Ben Rein, PhD, WHY BRAINS NEED FRIENDS: The Neuroscience of Social Connection
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi, formerly Momstone
[0:07]Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors
[0:14]and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time.
[0:18]As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously a podcaster, I get a comprehensive
[0:24]look at everything that's coming up, and spend my time curating the best books, so you
[0:29]you don't have to.
[0:30]Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests, like I do, every single
[0:35]day.
[0:36]For more information, go to zibimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens.
[0:45]Ben Ryan is the author of Why Brains Need Friends, The Neuroscience of Social Connection.
[0:50]Ben Ryan P.H.D. is an award-winning neuroscientist, adjunct professor at Stanford University,
[0:56]clinical assistant professor at SUNY Buffalo, chief science officer of the Mind Science
[1:00]Foundation, and a renowned science educator.
[1:03]Dr. Ryan's research focuses on the neuroscience of social interactions and outside of the
[1:08]lab.
[1:09]He also teaches an audience of more than one million social media followers.
[1:12]Dr. Ryan and his research have been featured on major media outlets, including Entertainment
[1:17]Tonight and Good Morning America.
[1:19]And he has received awards from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine,
[1:23]the Society for Neuroscience, and elsewhere.
[1:26]Welcome, Ben.
[1:27]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book.
[1:29]I'm so excited to talk about Why Brains Need Friends, The Neuroscience, Social Connection.
[1:35]I am obsessed and like have been talking to everyone who will listen about various parts
[1:40]of the book since I read it.
[1:41]So congrats and welcome.
[1:43]Wow.
[1:44]Well, thank you.
[1:45]That means so much.
[1:46]Yeah, I appreciate that.
[1:47]Thank you for having me.
[1:48]Thank you for all you said about the book and maybe you hear this often from those you
[1:51]have on the show or authors in general, but I'm in this sort of strange purgatory space
[1:55]where my book's not in the real world yet.
[1:57]And so only a few people have read it and you're one of the people, so to hear positive
[2:01]feedback really means a lot because I'm in this, you know, fearful state.
[2:05]So thank you.
[2:06]And I can't wait to dive into these questions you have.
[2:08]No, it's a period of time very well and it is great and I, you know, I was talking it
[2:14]up to even my colleagues at work and I was like, so he starts it off by saying he doesn't
[2:19]believe in jargon.
[2:20]So even though neuroscience is on the cover, don't be intimidated by that.
[2:23]It is totally consumable for the masses and takes very complex concepts, explains them
[2:31]and makes them relevant to sort of everybody.
[2:33]So yeah, so why don't you start off by explaining a little more about the book in general
[2:37]and why you decide it, why you research this, why this is an area of interest, I love
[2:42]all the backstory of you and your intellectual and sort of educational pursuits leading
[2:46]up to this.
[2:47]Why do you care so much about it?
[2:49]Yeah.
[2:50]For those who are meeting me through this podcast, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a neuroscientist.
[2:55]And I studied the neuroscience of social interaction and that's putting it broadly more specifically
[3:00]I've studied things like the neuroscience of autism spectrum disorder or the neuroscience
[3:05]of empathy, these various things that are associated with social behavior.
[3:10]And so in my, well, starting in my life when I was young, I've always been interested
[3:14]in why everyone is sort of different socially, why are some people really extroverted
[3:19]and some people are really shy and reserved and they don't really like interacting
[3:22]or for others.
[3:23]It's like the best form of nutrition they could feed their brain, I've always thought
[3:26]that was fascinating.
[3:28]And that's how I landed in my career.
[3:30]I just described that I'm studying the son of neuroscience level and there's a whole story
[3:33]behind that that of course I talk about in the book, but I'll leave that out for now
[3:36]unless you want to dive into that.
[3:37]But the reason I wrote this book is because, you know, we've become aware, most people
[3:42]have become aware of this issue we're facing that were more isolated than ever before.
[3:47]People have fewer friends, you know, this loneliness epidemic smoking or being isolated
[3:52]is as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, right?
