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Ep502 - Kasley Killam | The Art & Science of Connection

2024/11/26
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@Rachel : 本期节目邀请社会健康专家 @Kasley Killam 讨论其著作《连接的艺术与科学》,该书强调了社会联系对整体健康的重要性,并提供了一种获得社会健康的方法。它弥补了传统健康建议中忽略的社会联系这一重要因素,认为人际关系如同肌肉一样可以锻炼,加强社会联系可以提升整体健康水平。 @Darby White : Kasley Killam 的书《连接的艺术与科学》不仅关注身心健康,也强调社会健康的重要性,并提供可操作的建议。它直面孤独流行病,鼓励我们重新定义幸福,不仅是身体和精神上的,也是社会上的。 Kasley Killam: 作者通过108天行善的实验,亲身体验到人际连接对身心健康和学业成绩的积极影响。传统健康观念忽略了人际连接的重要性,社会健康是整体健康的重要组成部分,缺乏连接会增加多种疾病风险,而社会健康危机需要个人和社会共同应对。健康观念的演变,从关注生理健康到心理健康,下一步应该认识到社会健康的重要性,将人际连接视为生活的重要组成部分。社会健康是独立于身心健康的第三个健康维度,如同身体和心理健康一样重要,需要被重视和培养。提升社会健康的三步法:评估现有社交关系,确定策略(伸展、休息、强化、展现),并采取行动。即使时间紧迫,简单的社交互动也能带来积极影响,例如发短信问候朋友。每个人都可以通过简单的善举来提升自身和社区的社会健康水平,即使是小举动也能产生积极的连锁反应。Social Health Labs 通过微型拨款支持社区建设者改善当地社会健康,例如通过蝴蝶栖息地项目促进代际联系。社交媒体对社会健康的影响取决于使用方式,积极主动的使用方式有利于拓展社交圈,而消极被动的方式则可能导致负面情绪。AI 伴侣可以作为补充而非替代品,过度依赖 AI 伴侣可能会损害社会健康,需要在技术设计和社会文化层面共同努力,促进社会健康。内向者也可以通过积极主动的方式提升社会健康,即使是简单的互动也能带来积极影响。5-3-1 原则是一个社交健康的指导方针,并非严格的规则,具体实施需要根据个人情况进行调整。并非所有的人际关系都是积极的,需要辨别并维护健康的人际关系,并设置界限。应对拒绝需要建立韧性,而积极的支持能够帮助孩子克服拒绝带来的负面影响。平衡一对一和群体社交需要根据个人感受进行调整,并进行自我观察和分析。手机和社交媒体对人际关系的影响取决于使用方式,需要有意识地控制使用时间,并注重人际互动。参加陌生人聚会可能会导致精疲力尽,建议选择基于共同兴趣的活动来促进社交。建立社交自信需要克服社交焦虑,并相信他人对自己的好感往往高于自身预期。社会健康的重要性,以及通过简单的行动来提升自身和社会整体的社会健康水平。

Deep Dive

Key Insights

Why is social health considered as important as physical and mental health, and what does it entail?

Social health is as important as physical and mental health because it significantly influences longevity, health, and happiness. It involves cultivating bonds with family, friends, and community, feeling supported, valued, and loved. Decades of research show that connection is essential for well-being, yet it is often overlooked in mainstream health advice.

Why did Kasley Killam conduct a 108-day experiment of acts of kindness, and what were the outcomes?

Kasley conducted a 108-day experiment of acts of kindness to apply research on human connection in her life. The outcomes included increased happiness, energy, better academic performance, and deeper relationships. She realized the abundance of opportunities for meaningful connection and the positive impact on her overall well-being.

What are the key strategies for improving social health according to Kasley Killam's book?

The key strategies for improving social health are: 1) Stretch your social muscles by making more friends and joining new communities. 2) Rest your social muscles by giving yourself alone time. 3) Tone your social muscles by deepening existing relationships. 4) Flex your social muscles by enjoying and sustaining strong connections.

Why is technology, particularly social media, a double-edged sword for social health?

Technology and social media can be beneficial for social health when used to connect with others, find new communities, and maintain relationships. However, they can be detrimental when used passively, leading to loneliness, anxiety, and social comparison. The key is to use technology intentionally and mindfully.

How can introverts build their social health without feeling overwhelmed?

Introverts can build social health by finding a balance between connection and solitude. Engaging in activities they enjoy with others, such as joining a hobby group, can reduce pressure and make social interactions more enjoyable. Small, intentional steps, like reaching out to one person a day, can also be beneficial without feeling overwhelming.

What is the 5-3-1 guideline for social health, and how can it be personalized?

The 5-3-1 guideline suggests aiming to connect with five different people each week, maintaining at least three close relationships, and spending one hour a day connecting. It serves as a benchmark, but individuals can adjust these numbers based on their personal preferences and needs. The guideline helps anchor actions and explore what works best for each person.

Why is it important to set boundaries in social interactions, and how can they benefit social health?

Setting boundaries in social interactions is important because not all connections are beneficial. Some relationships can be toxic or draining, and letting go of them can improve overall social health. Recognizing and maintaining healthy boundaries ensures that time and energy are invested in nourishing relationships.

How can social media and phone usage impact in-person connections, and what is the role of intention in this context?

