:15:28.720 It has an enormous impact.
00:15:30.940 And we can measure this now in terms of, you know, it's ironically little iPhone-like devices called sociometers.
00:15:39.740 You can measure, if you take away the content of what's being said,
00:15:44.560 you can measure the signal that happens face-to-face and how powerful it is in generating, say,
00:15:53.460 who is the most, in understanding who is the most cohesive in the group.
00:15:58.880 Now, let me rephrase that because that's not quite true.
00:16:02.980 It can predict, these sociometers can predict by crunching all the data who will be the leader in a group
00:16:09.880 or which groups will be most cohesive.
00:16:12.840 So, I think we, you know, to reiterate, we make a mistake when we conflate Internet-generated types of communication
00:16:21.640 with the face-to-face type of communication.
00:16:25.560 They're just different.
00:16:27.980 Yeah.
00:16:28.500 So, going on this idea of, like, mimicry and being in sync with others,
00:16:32.320 you talk about how religion, church, is a great place for this to happen.
00:16:37.200 I mean, how does religiosity contribute to someone's social well-being?
00:16:41.860 Well, there are a couple of ways.
00:16:48.020 What scientists measure when they look at religious participation is just that.
00:16:54.760 How often do people go to church?
00:16:58.040 How often do they participate in church activities?
00:17:00.740 Because they can't get inside your brain and find out how powerful your belief in God is.
00:17:05.320 But what we do know is that the more you participate in religious activities,
00:17:12.020 the greater your benefit in terms of your health.
00:17:16.160 And I think that the impact is really the social element.
00:17:21.560 You are with people.
00:17:23.660 You have an automatic sense of trust by doing things together at the same time.
00:17:29.220 Religion is kind of a shortcut to all sorts of evolutionary ways of knowing that you're with people who are like you.
00:17:38.320 You bow and sing at the same time.
00:17:41.960 You help each other.
00:17:44.140 People who are religious tend to give more blood and give more to charity, for example.
00:17:49.060 And all of these acts pull you together as a group.
00:17:54.220 And that has an impact on your physiology.
00:17:56.860 Yeah, I thought it was interesting, the example you gave of the pastor who would have his congregation say things to each other.
00:18:04.060 And you're like, that guy probably read neuroscience studies.
00:18:06.980 He's doing exactly what he should be doing if he wants to encourage group cohesiveness.
00:18:12.800 Yeah, and what was so surprising to me is that, you know, as you started out when we started to chat,
00:18:21.000 with the question of, this is not fuzzy stuff.
00:18:26.840 When scientists say, like Julianne Holt Lundstedt from Brigham Young University studies everything about your lifestyle.
00:18:37.100 So she takes a huge group of people, 40,000 Americans, and measures everything about them,
00:18:42.880 their weight, how much they drink, whether or not they're married, where they live, whether they've smoked or have given up smoking,
00:18:51.020 whether they get a flu shot, whether they've had a heart attack, whether the air they breathe is clean or polluted,
00:18:56.660 everything about lifestyle that we think so much about, especially things like diet and exercise.
00:19:02.440 And then she just sat still and watched who would still be living and breathing after seven years
00:19:10.240 and found that the most powerful predictor, lifestyle predictor, was social contact, more than smoking,
00:19:19.280 more than exercise habits, more than your body mass index, more than your weight, more than cardiac rehab,
00:19:27.280 more than drugs for hypertension, more than polluted air, your social contact was the strongest predictor of how long,
00:19:36.960 who would still be alive after seven years.
00:19:39.060 And that really struck me, not just one type of social contact, but two types that I mentioned before,
00:19:46.480 the intimate social contact that you call, we call social support, and what's called integrated social support,
00:19:53.120 how much you get out there and participate in your community.
00:19:56.100 You know, how often do you get away and out of your office, away from your computer, and see people,
00:20:03.060 whether it's for, you know, civic participation, like playing hockey or bowling or volunteering in your church or elsewhere,
00:20:12.320 or if it's just chatting with your neighbors or card games.