[3:54]We keep hearing all this stuff.
[3:57]But I don't think people really truly understand what's at stake in the same way that maybe
[4:02]people understand like, you know, you shouldn't eat an unhealthy diet or you shouldn't,
[4:06]you know, get two hours of sleep a night or, you know, all these different things that
[4:09]are kind of fundamental pillars of health and well-being, people have a general grasp
[4:14]of it.
[4:15]But socializing, I kind of feel like is underserved from the neuroscience perspective.
[4:19]You know, what does it really do for your brain?
[4:21]Why is isolation so bad for your brain?
[4:24]Why is it as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day?
[4:26]What does that even mean?
[4:27]What does that referring to?
[4:28]And so, you know, I am an extrovert, I really get a lot of joy and pleasure in my life
[4:34]from socializing and I'm even better served by that knowing that from my neuroscience
[4:40]background that it's good for my brain and I just want everybody to understand this and
[4:44]I'm a science communicator and by that, I mean, I share science with the masses.
[4:47]I try to get people to understand neuroscience and so I present it in a way that anybody
[4:52]can understand in short-form videos on social media and, you know, I've had a five plus
[4:57]year journey with that now and I've come to realize how separate from society science
[5:02]can often be and the negative effects that can have on science's relationship with society.
[5:08]So I wrote this book for anybody to understand.
[5:10]I mean, I want this message to resonate.
[5:12]I'm so glad to be here that it has with you and, yeah, and like you mentioned, the very
[5:16]first page that you open to is my no big words clause.
[5:18]I basically say there's just too much jargon in science.
[5:21]It's totally not necessary.
[5:23]Anything that you use jargon for can probably be explained and if I have to use jargon
[5:28]in the book, I have an appendix explaining that stuff.
[5:30]So it's really meant for anybody and yes, so thank you for your review of it and positive
[5:34]feelings.
[5:35]I took the quiz and I never knew 100% if I was an introvert or an extrovert because
[5:42]I really do like my time alone and all of that.
[5:45]But as it turns out, I'm a total extrovert.
[5:46]I mean, I do talk to people all day, but I prefer like this type of one-on-one interaction.
[5:50]Anyway, I was off the charts on your little quiz.
[5:53]So anyway, that was enlightening for me to learn about myself.
[5:57]Some of the things that I keep repeating to people are just little tidbits that I found
[6:01]and not one of like necessarily the bigger concepts, but they illustrate a concept.
[6:05]For example, the creativity challenge of Zoom itself.
[6:10]And here we are on Zoom and you talk about how because we are so focused in this medium
[6:15]on each other and just this little square, we aren't taking in the signs and signals
[6:20]around us.
[6:21]And actually, if you have a brainstorm on Zoom with your colleagues versus a brainstorm
[6:26]with people in an actual place, you're foregoing all of the signals and inputs you're
[6:32]getting just from like looking around the room and hearing things and smelling things
[6:35]and getting all of that so that actually you're much better off brainstorming or doing
[6:40]anything creative with a group off of Zoom and in person.
[6:43]And now there is a reason why instead of just saying, oh, it's better when we're in person,
[6:48]there's evidence as to why it's better to work in person.
[6:51]Yeah, absolutely.
[6:52]I mean, the truth is probably this podcast would be better and more interesting if we
[6:57]both walked around the rooms we're in right now or I mean, if we were in the same room
[7:01]ideally.
[7:02]But you know, if we were.
[7:03]You can just go walk around your room right now and just carry my, yeah, just carry
[7:06]around.
[7:07]I'll wander around here and we'll see how good.
[7:09]No, but yeah, it's so interesting because you know, a little more detail on this study that
[7:12]you're referring to.
[7:13]They found that basically, yeah, people were less creative when they weren't meeting
[7:16]on Zoom and they thought, yeah, maybe it has something to do with the fact that we are
[7:21]collapsing our attention into this, you know, rectangle on a screen.