Social media and phone usage can lead to disconnection from people in front of us, as we often look down at our screens. Intention plays a crucial role in balancing screen time and in-person interactions. Being mindful and intentional about how and when we use technology can help maintain strong, meaningful connections with those around us.

Chapters
This chapter introduces Kasley Killam, a Harvard-trained social scientist, and her book, "The Art and Science of Connection." It highlights the importance of social health as a vital component of overall well-being, often overlooked in traditional wellness advice. The chapter sets the stage for a discussion on how human connection is essential for a healthier life.
  • Kasley Killam's expertise in social health.
  • The book "The Art and Science of Connection" addresses the loneliness epidemic.
  • Social health is presented as a vital component of overall well-being, alongside physical and mental health.

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

Welcome to the Talks at Google podcast, where great minds meet. I'm Rachel, bringing you this week's episode with author Kazli Killam. Talks at Google brings the world's most influential thinkers, creators, makers, and doers all to one place. Every episode is taken from a video that can be seen at youtube.com slash talks at Google. Social health expert Kazli Killam visits Google to discuss her book, The Art and Science of Connection.

Weaving together cutting-edge science, mindset shifts, and practical wisdom, Casley offers a methodology for how to be socially healthy. Her book is an antidote to the loneliness epidemic and an inspiring manifesto for seeing well-being as not only physical and mental, but also social. Exercise, eat a balanced diet, go to therapy. Most wellness advice is focused on achieving and maintaining good physical and mental health.

But Harvard-trained social scientist and pioneering social health expert Kasley Killam reveals that this approach is missing a vital component: human connection. Just as we exercise our physical muscles, we can strengthen our social muscles. This book can transform the way you think about each interaction with a friend, family member, coworker, or neighbor, and give you the tools you need to live a more connected and healthy life. Whether you are an introvert or extrovert, if you feel stretched thin, and no matter your age or background.

Along the way, Killam will reveal how a university student, a newlywed, a working professional, and a retired widow overcame challenges to thrive through connection, and how you can too. Moderated by Darby White, here is Kasley Killam, the art and science of connection. I'm Darby White on the product strategy and operations team, and we're coming at you from the Los Angeles, California office, one block from Venice Beach.

I'm very excited to introduce you to Kazli Killam, social scientist who is going to discuss her book, The Art and Science of Connection, Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier.

I experienced this book as a stealthy education wrapped in a great read with a bunch of actionable how-tos. And this book takes on the loneliness epidemic and inspires us to redefine well-being, not just as physical and mental, but also social.

So, Kazly, I first came across your work in your viral New York Times quiz from this summer called "What's Your Friendship Style?" And we are both fireflies. I'm so excited to discuss your work more today. Thank you for coming. KAZLYN HAYES: Thank you so much. And thank you all joining in person and virtually online. It's great to be back at Google. Yeah. KASLYN HAYES: Well, some of them might not know that yet. So get ready for a very impressive bio, which I'm going to read because it's so impressive.

Kazli Killam is a Harvard-trained social scientist, award-winning innovator, and leading expert in social health. Her collaborations with organizations like Google, the U.S. government, and the World Economic Forum contribute to building more socially healthy products, workplaces, and communities. And she's the founder of Social Health Labs, a national nonprofit that empowers community builders.

Kasley earned her master's at the Harvard School of Public Health and a bachelor's in psychology at the Queen's University in Canada. Previously, Kasley oversaw national community engagement strategy for Verily, which is also an Alphabet company. So, yes, welcome back.

Kathleen's been a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, a fellow at Columbia, and engagement champion at Stanford where she won an award for that work. She is now an impact fellow at UC Berkeley School of Public Health, and she's also an advisor to the Aspen Institute and on multiple nonprofit boards. Her expertise has been featured on many major outlets including the New York Times, Forbes, NPR, Scientific American, The Washington Post, talks at Google,

And Kasley's been recognized as a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, and she was invited to the White House during the Obama presidency. Born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, she now calls California home. Welcome back to Google and Alphabet. Thank you. So if you're listening, please submit questions for Kasley at dory.kasleykillumtalks. This kind of conversation is relevant to all of us, so I'm excited to see what you have to say.

So, as I said, this book is action-oriented. I found myself pausing while reading it and texting some friends who live across the country who I haven't seen or inviting some friends over for dinner. So thank you for that inspiration. But before we get into your thesis and this research, I'd like to get to know you. There were a couple moments relatively early in your life where you discovered this passion, and it started with positive psychology and kindness and turned into social health and

So, can you tell us the story of while you were a student, this experiment that you did on yourself and your classmates, expressing some kindness and what happened? Absolutely. So, I was still a undergraduate student. It was my final semester. And I decided to do an experiment on myself. I was really nerding out on the research at that time about human connection and wanted to apply it in my own life.

And so I decided to do 108 days of acts of kindness. So for 108 days straight, I would do an act of kindness every single day. And it ended up being a day of kindness.

Ended up totally changing my life and actually setting me on the course that I'm on today. So the things that I did ranged a lot from very small, simple things like complimenting, you know, the checkout person at the grocery store or helping someone lift their stroller upstairs, simple things like that.

to kind of more rambunctious things like on day 50, I recruited some friends and we handed out helium balloons to bring smiles on the streets of Toronto. Or day 100, my friend and I stood outside the campus library and held up signs that said, feeling stressed, have a free hug. And we hugged hundreds of peers at our school. So they varied a lot.

