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How to Get the Most Out of Your Social Interactions
It’s all about choice, intentionality, and frequency
During this Great Social Reset period, Americans are rediscovering what it means to be a social human. What are friends? What do I do with them? Do I have any left? While getting reacquainted with our social circles is undoubtedly going to be awkward — and exhausting — new research shows that maintaining friendships is easier if hanging with friends becomes a part of our routine.
Jeffrey Hall, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas, and his colleagues surveyed 127 adults about their social interactions over the course of a week in 2018. At five points during the day, surveys were sent to the participants via text asking them to describe their most recent social interaction (Who it was with? How much energy did you expend? Do you typically have this kind of interaction? Did you choose to interact with this person? What kind of conversation was it?) followed by a final survey at the end of the day summing up all of their social interactions that day.
Hall found that the interactions we have tend to fall into one of four categories: The conversations we choose to have with people we frequently see (like upbeat joking around with friends), the conversations we don’t necessarily choose to have with…