00:20:16.840 It doesn't actually matter what you do, it just matters that you get out there and do it.
00:20:21.180 Well, one way that, um, serious static, are you hearing that?
00:20:29.020 You hear, no, I don't hear any static at all.
00:20:30.640 Okay, all right, I heard some static.
00:20:31.960 Okay, well, one way that people get out there and socialize is through food.
00:20:36.080 And I'm curious, why, what is it about food and drink that brings people together to talk?
00:20:41.640 Um, because anytime someone wants to get together, they're just like, let's, let's eat and drink.
00:20:44.940 Is there an evolutionary reason behind that?
00:20:48.640 I think that there is.
00:20:50.500 I know, you know, in the, in the village effect, I talk about how when humans evolved and changed
00:20:59.020 from being kind of solitary hunter-gatherers to living in communities about 10,000 years ago,
00:21:06.420 and that was when agriculture started, more or less.
00:21:11.120 Essentially, that's when we had the first evidence of community meals or community feasts.
00:21:17.040 And I think it's extremely important in pulling people together and allowing them to trust each other.
00:21:24.720 I mean, think about it.
00:21:25.920 At a meal, you're usually sitting face-to-face with people and talking.
00:21:31.060 And what's a little bit, I guess, unnerving about how this has changed in recent years
00:21:38.320 is that now people bring their devices to the table.
00:21:40.900 It used to be that there was television on while people were eating, but now people might
00:21:47.020 be eating together and looking at their phones.
00:21:49.360 And I think that many of us realize instinctively that we are kind of lessening the experience
00:21:58.260 or getting less of a benefit when we focus on the screen instead of on each other at meals.
00:22:04.260 And that's what it is, I'd say, kind of new emphasis, especially among the hipster generation
00:22:09.360 or the millennials to stash their phones before they sit down and have a social occasion,
00:22:15.100 whether it be a meal or drinks together, whatever, because they know that part of the experience
00:22:20.280 of eating and drinking is what happens, not just what you put in your mouth,
00:22:25.540 but as you look at each other and have that back and forth.
00:22:29.420 Yeah, I mean, what are some of the, what does the research say about the benefits of,
00:22:32.980 you know, particularly for family meals on children?
00:22:36.260 Well, that just knocked my socks off.
00:22:39.360 Because essentially, if parents just want to change one little thing about family life
00:22:47.260 to improve their child's prospects, it would be to have more meals together as a family.
00:22:53.480 And it sounds kind of hokey, you know, but all the research is pretty much unanimous.
00:22:59.600 And that is very rare in social science for people to agree.
00:23:02.120 But this is one area where there's almost no dissent, that the more often families eat together,
00:23:11.140 the less likely their kids are to drop out of school, to have problems with drugs or with anorexia
00:23:18.660 or with a child, you know, teenage pregnancy.
00:23:23.440 Essentially, it's a huge predictor of how well they will do in school and how long they'll stick with it.
00:23:28.520 It's a huge predictor of their verbal skills and their reading skills.
00:23:33.160 Now, the why question is somewhat more complex.
00:23:37.300 I don't think we can say that that easily why family meals predict all these great outcomes for kids.
00:23:46.740 But I would hazard a guess that when you're together over a meal,
00:23:52.000 sometimes that's the only time a family is together.
00:23:54.760 I mean, when I was a clinical psychologist, I would often ask parents, you know,
00:23:58.920 when do you spend time with, you know, Johnny or Jenny or whatever.
00:24:03.040 And most of them, most parents just said, in the car.
00:24:06.920 Okay.
00:24:07.340 But in a family meal, you're usually face-to-face.
00:24:10.660 You are talking about your day most of the time.
00:24:13.780 You can offer support.
00:24:15.160 You can generally communicate and show some emotional connection with your kids.
00:24:21.880 Because what is, I would say, interesting and alarming about American family life is that much of family life is spent alone.
00:24:31.800 You're in the house together, perhaps, but everybody's in their own room doing their own thing on their own device.
00:24:38.360 Whereas at a family meal, you're sitting down at the table and you're interacting.