And it was really incredible because I very quickly realized, first of all, how easy it had been to go a day of my life without connecting in meaningful ways with the people around me. Not because I didn't care, not because I hopefully wasn't a kind person, but just because I was caught up in my day-to-day, thinking about my to-do list and studying for exams and thinking about what on earth am I going to do after I graduate.

And suddenly when I kind of put on this lens of going out each day, setting that intention, I realized there were opportunities for connection all around me. And it just took me acting on each and every one of those.

So that experience, I mean, at the end of 108 days-- By the way, I should explain why 108. A couple years prior to that, I had spent a month in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal and learned to meditate. And oftentimes, you'll use a necklace, like beads, that's called a mala, and it has 108 beads. And you say one mantra for each bead as a way to kind of express prayer and meditate. And so the idea was each day is like a mala bead

except the beads are kindness rather than mantras. And by the end of that experiment, it really solidified to me how much daily practices of connection and kindness benefited me, right? I have never felt so happy, so alive, so engaged. I made new friends. I felt more connected to my community because I was volunteering all the time. It deepened the relationships that I had.

But it also benefited my life in very surprising ways, such as I had so much energy from these interactions that I was better at cooking healthy meals for myself. I exercised more diligently. Weirdly, I got the best GPA of my entire time at school because when I was studying, I was just really focused and had more motivation.

So it benefited my well-being in all these different ways and hopefully in turn benefited the other people who I was connecting with, right, and drew together my community. So it really kind of set me on this path of realizing, wow, when we are intentional about connection like we are other things in our lives, it's

It's so beneficial and you can apply the research in your own life in these really fun, interesting ways and experiment with it. So here we are and over 10 years later, here's a book that kind of follows that theme and really puts the research insights into practice so that you can experiment with them in your own life. You were doing the viral free hugs thing before it was viral. Before it was cool, yeah. Maybe you created it.

You do such a good job of explaining this nebulous, like, "It's important, but I can't put my finger on it," this topic as social health and connection. These words and this framing may be new for some people who are familiar with-- you lived this experience, but you explain it so well. So I was thinking you could read the first few pages of your book to explain and define the problem of what we're handling. Absolutely.

All right, so the first few pages starts with the future of health is social. What do you do to be healthy? Let's say you follow the advice of doctors, health blogs, and wellness influencers perfectly. You walk 10,000 steps a day. You get eight hours of quality sleep at night. You eat plenty of fresh vegetables and avoid processed foods. You work through challenges with a therapist. You meditate and take hot baths for self-care.

Your physical and mental health improve as a result, but only up to a point. The problem with traditional health advice is that it overlooks one of the most important ingredients: human connection. You can't be fully healthy if you don't have a name to write down as your emergency contact. I think I'd be a little better at this by now. If you don't see family except for a few hours over the holidays.

If you lack close friends to share experiences with, or if you don't have enough alone time to reconnect with yourself. You value your romantic and platonic relationships, but do you know that they determine how long you live? When you spend time with family or friends, invite a coworker to lunch, or strike up conversation with a neighbor, do you realize that interaction influences whether or not you and they will develop heart disease, diabetes, depression, or dementia?

Health is not only physical and mental. Health is also social. Social health is the aspect of our overall health and well-being that comes from connection, and it is vastly underappreciated. Whereas physical health is about your body and mental health is about your mind, social health is about your relationships. As we will explore in part one, or as you will explore when you read my book later...

Being socially healthy requires cultivating bonds with family, friends, and the people around you, belonging to communities, and feeling supported, valued, and loved in the ways and amounts that feel nourishing to you. Decades of research have proven that connection is as essential as food and water, but this knowledge hasn't yet made its way into the mainstream understanding of health, and without it, we are suffering.

Today, many people show signs of social health in decline. Over the past 30 years, the percentage of Americans with 10 or more close friends dropped by 20%. Over the past 20 years, the amount of time people spent alone increased by an average of 24 hours per month. Over the past 10 years, participation in communities like book clubs, sports leagues, and neighborhood associations fell by nearly 20%.

And according to a national survey in 2019, around half of adults in the US feel like no one knows them well. Researchers have documented similar trends in other countries. According to Gallup, 330 million adults around the globe endure weeks at a time without speaking to a single family member or friend. And 20% of all adults worldwide don't have anyone they can reach out to for support.

These statistics stun even me, who reads statistics like these for a living. This lack of connection is dangerous, increasing people's risk of stroke by 32%, their risk of dementia by 50%, and their risk of early death by 29%. But it's not just disconnection that takes a toll. An overwhelming amount of connection, or unfulfilling connection, does too.

Whether introverts drained by too many social obligations, extroverts spread too thin, teenagers overwhelmed by social media, or communities enmeshed in conflict, many people's social scales are off balance. Meanwhile, hate crimes have surged, polarization has escalated, and people's sense of trust in one another is strained at best. This amounts to nothing short of a public health emergency. As we will explore in chapter 10, or as you will explore when you read the book later,

Leaders around the world are beginning to mount a response from governments in the UK and Japan appointing ministers for loneliness to the World Health Organization establishing a global commission on social connection. But what does this mean for you? What can you do in your everyday life to connect meaningfully with the people around you and to live a longer, healthier, and happier life as a result? That's compelling.

So many interesting stats all packed in there. And later on in the book, you also share among many some things that I wanted to call out, which were loneliness activates the same brain region as hunger and social rejection triggers the same brain centers as pain. These are also compelling. And if nothing else is compelling, COVID also created a really strong public awareness for the importance of connection.