[7:25]It's not it's not lifelike.
[7:27]And so as we collapse and focus our attention, maybe we're also sort of restraining our creative
[7:33]thinking.
[7:34]And so what they did is they actually they counted how many of the props that they placed
[7:39]around the room, people noticed and they found that the more props people noticed around
[7:45]the room, so that you know, they're for the more, you know, they engage with their surroundings.
[7:50]The more creative they were in this brainstorming and the people on Zoom noticed much
[7:54]less of their surroundings.
[7:56]And yeah, I think it's fascinating.
[7:58]I actually posted a video about that on Instagram and TikTok.
[8:01]Unfortunately, there were a lot of people commenting and saying things like, ah, you've
[8:05]been bought by big business.
[8:06]Like they want us back in the offices.
[8:08]I'm like, no, no, this is just unbiased science.
[8:11]But yeah, it's I mean, it's fascinating and that, and that of course lines up with much
[8:15]of the other research I share in the book about why in person is best when it comes to socializing.
[8:20]Yes, and how even what might be thought of as insignificant interactions are actually hugely
[8:25]important.
[8:26]And all that, of course, we all know was lost during COVID, but the day to day interactions
[8:31]of checking out or checking out of a store or returning something or passing someone on
[8:37]the bus or whatever, all those things are so crucial to us as human beings.
[8:42]And yes, as you've explained, we've adapted to learn without them and that we've learned
[8:47]that it's okay.
[8:48]Like we're just going to text, we're just going to do it online.
[8:50]It doesn't necessarily mean it's good for us or better than you gave the example of like
[8:55]not sleeping many hours.
[8:56]Yes, we can adapt to it, but like it's not the best.
[8:59]Right.
[9:00]Yeah.
[9:01]I mean, and that is I think what's been happening.
[9:03]I think for many, many reasons, we have been sort of receded away from one another.
[9:08]And it starts with, you know, a lot of this daily interactions that we're missing, like
[9:14]you described.
[9:15]We've become very good at automating pretty much everything, you know, and you go to
[9:19]the bank.
[9:20]You used to talk to a teller now.
[9:21]It's an automated teller machine, right, ATM, you go, you call the bank and they used
[9:25]to be a person.
[9:26]Hello, how can I help you?
[9:27]No, now it's a press one for this department, you know, and on and on and on, you can
[9:32]basically point to any structure of society that has been and everything's been automated.
[9:38]And I don't think that's good.
[9:39]I also think aside from the fact that that is causing us to spend less time interacting,
[9:44]it's also probably impairing our sense of community and belonging because when you go
[9:49]to the grocery store or whatever and you talk to the butcher and they, you know, they chop
[9:54]you up some meat to bring home and you talk to them for a couple of minutes.
[9:58]You get that sense of, okay, hey, I have like an.
[10:00]ally here. I have a person in my community that I didn't know was on my team. But in the
[10:05]two minute conversation, we found some things in common. And that's so comforting for your
[10:09]brain, right? It tells your brain, you are safe, you are protected, you are among friends.
[10:14]And when we lose that, and especially when we're seeing all this very divisive hostile,
[10:20]you know, content on social media and all these videos meant to be inflammatory. And that's
[10:25]becoming the way that we engage with society more and more. I mean, that is doing very
[10:30]serious damage to our sense of belonging and our place in society. And, you know, in the conclusion
[10:35]of the book, I tell the story of this like incredible day where basically everybody treated me
[10:41]amazing for no reason. And it was this like transformative experience where I came out of it feeling
[10:48]like I was proud to be human. And that was such a strange feeling because it made me realize,
[10:53]oh, I had kind of lost sight of that. I was sort of not proud to be human anymore. And when
[10:58]these people taught me and showed me what it's like to be kind and loving and caring just by nature,
[11:04]it made me reconnect with that. And I think that everybody deserves that experience.
[11:08]Well, I love actually the end of your book because can I just read something from that? Because
[11:12]I feel like this is my philosophy. This is like how I have come to understand the world as well.