00:24:41.800 And it's the interaction that's key.
00:24:43.380 Well, going off of that, so in the past few years, there's been increasing alarm about screen time, particularly for children.
00:24:53.260 Was there any research yet about how screen time affects children's social and intellectual development?
00:25:01.700 We don't have all the answers to that question yet.
00:25:04.500 And a lot of the research is correlational, so we don't know what comes first.
00:25:10.560 But we do know that it's what we call a dose-response effect, meaning the more you drink, the drunker you get.
00:25:18.620 The more screen time the kid has, really, the dumber he is in school.
00:25:23.820 It's really a very brute, unkind way of saying it.
00:25:27.520 And the more behavior problems he or she has, you want to have an impact on your child's social skills and academic achievement, reduce screen time.
00:25:38.820 It's absolutely, you know, astounding how, like, essentially how the research is pretty unanimous about the effect of screen time.
00:25:50.220 Now, of course, I think there are kids who are immune to this.
00:25:53.520 There are kids who will do well in school no matter what.
00:25:56.500 These tend to be high-income kids, kids where parents are investing a lot of time and money in their education and their stimulation.
00:26:05.440 And I would say for those kids, probably a little bit of screen time or a moderate amount of screen time is probably not going to make a huge difference to them.
00:26:13.660 But I would say the middle range of kids and the lower range of kids, either kids who don't get a lot of time, their parents' time,
00:26:23.320 either because their parents are working constantly to keep their heads above water financially or because they're single parents
00:26:30.160 or because they're newly arrived to the United States or for a whole host of reasons.
00:26:40.960 Those kinds of kids are at higher risk of doing more poorly in school because of increased game-playing screen time.
00:26:49.320 Because what we know is that, you know, obviously not all time spent on the screen is the same kind of time.
00:26:56.480 Some of it could be hugely interesting.
00:26:58.300 You could be reading books online or doing all sorts of challenging things.
00:27:04.240 But what we do know is that really the path of least resistance is the rule, that if kids are going home and nobody's monitoring it,
00:27:12.240 they're watching movies, they're downloading movies and porn if nobody's home to monitor what they're doing.
00:27:19.360 And we do know that essentially American kids and British kids are spending more time on the screen on any other activity, including sleeping.
00:27:29.620 That's the Pew Internet research that tells us that.
00:27:33.760 So for preschool kids, we're talking about four to five hours at least on the screen a day.
00:27:39.860 They're sleeping more than that, of course.
00:27:41.960 But for school-age kids and teenagers, they're spending more time alone and online than they are doing anything else,
00:27:49.420 socializing with their parents, with their friends, or in their beds.
00:27:53.380 Let's move on.
00:27:55.660 You know, for our listeners who have kids who are teenagers, you talk about cyberbullying.
00:28:00.060 And I think just recently there was a case here in the United States where a young person committed suicide
00:28:04.700 because of the bullying they received online.
00:28:08.220 What is it about the technology that encourages that sort of behavior online?
00:28:15.680 It's anonymity.
00:28:17.940 And so the fact that really it's the Wild West out there.
00:28:22.100 Nobody really has to own up to the horrible things they say or do online.
00:28:27.220 And, you know, I'm hoping that will change.
00:28:30.480 For example, in Canada now, cyberbullying has become a criminal offense.
00:28:36.860 But, and I don't know what will happen, you know, the more teenagers commit suicide, perhaps there'll be more emphasis on that.
00:28:44.760 But because people do not have to put a face and a name to what they say or do on the Internet, there's a lot of aggression.
00:28:53.220 There are trolls who do awful things on the Internet.
00:28:57.120 And the difficult part is that parents cannot really monitor everything that their kids are doing on the Internet.
00:29:06.640 Certainly at younger ages, they can control it because they're paying the bills.
00:29:10.760 So they can control how many devices the kids have, if there are devices in their rooms,
00:29:15.420 if they're allowed to have their computers or phones in bed with them or at mealtimes.
00:29:21.060 And they're essentially controlling the purse strings.
00:29:23.280 So they should be able to say who has what and when to turn it off.