And there was a general awareness of the importance, but not a clear way to talk about it. And so you've established the problem. You have so much detail from your research and your aggregation of existing research.

But you have a new way of defining overall health and its components, which is a big shift in language. Can you share more about the structure that you lay out in the book? Yeah, sure. So I kind of teased it there, but really what I'm arguing in this book and in all my work is that, like I said, health is not just physical and mental like we typically talk about, right?

right? The way that we understand health over time evolves with new research, with advocacy, with policy and so on. And, you know, it wasn't that long ago that people smoked cigarettes, just my grandparents and great grandparents without realizing that it puts them at risk for lung cancer, right? We need that research to emerge and then that understanding to spread so that people can be healthier.

And so over time, we've most recently seen a rise in mental health, right? Where now previous generations, my parents, there was a lot of stigma around going to therapy or talking about emotions, things like that. That has really changed most recently, right? And so now mental health is very mainstream and you see Gen Z talking about all this openly and celebrities talking about their struggles too.

And I believe that this next stage we're going into in our evolution of understanding health is to recognize that it's also social. Because we have decades of research proving that, establishing that whether or not you feel connected determines how long you live and how healthy you are while you're alive. Not just whether or not you're happy, but actually your health and longevity.

And increasingly, there's awareness around this. And so, in the future, I think we're moving to a place where we see connection like we see exercise as something that needs to be a part of the fabric of our lives. The way I'm digesting this is...

For physical health, for example, I do better when I have a workout buddy or I go to a gym class. Connection supports my physical health. And for mental health, sometimes a therapist might recommend trying group therapy or maybe it's just better to talk to a friend, like connection supporting mental health. And your point is connection is not just a supporting player in those two main tenets of health. It is its own category, social health. And this is the first book

that addresses social health. This is a new sort of framing for how we think about this. Yeah, so I came across this term over 10 years ago, buried in an obscure academic journal by a researcher who had tried to define social health back in the early '70s. He had noticed that the World Health Organization defines health as physical, mental, and social, but that that third piece was kind of underrepresented.

And when I came across this term, it made so much sense to me. It was like, of course, this is natural language extending the terms that we typically use. But there really wasn't a lot of information on it. And at first I thought I must just be crazy and this researcher must be crazy and there must not be something here.

But I couldn't get it out of my head. And over the years, I began exploring it more and collaborating with different colleagues in academia and elsewhere to really define this terminology increasingly and help put it into practice.

practice, right? What does it mean to be socially healthy? If you want to be more physically or mentally healthy, there are so many resources available. You can go to a gym, go to a therapist, look up videos on YouTube and so on. If you want to be more socially healthy, what does that even mean? What does that even look like? And so the past over a decade has been me exploring that and seeing this rise where it's not just me and it's not just that researcher and a handful of others. It's now a huge, huge

I almost want to call it, where more and more people are using this terminology and recognizing that this is a vital pillar. And the analogy I often use is if you think of your overall health and wellbeing as a Greek temple with different columns supporting that structure, you have a physical column, you have a mental column, you have a social column, and that social piece is just as important. It's equally as important as physical and mental health.

And the sooner that we can recognize that and align our behaviors and our environments with that, the better off we'll be. And your book is a just philosophy in theory. There's so much action in the book, and that's why I was putting it down and taking action the whole time. So can you give people a summary of what your action plan is for readers or just generally for people? Yeah, sure. Sure.

So there's a lot, like really the whole book is saying, okay, here's what you as an individual can do to understand your social health and improve it. And then also how do we create the conditions for better social health in our society?

But it starts out very practically saying, here's a three-step process for how you can understand your social health. First, by taking stock of who do you even interact with on a regular basis? Who are the relationships that are important to you? What are the communities you belong to that help you feel connected in this world? And really taking stock of that, thinking about the strength with each of those ties and how important those are to your life, and then identifying gaps.

And the analogy I use is to think about connection like exercise because it is as important as exercise. And so in the same way that you can strengthen your physical muscles, you can strengthen your social muscles. And so there are four kind of key strategies that I name in the book and then that the rest of the book explores different ways of going about them. So the first strategy is if the quantity of connection in your life is low.

In that case, your strategy is to stretch your social muscles. So just like you stretch your physical muscles to become more flexible and agile, you stretch your social muscles by making more friends, by expanding your social network, joining new communities.

The second strategy is if the quantity of connection in your life is high. So you actually are engaging a lot or to the extent that you want to be. So then your strategy is to rest, right? With physical muscles, it's important to let our muscles rest in between workouts or in between reps, right?

And in that same way, it's actually valuable to rest our social muscles and perhaps just maintain the number of connections that we have and give ourselves some alone time as well. The third strategy is to tone your social muscles. So just like you tone your physical muscles to get stronger, you can tone your social muscles by deepening your relationships, right? And actually getting closer to the people in your life. This is if the quality is low.

And then finally, if the quality of connection in your life is high, the strategy is to flex your social muscles.

So just like we flex our physical muscles to kind of show off our strength, it's about enjoying the benefits of the relationships in your life and sustaining those connections in the long term. So that's kind of the framework for how I think about it. And then the book is an exploration of what are research-backed ways that we can go about each of those? What are stories from communities around the world of

inspiring examples for how to be socially healthy and how to create socially healthy places and so on. So I did your audit in your book and there's a worksheet in the book and I concluded that I would like to tone my friendships. I'm busy. I have two kids. I have a job. And, um,

struggled to figure out how to balance it all and was curious, does the benefit of connection outweigh the time constraint that it comes from being a busy person and making a space for that? Yeah. I mean, busy. So raise your hand if you feel busy.