[11:20]But I've never seen it with a whole book to support it. And then as a conclusion,
[11:25]as opposed to just, yeah, I think love is like really important and like this is why we're here.
[11:29]But not just spoil, you know, some of the outcomes of your research. But you said, well,
[11:33]writing this book, I came to a major conclusion about the meaning of life. I think that love,
[11:38]social connection, and relationships are why we're here. I know I know this may sound ridiculous,
[11:42]but hear me out. We humans replaced here by some force. It makes no difference whether you believe
[11:47]that force is evolutionary or religious or something else. The important question is what keeps
[11:52]us here? What gives us a will to live? What kept our ancient ancestors from feeding themselves
[11:57]to nature? And what stops us from lying down and never getting up? To succeed as a species,
[12:03]we must be motivated to stay here and remain alive. There must be something that makes us want
[12:08]to exist and enjoy existing. And I believe that's something is the love we have for each other
[12:14]without the joy we experience from our social bonds. Would life be worth living? There's nothing
[12:19]more powerful than a love for a child, a partner, or a best friend. For many, the thought of leaving
[12:24]these people behind is too painful to embrace death. Research supports this idea that there there it is,
[12:31]meaning of life. Boom. You can all go on with your day. This is it.
[12:35]Allow me to just say that was like a personally special moment for me just now.
[12:38]Like here, I haven't heard anyone read a section of my book before again in that strange
[12:42]purgatory. And that really meant a lot to me. So thank you for sharing that. You're welcome.
[12:48]No, it's so true because what else is there? I mean, you also go into all of this psychedelics and
[12:54]how with some drugs, like you literally feel like you are one with the universe. And like you are
[13:00]that you there's no boundary for the ego, bound pre-list ego or whatever. And so what does it mean
[13:05]to be part of the universe? What are we doing here? What does what are our brains even doing? Like,
[13:11]what are we doing here? So I appreciated the synopsis. You know, it's simplistic. Yes, but like
[13:17]profound really profound. Yeah. And I tend to think of life that way. I mean, when you really
[13:22]take a step back and this is something I hope that my book does for readers is it forces you to
[13:27]take that step back and look around and think, my gosh, almost everything about our existence has
[13:34]some tied to social nature, like our social nature and social interaction. And you know,
[13:40]at the core, what you just shared, you know, this sort of meaning of life, I mean, what would
[13:44]life be without love in these relationships? And on the other end of that, you know, there are
[13:50]people out there who, you know, commit acts of harm and hurt others because either they're
[13:56]protecting their group or they're, you know, trying to eliminate a rival group. And there's
[14:01]almost anything that happens in the world can be tied back to relationships. And, you know,
[14:08]and I also think it's funny if you look at how we spend our time, this is another one of those
[14:12]like zoom out moments where it's like, oh, yeah, the way we spend our time, I mean, aside from
[14:16]socializing, we might spend our time alone at home. Well, what do we do? We like to scroll
[14:21]social media and look at content from other people. If we watch TV, we are watching usually
[14:27]stories about social interaction, right? There's some sort of social, there's never
[14:31]almost never a show or a movie that's about one person by themselves the whole time. And if it
[14:35]is, it's like a survivalist thing, right? This is the storyline is always- I have seen one of those.
[14:42]It's very long. But anyway, keep going. But yeah, the storyline about with movies and TV shows
[14:47]is usually about, you know, two groups competing or one person, you know, rising through their
[14:52]life and dealing with challenges with other people or romance with other people, like, you
[14:56]can always find the social nature and everything. And I just think that when you start to recognize
[15:01]that it really changes the way you sort of engage with the outer world. And I also loved your chapter
[15:07]on dogs. I love the evolution from wolves and how dogs DNA has adapted alongside of ours,
[15:15]not that we are becoming dogs, but just that they have learned to adapt with the universe in the
[15:19]same way and how looking into dog's eyes increases the oxytocin for both parties. But even though
[15:27]they were derived from wolves, looking eye-to-eye into a wolf doesn't at least any of that. And how
[15:33]the importance of one adaptive measure that the eyebrow is like so huge as your dog perfectly
[15:40]time. It was Zoey, thank you for that. Anyway, how that one adaptation from evolutionary perspective
[15:48]changes our relationships and how we feel in our emotions. Anyway, I found it absolutely fascinating.