00:29:28.700 But as kids get older, it's harder to know what they're doing online.
00:29:32.740 And that's really difficult because it can have a huge effect on their ability to concentrate and be happy.
00:29:41.400 Yeah. And I guess the lack of honest signals contributes as well.
00:29:46.820 Because, I mean, you could possibly know who someone is online and, like, just see an avatar of them.
00:29:51.260 But it's not the same as being with them face to face.
00:29:56.340 No. You know, that is, I think, a huge mistake.
00:30:00.300 And I think that, you know, especially for kids who might be vulnerable.
00:30:04.680 And parents mostly know who that is.
00:30:07.400 They know if their kids are fragile and vulnerable and they worry intensely about them.
00:30:13.660 Those, the vulnerable kids, the ones who are socially isolated, the ones who are struggling in school,
00:30:18.740 the ones who are at some point having a difficult time are the ones who will be more open to going online more often
00:30:27.780 and seeking contact online with strangers.
00:30:31.020 And that's where the danger lies.
00:30:32.900 Okay. So I thought your section on dating and love was really interesting because more and more frequently,
00:30:38.500 because people don't have these villages, right, face-to-face contacts as much as they used to,
00:30:45.020 they're going online to find love.
00:30:48.660 But can you talk about some of the research that shows that online dating isn't all that,
00:30:54.360 it's not cracked up what it's all, you know, it's not cracked up what it's to be?
00:30:56.940 Yeah, I mean, I would say that any way that you can meet somebody that allows you to form a rewarding relationship is great.
00:31:07.520 So I'm not knocking dating sites, you know, I'm not knocking them in general,
00:31:15.660 but what I am knocking is their ability to predict who is right for you.
00:31:19.860 There's no evidence at all that their so-called algorithms do anything of the sort.
00:31:25.480 And what often happens on dating sites is that people lie about themselves,
00:31:31.740 so you don't actually know who you're meeting when you set up a date,
00:31:37.420 and nobody is monitoring that.
00:31:38.960 And the research tells us that, you know, it's actually comical that men tend to exaggerate their height
00:31:46.600 and their income online, and women tend to diminish how much they weigh and how old they are online.
00:31:54.660 So, you know, one of the people who I quote in my book said he learned,
00:31:58.700 he went on something like 60 online, 60 dates of women he'd met online,
00:32:04.020 and he learned to watch out for sunglasses because, you know,
00:32:07.580 women would wear sunglasses to disguise how old they were.
00:32:11.360 And even in their photos, they'd post photos of themselves, you know,
00:32:15.520 10 years when they were 10 years younger.
00:32:17.140 So I think it's more, not that online dating sites are bad,
00:32:23.140 but that there is really no regulation about what they're promising you,
00:32:29.540 and it's essentially a consumer environment out there.
00:32:34.020 So very few people would go out and buy a car or buy a treadmill
00:32:37.680 or make any huge decision without doing their homework first.
00:32:41.840 And yet they engage in a lot of activity and invest a lot of time and effort
00:32:48.360 in meeting people on these sites where there's absolutely no regulatory environment.
00:32:54.480 So it might be good just to,
00:32:55.860 it's a great way to get you out there meeting different people,
00:32:59.020 that face-to-face contact,
00:33:00.160 then that's the moment where you could figure out
00:33:01.700 this is something that will be worth pursuing?
00:33:03.580 I think that's one thing it's great for.
00:33:07.220 I think, for example, if you live in a rural place
00:33:09.260 and you don't have a way to meet people,
00:33:12.080 that's a great thing.
00:33:14.380 I think that you have to be wary
00:33:16.540 and you have to set certain, I guess,
00:33:18.400 limits on what kind of contact there will be online.
00:33:21.620 But yeah, I mean, I would say that anything that gets you out there
00:33:24.600 meeting people in a safe environment is a good thing.
00:33:28.820 And so, you know, some of the dating sites can be, you know,
00:33:32.300 very useful to people if they use them judiciously,
00:33:35.440 just as they would for anything that they're, quote,
00:33:37.920 shopping for online,
00:33:39.740 as long as you realize that it creates that Christmas shopping feeling.