Yeah, everyone, right? So this is one of the barriers to being socially healthy is just like I discovered with my 108 experiment, right? It occurred to me, oh my gosh, I'm so caught up in my work and my day-to-day, I'm not prioritizing connection. And so busyness is a big factor. The first thing I will say is that

It's important to give ourselves some grace, right? There are times in our life when we can't prioritize social health as much as we want to, where work or parenting or whatever, or health issues, whatever's going on, takes precedent. And it's okay sometimes, right? Just like our physical and mental health evolve over time and ebb and flow with different life circumstances, our social health does too.

So first, we can give ourselves some grace if you're too busy sometimes to hang out with your friends. But the second thing I would say is that a lot of research shows that even simple gestures of outreach and connection can make a meaningful difference. So for example, there was a study that tested the effects of outreach as simple as texting a friend to check in and say, how are you doing?

And they found that people significantly and consistently underestimate how much that kind of outreach means to the other person. Similarly, when people send an email to someone they know who's going through a tough time just to reach out and express that they care, again, we underestimate how much that matters to the other person, how good it feels to send it, how well it's received. So even simple things like that.

can be beneficial and can be socially healthy. And so I try and offer a lot of ways just to be practical, like this is the reality, a lot of us are busy. And so what are simple things that we can do in our day-to-day to still be socially healthy in spite of that?

And you said that sometimes certain friendships will have to sort of be on the back burner. And I'm wondering if there's a bunch of pressure on you as a professional friendologist to be a good friend.

I love that title. I'm adding that to my LinkedIn. That's great. Yeah, I think it keeps me accountable and makes me feel guilty when I'm not or when I feel like I'm not being as good a friend as normal. But it's also ultimately about being intentional. And I like that accountability, right? Just like it helps to have coworkers or deadlines to keep you on track with work. Sometimes a little bit of pressure is good. Yeah.

So I had a feeling you were going to be humble with your answer. So I talked to one of your friends and I got a quote from Aaron Peavy. No way. I did. And it says, Casley's energy, kindness, and curiosity are infectious in the best way. I feel so fortunate to call Casley a friend and get to see the world a bit through her eyes. The world that is richer, more human, and certainly better for its people.

presence of adorable bunnies and stunning flowers. She brings out the best in others and works to help people feel seen and appreciated. No way. That is so nice. So five star review. You're a professional friend. Oh my gosh. Thank you. Oh,

You offer so many examples of ways to take action. For example, there's someone who keeps a bowl of names and pulls out a name and will contact that person, or someone who has a list of names on the inside of their medicine cabinet. And you also share that helpers are happier, which is akin to giving is better than receiving. There are so many little things like that, or they're reminders of things that feel good but aren't proven in research and just good behaviors.

along your lines of reaching out or helping, you say that we can all be superheroes. And I found that passage really inspiring. I was hoping you could share more. Yeah, sure. Well, first of all, those examples you gave, I love. So this comes from the suggestion of write a to-love list, right? So we all have a to-do list. But what if you write a to-love list of the people who you want to make sure that you're prioritizing and in constant communication with?

And the examples, I love these of, it's actually my husband's grandma who keeps a bowl of little slips of paper with the names of friends and family. And she draws one each day and says a prayer for them and maybe calls them. It's just a beautiful ritual, things like that, that are so simple. But to your point on the superpower piece, you know,

I read so many studies on this and I come away feeling really optimistic that there's so much we can do to make someone else's day, to make our day. And like I said, it can be really simple gestures of outreach that end up meaning so much to other people.

And I think that's a superpower. Like every single one of us, you don't have to do a 108-day experiment. It can be one day a week where you express gratitude to a coworker and maybe set a reminder every Friday to reach out and tell someone that you appreciate them. It can be really simple things like that that have these beautiful ripple effects for our health and for our communities.

I'm going to steal one of your simple things that became a ripple, which was in Paris, Patrick wanted more connection within his community and got five people together and said, let's all commit to saying hello more often. And then it grew and grew and became a thousand person outdoor dinner in the street and has become syndicated across multiple cities.

which is incredible. Yeah, they're doing another one soon. They do this every year where they gather a thousand neighbors and they all share a meal together on the street. And it spawned many other initiatives. Patrick's amazing. I mean, it's-- they now-- they're-- it's completely transformed their community. They partner with the city of Paris on different events, on refurbishing shared spaces, on programming. It's really incredible. And it started from just one person being like, "It's weird that we don't say hi when we leave the house."

And we don't know our neighbors. That's kind of strange. And let's do something about that. So I love like to your point of we can all be superheroes. It can start that small and grow into something bigger.

This is closely related to your nonprofit, Social Health Labs, and you support things exactly like this. I was hoping you could share one or two of your favorite grants. Sure, yeah. So we have been giving out microgrants, so $1,000 for projects across the US for community builders who want to improve social health locally. And the projects are so inspiring. I mean, it's very, very heartwarming and cool.

It's hard to choose just one to share, but I will. One that stands out to me is Kathy and her grandson, Sebastian, who's six years old in Wisconsin. They took a micro grant from us at Social Health Labs, and they used it to set up monarch butterfly habitats in local retirement communities.