[15:53]Yeah, I am obsessed with dogs. I mean, you know, the fact that my dog just barged in,
[15:58]I'm not upset. You know, she's a part of my life. She's like a child, right? I love dogs. I love the
[16:02]science of dogs and human dog relationships. And yeah, I mean, the general idea here is that
[16:09]dogs have pretty much hijacked our human to human or even parent to child bonding systems in our
[16:17]to make us love them. Because we survive, you know, this, there's always a an evolutionary
[16:22]explanation for me at least. And humans survive really well in groups. That's why we like being
[16:27]around each other. Humans and dogs survive really well in groups. That's why we like being around
[16:32]each other. And why you love your dog so much and your dog loves you too. And what you just described
[16:37]is exactly sort of the, the glue, right? When you look into your dog's eyes, you and your dog produce
[16:44]oxytocin, which is referred to as like the love hormone. What oxytocin really is, is a social reward
[16:51]chemical basically. It makes us feel pleasant being around others. And it's reinforcing. It makes
[16:56]us want to spend more time with them. So you'll experience a ton of oxytocin around your children
[17:00]or around your, your loved ones or your romantic partner. And so you had dogs at some point
[17:07]evolved this because wolves don't have it, but dogs do that they produce oxytocin,
[17:11]which is how basically we came to be unified. And it's funny because there's all sorts of other
[17:17]amazing features that dogs have evolved. One of them is puppy eyes. So dogs have this ability
[17:22]to raise their inner eyebrows and it's super cute. Wolves literally don't have that muscle.
[17:27]They just straight up don't. And so at some point what happened was, you know, just to also
[17:32]explain a little evolution. It's not that a dog just sprouted this. There was some sort of genetic
[17:37]change on accident that one dog had this ability. And the humans around it said, oh my gosh,
[17:43]this dog is so cute. I want to take that one and have that one. And then they that one reproduced.
[17:47]And then we sort of, we were the evolutionary force. We selected for that. And now all of our
[17:53]domestic dogs have that ability. And what's funny is there's a recent study that basically
[17:58]proved that all over again where they looked at dogs in shelters. And they found that dogs who
[18:02]used that muscle more were much more quickly adopted from the shelter, which is like, we are the
[18:08]same humans that we were way back when we chose these dogs because of this feature. And yeah,
[18:13]humans and dogs have a really long relationship. Like up to 40,000 years, it's thought to be that
[18:17]we've been living together. I guess amazing. Yeah, that was sad. So sad. The part about the
[18:22]shelters and how it's literally life saving this adaptation is, you know, the puppy eyes and the
[18:26]glistening eyes. And then I think about my dog Nia who's behind me. And how like, if I go to leave
[18:31]the house and not bring and don't bring her, she just stands there and it's like, what?
[18:36]And of course, you make the argument against Botox, which is good because I actually haven't had
[18:40]Botox. I'm like, I think the only one in New York City. But anyway, about how it changes, how people
[18:45]can read and relate and respond without those, you know, triggered without those signs to let people
[18:52]know how they're feeling. Right. Yeah. So a big part of understanding what others feel is actually
[18:59]mimicking what they're doing. We don't really notice it, but we tend to mimic all sorts of things
[19:03]on body language and facial expressions, especially if you see someone upset, the muscles that can
[19:08]that make you look angry or upset start to activate. And vice versa. If you see someone happy,
[19:14]you start to the muscles that that will pull your lips up into a smile. They start to activate as
[19:18]well. And this kind of feeds back into your brain and tells you, Hey, you know, you're smiling,
[19:24]which means they're smiling, you feel happy. So they're happy. And it's just sort of a piece
[19:29]of how empathy works in the brain and body. But Botox, it talks in it. It paralyzes these nerves.
