As I wrote in a previous post, I believe human connection is more important than ever. The rise of social media, the isolation leftover from the pandemic and our growing addiction to our phones means we are less likely to truly connect with others. It’s time to rethink how we communicate in order to effectively connect.
Our increasingly short-term focus and desire for the dopamine fix that comes so easily from TikTok videos, YouTube Shorts, and various other social media makes it that much harder to invest in and benefit from face-to-face interactions. We may need to disconnect (from technology) to meaningfully connect (in person) with others.
In his best-selling book The Anxious Generation, author Jonathan Haidt brilliantly explains the challenges and consequences of social media on teenagers. However, staring at our phones and over using social media is not unique to teenagers, and neither are the challenges and consequences.
“This is the great irony of social media: the more you immerse yourself in it, the more lonely and depressed you become,” writes Haidt. “This is true at both the individual level and at the collective level.”
To avoid loneliness and recapture our ability to truly connect with others requires that we communicate more intentionally and convey a desire to align. This is the advice of Charles Duhigg in his book Supercommunicators: How to unlock the secret language of connection.
According to Duhigg, the best communicators understand that whenever they speak, they’re participating in one of three conversations: 1) Practical (What’s this really about?), 2) Emotional (How do we feel?), and 3) Social (Who are we?). And if you don’t know what kind of conversation you’re having, you’re unlikely to connect.
When communicating it’s important to recognize and then match each kind of conversation. To hear the emotions, subtle negotiations, and deeply held beliefs that are part of what we say and how we listen. Our experiences, values, emotions, and how we see ourselves and others all help shape these conversations.
To illustrate the value of truly connecting with another person, Duhigg described the work of research psychologists Elaine and Arthur Aron conducted in 1995 at the State University of New York Stony Brook. “The 36 Questions that Lead to Love” experiment invited strangers to sit down and take turns asking each other questions for sixty minutes. Questions were selected ahead of time by the researchers and included:
- When did you last sing to yourself?
- If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone?
When the sixty minutes was concluded, the participants all went their separate ways and no one was instructed to stay in touch. When the researchers followed up seven weeks later, however, they found that 57 percent of them had sought out their conversation partner in the days and weeks that followed the experiment. And 37 percent had gotten together to socialize. One pair ended up falling in love and eventually got married.
To get a sense of what questions like this can do for your ability to truly connect with others, you can use the Fast Friends Procedure. Skip the small talk and ask questions that take your interaction to another level. You’ll go deeper and both you and your companion will feel more connected.
Rethink the way you communicate so you can truly connect with people. This will lead to a more fulfilling life not made up of Facebook friends, but real people who you care about and who care about you.