And so they brought in caterpillars and milkweed, and I don't know how it all works, but they set up these habitats. And with the local residents, with the staff, with family members, they gathered around over the summer and over the course of it watched these butterflies grow and fly away. And it's now become an annual thing, and there's more families involved and the Girl Scout troops involved, and they've got more senior homes who are doing this. So it spawned this beautiful intergenerational connection.

around butterflies, which I just love. Thank you. I'd like to turn it to technology. We're here at Google. And you have some interesting points about how being invested in stories and characters can count as a connection, and that there are pros and cons to engagement with social media and online video game communities, for example. And I was hoping you could share that dichotomy. Sure.

So this is the number one question I get when I talk to different audiences and work with different groups is, you know, is social media killing our relationships and so bad for social health? And the research is actually really mixed and kind of interesting. So there are studies, for example, there was one done at Harvard where they asked people, how emotionally attached do you feel to social media?

And if people were pretty, you know, dispassionate about it, kind of just used it as a tool to stay connected, to reach out very practically, to communicate in their relationships, they actually had better health than people who felt emotionally dependent on those tools.

And other research has shown that it's very much how we use it rather than how much. So for example, similarly, if we're using technology of any kind to stretch our social muscles, to meet new people, find new communities, if we're using it to flex our social muscles, to stay in touch over time, then that can actually be beneficial. People feel more connected in that.

But if we're using it as a crutch, if we're doom scrolling and passively going through content, that is linked to all the things we worry about loneliness and anxiety and social comparison and so on. So, I mean,

I mean, there's a lot more we could talk about this, but I will say that one of the takeaways that I think is useful for all of us is that it's really about the intention that we're bringing to using technology as a tool for social health and then the intention that we bring to designing it. And that's where all of you come in. I love that you used the word intention. We use that word a lot here as well. And as I'm trying to get takeaways from my own life,

It's sort of noticing when I am engaging with intent and where is the point where it turns into passivity. When do you get to the doom scroll cusp and how do you cut it at that moment? Because once you're in, cutting is so hard, just releasing and stopping. And just hearing from you the experience of the pros and cons of this helps me be more aware of, okay,

Time out. What am I doing here? Why am I here? How long have I been doing this? So thank you for giving us things to think about as we engage in our daily lives. I have more questions for Kazli, but just a reminder that there is a Dory, Dory slash Kazli Killam Talks. And if you're here in Los Angeles, please do grab questions. We'll get up in a moment and start doing those. Still on technology, you have engaged with technology in ways that...

are bleeding edge. You have developed AI companions and experimented with this world that isn't that small anymore, but it's still nascent. And we would love to hear your experience of what you've learned there and experienced there.

Sure. So when I was writing the book, it seemed like everyone and their mother was talking about AI and how we were all doomed. And they still are for that matter. And I was really interested in this idea of AI companions and the fact that people are turning to artificially intelligent chatbots as friends, as romantic partners, as boyfriends, girlfriends, wives, husbands.

And so I decided to investigate and try it out myself. But also, even more interestingly, to spend a lot of time and go down a true rabbit hole reading the forums of people who use these regularly. And there are hundreds of millions of users of these products and tools around the world. It's not some future thing. It's very much a tool that people are using now.

And it was very eye-opening. I mean, there's not a lot of data on this, but just reading through hundreds, if not thousands of comments and the conversations that people were having, I had a lot of compassion because it seems like a lot of people are turning to these tools because they feel like they can't connect in person. And like they're struggling with human relationships and therefore turning to AI relationships.

Um, and it brought up a lot. So it's, it's one of my favorite passages in the book. Um,

But what concerns me as someone who studies primarily human connection for a living is when this becomes a substitute rather than a compliment. You know, something I write about in the book and something that's time and time again shown in the research is that being socially healthy means having diverse ties. So it's not just one person who you socialize with all the time. It's about having friends and family and a romantic partner and communities and coworkers and having diversity to your social life.

And if AI companion is one of those, that's interesting. Maybe some people find value in that and enjoy that. And who am I to judge for that?

But when it becomes the sole source of your social health, I really worry about that. And more broadly, if we zoom out, I worry about the fact that we've created a culture and a society where hundreds of millions of people are turning to these tools, oftentimes out of a sense of necessity.

That worries me. And so, you know, more broadly, there's so much we as individuals can do. And that's a lot of the focus of the book. But also we need to take ownership in our workplaces, in the technologies that we're designing, in our schools, in our health care, in our government to make sure that we're thoughtfully creating the culture that we're all living in to be more conducive to social health for all of us.

Thank you for touching on the diversity in particular. You mentioned that we can't be too concentrated. And through the course of your book, you talk about individual relationships, communities, institutions, schools, et cetera. And you're participating in all of them, which is interesting because you describe yourself as an introvert. So...

You say you're an introvert, but then you have the courage to go to a meetup, which if you don't know what a capital M meetup is, it's a gathering of strangers. And I wouldn't have the courage to do that. Can you discuss building this muscle of connecting and building your social health while being an introvert? Yeah, sure.

Well, probably one in two or one in three of the people in this room and listening online are also introverts. So there are a lot of us. And I want you to rest assured that I am not here to tell you you need to socialize all the time. That is not what being socially healthy looks like for an introvert. It's just not. It's a balance of connection and solitude, right, to recharge our batteries.