[19:36]And so it prevents that mimicry and or at least, you know, it can get in the way of that mimicry
[19:42]and not totally prevent it. And because of this, people with Botox, they struggle to identify
[19:47]and understand what other people's faces are telling them about their emotions. So yeah, if you
[19:53]you have, you know, paralyze these important muscles and nerves in your face that feedback to your
[19:58]brain, you may struggle to understand what other.
[20:00]because they're feeling.
[20:01]Yeah.
[20:02]That's why I'm looking older than my peers,
[20:04]because I do this for a living dog getting.
[20:06]And then another thing, and I'm jumping around a lot here,
[20:09]but that has changed in my own behavior,
[20:12]is that now I am like using emojis with abandon.
[20:16]Like I am using them.
[20:18]I always thought they were sort of like a shortcut
[20:20]in a negative way, but in your book,
[20:23]you explain how even that addition of emotion
[20:27]from an emojis face is enough to show what you mean,
[20:31]how you feel and get people to empathize with you,
[20:33]just from adding a little symbol.
[20:36]Yeah, I love these things that you're pulling up
[20:38]in the book.
[20:39]This is awesome.
[20:40]Yeah, because, you know, when we're texting someone,
[20:42]like right now, even we're virtual,
[20:44]but still we can see each other here each other.
[20:46]There's so much social information.
[20:48]If this was a text interaction,
[20:50]you know, you're stripping away all of that context
[20:53]and those social cues that frame the emotions
[20:55]of what you're trying to say.
[20:57]But there are, yes, there's studies that show
[20:59]that people's brains react to a respond to emojis
[21:04]where the emoji is showing some expression,
[21:06]whether it's pain or whatever happiness,
[21:09]they respond in a similar way to human faces,
[21:11]not exactly one to one, but similar.
[21:13]And so yeah, maybe when we're interacting online,
[21:16]we can add an emoji here or there
[21:17]and trigger your brain to think,
[21:20]okay, that's the emotion that is assigned to that.
[21:22]And you know, maybe that seems a little bit obvious.
[21:25]It's like, well, yeah, that's why I use emojis,
[21:27]but there's neuroscientific validation
[21:29]that that actually may help.
[21:31]And when we're dealing with these really
[21:33]one-dimensional interactions
[21:35]where oftentimes things are misunderstood
[21:38]and, you know, fights can happen.
[21:40]And, you know, it can be bad.
[21:42]And maybe throwing an emoji in there,
[21:43]especially on a message that might be on difficult,
[21:47]it might be difficult to interpret.
[21:49]Maybe you could prevent a fight
[21:50]and, you know, smooth things over
[21:51]and keep the conversation head in the right direction.
[21:54]I love it.
[21:54]So good.
[21:55]So your book is convincing, right?
[21:59]I buy it, I am sold.
[22:03]What do people do if they read the book?
[22:05]And they're like, yes, I totally get it.
[22:07]But I don't feel like I know the next steps
[22:10]to not being socially isolated.
[22:13]Like some people work at home
[22:15]and they rarely go out or they might want more friends,
[22:20]but they're maybe not the best of making friends
[22:23]or they're not or they're retired
[22:26]and they're home all the time.
[22:27]And they just don't know what to do.
[22:28]And then that, of course, leads to depression
[22:30]when you're isolated and it's like a bad feedback loop.
[22:33]So for anyone listening who's like, yeah, okay,
[22:36]I know all this, but like I wish my life were different,
[22:39]but it's not.
[22:40]How can we help those people?
[22:42]Well, let me first start by saying,
[22:45]if you are isolated,
[22:47]it's probable that your brain will react differently
[22:50]to socializing.
[22:51]Being isolated changes the way the brain reacts
[22:54]to social information in a negative way.
[22:56]So when you do go out and socialize,
[22:58]it's probable that you will not experience
[23:01]as much social reward.