00:33:45.000 You know, I've had a lot of contact with friends who, you know,
00:33:50.620 single women who, when I ask them,
00:33:53.060 well, what are you looking for?
00:33:54.120 Well, because they have the online experience,
00:33:55.940 they give me a list of categories or criteria
00:33:59.000 where there is no man alive who fits those criteria.
00:34:04.080 You know, certainly not in their age bracket.
00:34:06.640 So it creates unreasonable expectations that can never be fulfilled.
00:34:11.160 Whereas when you meet somebody face-to-face,
00:34:13.540 no matter how you get together,
00:34:15.780 you get the whole gestalt of the person.
00:34:18.420 How you get, how they look,
00:34:21.900 what their skin smells like and feels like,
00:34:24.900 how they make eye contact.
00:34:27.340 Are they a good conversationalist?
00:34:29.340 Are they a warm person?
00:34:30.680 Do they feel like a cold fish when you get together?
00:34:33.060 You can't get much of that online at all.
00:34:35.800 Yeah.
00:34:36.420 So, Dr. Pinker, as I was reading your book,
00:34:38.920 I was, you know, I get really excited.
00:34:40.660 I was like, this is amazing.
00:34:41.500 I need more of this in my life.
00:34:43.320 But at the same time, I was frustrated
00:34:44.880 because I feel like a lot of, particularly American culture,
00:34:48.580 isn't conducive for, you know, a village life, right?
00:34:52.080 We're more, we're transient.
00:34:53.840 People move.
00:34:54.720 Families are separated from each other.
00:34:57.000 You have people working from home.
00:34:58.580 They don't have that face-to-face contact at work anymore.
00:35:01.560 Are there any practical tips that you can give people
00:35:05.300 on how they can recreate a quote-unquote village
00:35:08.180 in their own life, despite the culture that doesn't help that?
00:35:12.400 Yeah.
00:35:12.600 I mean, and I'm so glad that you mentioned that,
00:35:16.840 about building a village.
00:35:18.500 You know, when I called the book The Village Effect,
00:35:20.680 some people thought I meant, like, yeah,
00:35:22.420 well, we should all move back to a village.
00:35:23.920 And I'm saying no such thing.
00:35:27.480 What I mean is that we need to create a village around us
00:35:30.620 to mimic the kind of effect that those Sardinian centenarians had.
00:35:35.400 And anybody can do that.
00:35:37.640 You're quite right that in North American culture,
00:35:40.380 where our lives are, you know, as George Burns clicked,
00:35:43.620 you know, happiness is having a large, loving, caring,
00:35:46.920 close-knit family in another city.
00:35:49.700 Many of us don't want the responsibility
00:35:52.460 of maintaining intimate relationships anymore,
00:35:55.260 and we are transient.
00:35:56.380 So how do you build that?
00:35:58.500 And I would say start with the bricks-and-mortar stuff of where do you live?
00:36:04.800 You know, if you're moving, what kind of place do you choose to live in?
00:36:08.400 And I would say if you have the luxury of choosing a new place,
00:36:12.620 choose a neighborhood where people know and talk to their neighbors.
00:36:15.320 Don't just look for how big your closets are
00:36:19.540 and how many garazons you have for your car.
00:36:22.500 Look for the places in your neighborhood where people connect.
00:36:25.180 Are there sidewalks?
00:36:26.740 Are there what are called third spaces
00:36:29.180 or third places where people get together,
00:36:32.320 like coffee shops or little parks
00:36:35.320 or, you know, any kind of area where people congregate?
00:36:40.000 It doesn't have to be something as formal as a community center,
00:36:43.160 but it has to be an area where people are outside and walking around.
00:36:46.800 If you're looking for a place to live
00:36:48.220 and you're driving around and it's empty,
00:36:50.700 I would say give it a pass.
00:36:52.960 Look at your work life.
00:36:54.260 Build real contact into your work day, not just emails.