I think introvert gets used a lot as a term to mean shy or reclusive. Clearly, I'm not shy. I'm on stage in front of you right now. Instead, it's about energy, right? As much as I love connecting with other people, I'm going to have to go home later and take some time to just rest and relax and recharge my batteries. And so, yeah, these crazy things that I do, the 108 days, the going to meetups with strangers, I share a lot of other stories like that in the book.

is partly from a place of experimentation. And what I've learned through doing this is that people are much more receptive to connection than we assume. And there's data to support that too, right? People like us more than we think, the research shows. People appreciate hearing from us more than we think. So I think...

stretching our social muscles in that way and putting ourselves out there can be really beneficial. In fact, there was a study that looked at people. They actually hooked them up to an audio recorder for a week and monitored their conversations and asked them who they were connecting with, how happy they felt, how connected they felt following them for a week. And at the end of the week, they found that the more conversations people had, the more

the happier and more connected they felt regardless of whether they were introverts or extroverts. And that really surprised me because there you have introverts saying, gosh, I actually felt great because I was connecting more often.

So I take inspiration from that and make myself do these nutty things. And you're welcome. I've synthesized them here so you don't have to. You can pick what works for you. Yeah, thank you. I got so much out of the book. And there are some free ones here in LA and I hope other people can get it. I'm curious to turn to the Dory to see if we have any questions for Kasley. Ooh, thank you, Kris.

You seem familiar with Casley's work, so bonus points for Chris.

What are some examples of the 5-3-1 rule that you've seen and liked for the evergreen, firefly, butterfly, and wallflower types? You should probably explain this. I can explain. Okay. So Darby, you mentioned earlier the New York Times quiz. That is what reveals which style you are. So an evergreen, a firefly, a butterfly, or a wallflower. These are different kind of personas that I describe in the book about how our preferences for connection are.

And the question is specifically the 5-3-1 guideline. And I like that you called it a rule because it's not a rule and the media does this all the time and it drives me nuts. It's a guideline. And I say that for a reason I'll explain in a second. So the 5-3-1 guideline was something I developed drawing from research on the habits of people who are socially healthy and kind of what's the minimum amount of interaction that we need to thrive, what the data says.

And so inspired by that, the idea is to aim to connect with five different people each week to maintain at least three close relationships overall and to spend one hour a day connecting. So five different people each week, three close relationships and one hour a day connecting. So depending on whether you are an introvert or an extrovert or which of the four styles you are,

In your head right now, you're having one of two reactions. Either you're thinking that is way too high or that is way too low, right? Those numbers may be higher or lower for you based on your style. Just like we each need to eat different numbers of calories in a day or we have different preferences around exercise that we do or whatever, right? We're all different and unique. And so what...

being socially healthy looks like for you is different. But this 5-3-1 guideline is a way to kind of give you a helpful benchmark, just like we have things like walk 10,000 steps a day, get eight hours of sleep at night. It's just a guideline to help anchor your actions and explore what's actually the right number for you. Thank you.

It feels like both too much and too little at the same time. Interesting. Like I want more, but I can't do it. So it must be correct. So people in Los Angeles, feel free to step up to the mic. As I see people come up, I'll call on you.

I was interested. So a lot of times when people are talking about these types of things, they talk about stories that have really happy endings, joyful endings and stuff like that. So I was wondering if you could talk about the value to social health of social connections that are social interactions that don't end happy or, you know, sometimes your friends have problems, sometimes your friends are problems, things like that.

I love that question. Thank you so much for raising that. It's a really important point, and I try and make this clear up front in the book, which is that not all connection is good connection, right? There are some people in our lives who we just constantly clash with, and that conflict can have the opposite of health benefits, right? That can be really detrimental for us.

Um, and there are certain people who it's sometimes the socially healthy thing to do is to let that relationship go and to have boundaries and to enforce those. Um, and this is tricky, right? Really tricky. But...

part of being socially healthy means understanding which are the relationships that are actually healthy for you. Um, and also recognizing that every relationship, even the best examples, have some amount of conflict and, you know, that's normal, but it's when that crosses a line consistently or in extreme cases of abuse and other things where it's just-- it's gonna have the opposite effect and be detrimental for physical, mental, and social health.

So thank you for raising that because absolutely it's, to your point, we're all busy. And so we only have so much time and energy and we need to be investing those, that time and energy in the relationships that are most important and most nourishing to the extent that we can. Your question wasn't about rejection, but it made me think about rejection because you do address it in the book. And to me, I read it as a paradox. Like,

You have a stat around how one instance of rejection with a child can be really painful for that child, but also how important it is to build resilience to rejection so that then more broadly as a theme, like negative social interactions, they happen sometimes. And I was wondering if you could talk more about rejection.