[23:03]You might not trust people as much.
[23:06]You might have some sort of strange sensation
[23:09]I'm not feeling like yourself.
[23:10]So be prepared for that.
[23:11]And if you do, just be ready to go through
[23:14]maybe one or two or three interactions
[23:16]before you feel like yourself.
[23:17]Also, before you even get to that stage,
[23:21]it's important to understand that people often
[23:23]underestimate the value of an interaction.
[23:25]We basically have all these really unfortunate pitfalls
[23:29]built into our brains that prevent us from connecting
[23:31]with others.
[23:32]We think basically we just were not good at judging
[23:36]how people are going to respond to us.
[23:37]And that often holds us back from connection.
[23:39]So if you are thinking, what's it be said here in here,
[23:42]like maybe I should interact more,
[23:44]but you have hesitations,
[23:45]please just try to throw those hesitations away.
[23:47]Everybody experiences that.
[23:48]It's very, very common.
[23:50]And the reality is that you will feel better
[23:53]after the interaction than you expect.
[23:55]And also that people are more accepting
[23:57]of your interactions or your approaching them
[23:59]for an interaction than you would anticipate.
[24:02]Now, as for how to actually do this,
[24:04]how to sort of emerge back into socializing.
[24:08]So I have three suggestions.
[24:10]The first is try to recognize where you are just
[24:15]shutting out interaction that you could be accepting.
[24:17]That could mean someone's calling you.
[24:19]And you're like, yeah, this isn't really important.
[24:21]Or I don't really feel like talking right now,
[24:23]or work is more important, whatever it is.
[24:26]And so you let the call go to voicemail,
[24:28]or I don't know, whatever it is,
[24:30]there's so many ways this could happen, right?
[24:31]Someone knocks on your door and you're like,
[24:33]oh my gosh, I'm going to go hide.
[24:35]I don't want to answer the door right now.
[24:36]I mean, if it's a sales person, sure.
[24:37]But these types of things where we are
[24:40]deprioritizing interaction,
[24:43]try to avoid that.
[24:44]Try to pick up the call,
[24:45]try to answer the door,
[24:46]try to meet with friends.
[24:48]And another example of that is
[24:49]you have plans with friends,
[24:50]and then at the last minute you get your feel too tired.
[24:52]And so you, you flake on them.
[24:53]You don't show up, you know, try not to do that.
[24:56]That's an easy one.
[24:57]The second one is you can look for those micro interactions
[25:02]that we've replaced as we mentioned earlier.
[25:04]You know, all those things that are automated.
[25:05]So instead of ordering your groceries on Instacart,
[25:08]go to the grocery store.
[25:09]Sure, it might take you a little bit longer,
[25:11]but you'll probably feel better after.
[25:12]You know, there's so many different examples of this.
[25:16]You could see your doctor on telemedicine
[25:18]or you could just go into the office.
[25:19]You know, anything like that
[25:21]where you're discovering,
[25:22]you're placing a screen between you and someone else,
[25:27]try to put a human in front of you.
[25:29]You know, this just happened to me a colleague.
[25:32]We live in the same city,
[25:33]and we work at the same university,
[25:35]and he said, hey, you know,
[25:36]do you have time for a call in the next couple of days?
[25:38]And I was like, just go over my house.
[25:40]Let's just like actually talk in person.
[25:41]We can do this, right?
[25:42]It's just a car ride that is separating us.
[25:46]Let's not let that get in the way.
[25:47]And we had such a better conversation.
[25:48]Now, the third,
[25:50]if you want to really build more socializing in your life,
[25:55]I would suggest looking into like themed groups,
[25:59]I suppose.
[26:00]So finding other people and groups that are already existing
[26:04]that are things that you like.
[26:05]So let's say you really enjoy mountain biking
[26:07]or karate or, you know, Shakespearean theater
[26:10]or something like that.
[26:11]See if you can find some sort of group in your area
[26:14]that is already gathering around this concept.