00:36:57.940 I mean, you mentioned that many of us work alone,
00:37:00.920 and as a writer, having a solitary work life,
00:37:04.380 I can say for myself, is one of the hazards.
00:37:07.360 And I had to really craft social contact into my day
00:37:12.500 in a very intentional way.
00:37:15.660 So, for example, I used to swim laps at the YMCA by myself.
00:37:20.420 Now I swim with a swim team.
00:37:22.360 That way I get the double whammy of the exercise
00:37:25.940 and the social contact with people,
00:37:28.780 and I get it three times a week.
00:37:30.500 I also get a coach, which is much better for my fitness level.
00:37:34.140 But even at work, let's say,
00:37:35.620 if you don't have time to, say, do something like sports
00:37:40.100 or with colleagues, get up and talk to people at work.
00:37:45.140 Don't just shoot emails all day.
00:37:46.640 If you work in an office with other people, move around.
00:37:49.720 It's good for your body to move around
00:37:51.960 and talk to people face-to-face,
00:37:54.000 and it generates trust, and it's good for your business.
00:37:57.000 And I have a whole chapter in The Village Effect
00:37:58.820 on how it increases your profits.
00:38:02.040 What's really interesting is that
00:38:03.500 the really higher echelons of business,
00:38:06.300 people do not communicate about big deals over the Internet.
00:38:11.540 They get on a plane and talk to each other in person.
00:38:14.660 You know, if there is diplomacy that has to be done,
00:38:17.000 if there's a huge deal that's going down,
00:38:19.640 people get on aircraft and talk to each other in person.
00:38:23.160 And we have to let that filter down to us at all levels.
00:38:26.380 So I think it's really important to,
00:38:30.240 if you have a solitary work life,
00:38:32.700 build social contact in, in some way, into your work day.
00:38:38.760 If you have kids, as we talked about,
00:38:41.480 nothing predicts school success and happiness
00:38:43.440 like face-to-face contact.
00:38:45.560 Commit to face-to-family meals without screens.
00:38:49.080 Control how much time your kids spend online
00:38:52.060 and ramping up only gradually as they get older.
00:38:55.420 And choose schools where the emphasis
00:38:58.600 isn't on the high-tech toys.
00:39:02.200 We didn't really talk about education that much,
00:39:04.760 but the evidence is absolutely clear
00:39:08.120 that there is no digital program yet
00:39:11.200 that has proven as effective
00:39:12.640 as time with a trained teacher.
00:39:15.680 So a lot of that is the bells and whistles,
00:39:17.820 I think, has really bamboozled people.
00:39:21.420 And it's very concrete, of course.
00:39:24.500 You know, you spend $1,000 on a laptop or tablet
00:39:28.280 and all the accoutrements,
00:39:30.460 but really what matters is what's going on
00:39:33.200 between the teacher and your child.
00:39:35.600 And here's something that I think is really important,
00:39:38.980 Brett, in terms of building your village,
00:39:41.780 is make sure you create a village of diverse relationships.
00:39:45.240 And that was another thing that was completely new to me
00:39:48.660 when I was researching the village effect,
00:39:51.020 is that it's not just those close contacts that matter,
00:39:54.240 but it's not just like your two or three close people,
00:39:57.660 but the group of different types of people
00:40:01.120 in your social set who make a difference to you,
00:40:03.820 the integrated social network.
00:40:07.520 So, you know, that was what happened in Sardinia.
00:40:10.720 When I'd arrive at a centenarian's house,
00:40:13.260 you know, the neighbor would be there
00:40:14.940 and the priest would be there
00:40:16.260 and the bartender maybe.
00:40:18.260 And it wasn't just the person's daughter or son
00:40:21.600 or next-door neighbor.
00:40:23.740 And that's what we have to mimic is
00:40:25.620 get to know your neighbors,
00:40:28.340 get to know colleagues,
00:40:29.740 get to know the shopkeeper where you, you know,
00:40:32.400 buy whatever it is once a week.