Yeah, it's really interesting because you're right. There are some scary studies showing that one traumatic incident of exclusion or bullying or things like that can have lasting effects throughout a person's life. But at the same time, there's a very heartening counter to that, which is that just having one adult in your life who's a teacher or another parent or whatever,

some kind of figure, coach, things like that. Having one adult who's supportive and loving and there for you can counter that and can help you be resilient for actually the rest of your life. So I think it's, you know, we need to understand how important it is from a young age to be teaching social health and to be instilling this from instilling that foundation of social health and

but also recognizing that it can be as simple as one person reaching out to a child to comfort them, to know that they're there for them, that can really help. Thank you. We have two more Dory questions. How do you balance, thank you, Izzy. How do you balance prioritizing one-on-one close connections versus larger community connections? I like that question. I think it's a subjective answer though. I think that's

That's where there's subjectivity to social health, right? I can't prescribe exactly what is the right amount of those one-on-one relationships for you versus feeling like you belong to a group. It's about both and balancing them and exploring them. I have a whole chapter on kind of

being like a scientist about your social health and experimenting with it. And I think this is an opportunity to your question, Izzy, to kind of reflect and pay attention for a week or for a month. How much time are you spending one-on-one? How much time are you spending in groups? How do you leave those interactions feeling? And really pay attention to it, collecting data like a scientist would and analyzing that to inform what that balance is for you. Thanks, Kesley.

Daniela, thank you for this talk. Excited about reading your book. My question is, what is your opinion on the impact of social media and phones on in-person connections, connecting to people far away but disconnecting from the ones in front of us? We seem to be living looking down at our phones. Wow. Accurate. Yeah. I'm an optimist in general in life, but I will say over the course of reading a lot of the research on social

social media and our phones, I've become a little bit more pessimistic. I almost don't want to say that.

But I have. And I consider abandoning social media all the time. I think this is where intention comes in and where it's about being mindful. You know, if we think about your career and your job and how much energy and thought you put into your career goals, into getting that promotion or launching that feature or, you know, getting a pay raise, whatever that might be.

If we channel some of that same level of intention into our relationships, we are all going to benefit not just you, but those other people in your life as well. That's the beautiful thing about social health is investing in your social health benefits other people by definition. So yeah, I think it's about intention. And I think we spend too much time on our phones. Any more questions in the room?

Yes, go for it. Hi, I wanted to talk a little bit more about the stretch subject.

Sometimes in the past, I've gone to an event where I don't know anyone and I end up feeling more burned out when I leave. So I was curious if, and then I get discouraged to do things like that again. So I was curious if you could touch on that. Yeah, that's a great question. I can totally relate. I hate a networking event where you're just expected to strike up conversation. One of the recommendations in my book is do what you love with others.

So finding a hobby or a shared activity or interest that you can do with other people, maybe it's joining a hiking club or taking an art class or something like that, because it takes the pressure off, right? You're connecting around that shared activity. And so you can more organically have conversations arise around that and meet potential people who can develop into friendships.

versus, you know, awkwardly trying to say, where'd you grow up? And, you know, do all the motions that we're used to. So centering the interaction around something you're doing together can be really helpful. But I want to say more broadly, one of the most frequent questions I get from people is how do you make friends as an adult? And it's something that

I think everyone struggles with. I can't say for sure everyone, but it sure seems like it. I mean, anecdotally, I hear this time and time again that, you know, when you go to school, there are all these opportunities to make friends. It kind of just happens naturally. Once you're an adult and you're, you know, going about your life, it becomes a lot trickier. And so this is something that

so many people are trying to figure out, which also is encouraging because it means chances are if you try and be friends with someone, they're going to be receptive to it because chances are they want more friends too. This is going to be our last question. Okay. Thanks for this, for those insights. And I think you've touched upon my question, which is how do you build social confidence in order to be able to go out and meet those people and be out there and be, you know, be confident in being uncomfortable or comfortable?

Yeah, such a good question. Here again, I take some comfort from the data because there are quite a few studies showing that. So, for example, there was a study where they matched up strangers in pairs and had them talk for five minutes. And then at the end of that conversation, they separated them and they said, how much did you like the other person and how much do you think that person liked you?

And they found that people consistently and significantly underestimate how much the other person liked them. So we're going around in our interactions thinking people don't like us as much as they actually do.

It's kind of mind-boggling when you think about that. And it gives me more confidence, right? If you can kind of go in with that mindset of chances are I'm coming across better than I feel like I am, then that's empowering. I also will say, you know, everyone feels socially awkward sometimes and we all have these monologues going on in our heads and

And those thoughts and those thought patterns can really hold us back from opportunities for connection. And so if we can move past that and just do it and try it, sometimes it's going to work, sometimes it's not. But let that not be a limiting belief that holds you back from being socially healthy. Thank you. In closing, you've called this a calling, and I'm offering you a space to...

Express what you'd like people to take away from your book and this conversation. No pressure. What I hope you will take away is, first of all, understanding that your health is not just physical and mental. It's also social and that social health is as important as physical and mental health and it will benefit your overall well-being.

I hope that you come away, especially from reading the book, feeling empowered, knowing that there's so much you can do to benefit yourself, to benefit other people. And these don't have to mean completely overhauling your life. It can be while you're still busy that you take small steps that have a meaningful impact overall. And I hope more broadly through my work that...

We are moving toward a stage collectively where we are going to really prioritize social health in all of our culture, right? Through the decisions that we make about what we teach our kids and how we structure our healthcare system to help people be healthy and the policies that we put into place.

and our workplaces and the amazing opportunity that a place like this is for connection. You know, the more that we structure our lives in ways to facilitate social health, the better off we will all be. Well done. Thank you. Thank you for your work. And thank you for this book that shares your work with the world. That's it for Talks at Google with Kasley Killam. Thank you so much, Darby. Thank you all.

Thanks for listening. To discover more amazing content, you can always find us online at youtube.com slash talks at Google. Talk soon.

We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!

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