Daily Practice:
Weak Ties Are the Prize

Humans are deeply social beings. We can easily observe this in our own behavior as a species. We readily live and work together. We seek out friendship. We establish long-term romantic partnerships. We commit more time and energy to raising our children than any other species. We strive to be liked by others and fit in. We reflexively compare ourselves to those around us.

We can also observe this in the peculiar ways in which we’ve evolved that even most of our closest primate relatives do not share. Our brains have rich complexity that enables complex social interaction; one region, called the fusiform face area, is specifically attuned to recognizing other human faces. On that note, newborn babies as young as three days old instinctively orient their gaze towards faces and prefer faces to non-face objects. (Note: this was a very cute experiment.) The large whites of our eyes make our irises exceedingly prominent relative to other species, allowing us to detect others’ attention and revealing our gaze to others. Starting from a young age, we also develop theory of mind, allowing us to understand the social motivations of those around us.

These adaptations make sense. We are a highly interdependent species, relying on each other for survival, reproduction and child rearing. As such, we’re built to want social connection — which is to say that we feel good when we have it and bad when we don’t.

I should clarify. When we lack social connection, we don’t just feel bad. We feel really freaking terrible. One pair of researchers tried to quantify this by taking a large survey of people and seeing how various aspects of their lives predicted their happiness levels. What they found is that people who report feeling alone experience a negative effect on happiness that is seven times larger, in absolute terms, than if you moved them from the bottom 25% of income to the top 25%. Separately, loneliness has been linked with a whole host of problems, from poor immune function and decreased impulse control to increased mortality.

Unfortunately, we are living in a time where a lot of people do not have adequate social connection. The latest data shows that roughly 60% of Americans report being lonely. That’s 6-0. And this rate was observed even before the pandemic. Loneliness appears to be higher among younger adults, although it affects men and women equally across ages.

Puzzlingly, we’re observing this at a time when people have never been closer together. This is true in our physical world, as levels of urbanization continue to rise globally, concentrating more people in cities than ever before. It’s also true when it comes to our digital world, as online communication channels and social media platforms have proliferated, allowing for instant digital connection with other people.

There are a lot of interesting hypotheses for why we’re observing this paradox, but we’ll set those aside for a future session. Today, we’re going to explore one way of combating loneliness and its effects in your own daily life.

It helps to define what it means to have social connection. It seems obvious, but you first need to have interactions with real people. There is a wide range of what we can consider an interaction. Suffice to say that deep, in-person connections certainly count. But meaningful digital exchanges — say, over the phone, on Zoom, or via text — can also qualify, as can even brief interactions with strangers in passing. (And yes, even though it is straight from some inner circle of interaction hell, your coworker’s millionth unsolicited update on their geriatric cat named Bananas also counts.)

Beyond the interactions themselves, to experience social connection, it is also critical that you feel positive about those interactions. Those 60% of Americans who report feeling lonely undoubtedly have many interactions throughout their days — with strangers, colleagues, friends, even spouses. However, in their eyes, those relationships are not providing everything they need to feel high levels of social connection.

When it comes to this stuff, everyone has different needs; there is no magic number of friends or acquaintances to seek. Some people are perfectly content living quietly with a few deep relationships. Others cultivate a wide range and variety of connections. You can probably think of examples of people around you who fit both molds — and the wide space in between them. In life, though, you will undoubtedly have periods where you feel relatively low levels of social connection, whether in a new city, starting a new job, or as family life leaves a little less time for friendships. No matter the cause, it’s important to build a toolkit for these moments.

On that note, for the rest of the session we’ll focus on the value of cultivating weak ties — a surprisingly low effort yet high reward way to feel more socially connected. What are weak ties? Well, they’re usually mentioned in tandem with strong ties, which are those close relationships we have in life, such as with friends and family or immediate team members at work. By contrast, weak ties are all our other interactions, such as with strangers or more casual acquaintances.

When we think of social connection, we often jump immediately to the strong ties. But it turns out that those weak ties can actually provide a lot of benefits and shouldn’t be overlooked. Research has demonstrated that even short interactions with total strangers can meaningfully improve our happiness.

One experimental study sent two sets of people into a coffee shop. The first group was randomly assigned to focus on ordering efficiently, while the other was told to be social with the barista. The people in the social group later reported a better mood and greater sense of belonging than the non-social group.

Another study did something similar with riders on public transportation. Some were assigned to socialize while others were told to enjoy the solitude. As painfully awkward as it might seem to chat up your neighbor on the bus or train, it turns out that the people in the social group ended up feeling significantly happier than the solitude group. Encouragingly, they also looked at people who were being talked to, and their happiness improved, too, suggesting that everyone in these weak tie encounters can benefit.

What’s the takeaway of all this? Well, weak ties will never replace strong ties. But they’re also an important complement, and a lever we have readily available to improve our moment-to-moment happiness without a ton of work.