[26:16]And there are apps for this.
[26:18]I know there's something like,
[26:19]I think it's called meet up.
[26:20]There's things like this.
[26:21]If you can find those groups
[26:23]and you can enter a social interaction
[26:26]where right off the bat,
[26:27]you already have something in common.
[26:29]That is really satisfying for your brain
[26:31]and very comforting because what often gets in the way
[26:34]of connection is the sort of perceived division,
[26:37]or I'm sorry,
[26:38]the sort of perceived dissimilarity, right?
[26:40]What's different about us?
[26:42]And nowadays, unfortunately, we've gotten very good
[26:44]at noticing how we are different from others,
[26:47]whether that's politically or religiously or whatever it is.
[26:50]But if you can enter with all of,
[26:53]you all have one foot in the same boat,
[26:54]you all agree on mountain biking is awesome.
[26:58]And you can kind of forget about all those other
[26:59]dissimilarities that's really supportive
[27:01]for finding connection.
[27:02]And I'm sure you'll end up liking these people
[27:05]and maybe making some friends.
[27:06]Amazing.
[27:07]And then one last quick question.
[27:08]How did you get so many social media followers?
[27:14]Like, how did you take this content,
[27:16]which is fascinating, I admit,
[27:18]and turn it into something that is going viral?
[27:23]That is a mystery.
[27:24]I'm not sure I truly know the answer to it.
[27:25]I mean, I'll tell you what I think.
[27:27]My first video that I ever posted was back in COVID
[27:31]and it was me explaining how to wear a mask.
[27:34]And I only posted that video
[27:35]because I was trying to download it to my phone
[27:38]to share with my friends and family.
[27:39]And I happened to fill myself on TikTok.
[27:42]And the video ended up going viral.
[27:43]And you know, I got like 1.6 million views.
[27:46]And I think the only reason that video went viral
[27:49]is because I was speaking to my friends and family.
[27:51]I was genuinely not trying to go viral.
[27:54]I was just trying to help my friends and family.
[27:56]And without really thinking about it,
[27:59]I ended up building that into my ongoing videos
[28:02]until eventually my content became sort of characterized,
[28:06]this characterized by this casual nature where like,
[28:10]yes, I was talking to you as a PhD holding neuroscientist
[28:15]working at Stanford University,
[28:17]but I wasn't in a lab coat
[28:18]and talking down to people and using jargon.
[28:20]I was just like, to me, this was separate from the lab.
[28:23]And so I was just explaining things.
[28:24]And just like I would to my mom or my grandma or my wife,
[28:27]you know, and I think that's what helps
[28:30]is that people understood it.
[28:32]And they felt, wow, you know, this is science
[28:35]and it's rigorous and I don't think this guy
[28:37]is like selling supplements or something.
[28:39]He's actually trustworthy.
[28:40]And it's explained at a level
[28:43]that I've never really been able to understand it before.
[28:46]And so of course, as you mentioned at the very beginning,
[28:48]you know, I built a lot of that into the book
[28:50]because, you know, I want people to understand.
[28:53]I think we'd science deserves
[28:55]to have a better relationship with society.
[28:57]And I've also been there myself where, you know,
[29:00]I was afraid of neuroscience for a lot of my academic career
[29:03]and then I eventually made the leap
[29:05]and started studying it.
[29:07]But I, for a while, I thought I wouldn't be able to handle it.
[29:09]And I could.
[29:10]And so I just want everyone else
[29:11]to not be intimidated by this subject
[29:13]because we all have brains
[29:14]and we all deserve to understand them.
[29:16]Great, amazing.
[29:18]Ben, congratulations, why brains need friends
[29:21]and neuroscience of social connections.
[29:24]Congratulations.
[29:25]Thank you so much.
[29:26]I really, really appreciate it.
[29:27]Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi
[29:30]formerly mom's time to have time to read books.
[29:33]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[29:36]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[29:39]and spread the word.
[29:40]Thanks so much.
[29:41]Oh, and buy the books.