00:40:34.820 Talk to people often
00:40:36.540 and develop those diverse contacts
00:40:39.280 and kind of like the tentacles of an octopus,
00:40:46.720 if you know what I mean,
00:40:47.840 as opposed to just looking at the sort of fingers on one hand.
00:40:52.180 You have to reach out in your community
00:40:54.000 and establish those weaker connections
00:40:56.640 and keep them up.
00:40:58.560 And, you know, something that we didn't get to talk about
00:41:00.940 is your temperament.
00:41:02.500 Everybody's different, right?
00:41:03.600 Not everybody is going to go to a potluck dinner
00:41:08.220 or a buffet
00:41:10.080 and put the same thing on their plate.
00:41:13.000 And social contact is a biological drive,
00:41:16.880 just like your other appetites,
00:41:19.200 like your sex or how much food you eat
00:41:22.120 or the kind of food you eat.
00:41:23.640 So you have to adjust the ratio of your face-to-face contact
00:41:27.140 to your screen contact and your solitary time,
00:41:30.620 just the way you would adjust what you eat
00:41:32.560 according to your appetite.
00:41:34.520 So if you're kind of an introverted person,
00:41:36.700 you might want to have the kind of contact
00:41:39.280 that you feel comfortable with,
00:41:41.820 you know,
00:41:42.820 not what other people think might be good for you.
00:41:46.160 So interestingly,
00:41:48.840 we know that introverts are just as,
00:41:54.000 they need social contact as much as anybody else does.
00:41:56.620 They just need to control it differently
00:41:58.680 and they need their alone time.
00:42:00.920 But, you know,
00:42:01.500 if introverts don't get social contact,
00:42:04.540 we know, for example,
00:42:05.260 they catch more colds, paradoxically.
00:42:07.980 They recover less quickly from chronic disease.
00:42:12.780 So everybody needs social contact,
00:42:15.220 but certainly just like everybody needs food and drink,
00:42:18.200 but they just have to determine what it is
00:42:20.260 and, you know,
00:42:21.720 how they get it.
00:42:23.120 So I would say to adjust the face-to-face to screen time
00:42:26.920 according to your temperament.
00:42:29.220 And I'd like to end with that,
00:42:30.640 is that we're all online now,
00:42:33.360 but amplify your online contact with real contact.
00:42:37.040 Use your devices to get together with people.
00:42:40.660 And there's so many applications now
00:42:43.280 that help us do that.
00:42:45.300 There's almost no excuse not to get out there
00:42:48.900 unless you're making the mistake of considering,
00:42:52.140 you know,
00:42:52.940 essentially your screen time
00:42:55.320 is pretty much the fast food of your social interaction.
00:42:59.060 Fantastic.
00:42:59.220 Well, Susan Pinker,
00:42:59.760 this has been just a fascinating conversation.
00:43:01.660 Thank you so much for your time.
00:43:02.520 It's been a pleasure.
00:43:03.800 And thank you so much for your interest, Brett.
00:43:06.060 My guest today was Susan Pinker.
00:43:07.300 She's the author of the book,
00:43:08.380 The Village Effect,
00:43:09.180 and you can find that book on amazon.com
00:43:11.260 and bookstores everywhere.
00:43:12.120 And you can find out more information
00:43:13.260 about Susan's work at susanpinker.com.
00:43:18.900 Well, that wraps up another edition
00:43:20.420 of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:43:22.280 For more manly tips and advice,
00:43:23.380 make sure to check out
00:43:24.040 the Art of Manliness website
00:43:25.120 at artofmanliness.com.
00:43:26.360 And if you haven't already,
00:43:27.420 I'd really appreciate it
00:43:28.320 if you go to iTunes or Stitcher,
00:43:30.200 give us a review
00:43:30.920 that helped get the word out about the podcast,
00:43:32.800 as well as give us feedback
00:43:33.640 on how we can improve the show.
00:43:35.100 As always,
00:43:35.680 thank you for your continued support.
00:43:37.060 And until next time,
00:43:37.780 this is Brett McKay
00:43:38.480 telling you to stay manly.
00:43:48.900 I'll see you next time.