Talking To Teens: Expert Tips for Parenting Teenagers

Andy: I just read your book, The Power of Strangers, and it's all about your journey to get really good at talking to random people. Walk me through this. Where did this idea come from? What inspired you to write a book about it, and why do you think it's important for people to know about?

Joe: Yeah. Interestingly, given what you talk about on this podcast, it started with my parents. I grew up in Boston and my parents were and are just chronic... They just talk to strangers constantly. So, everywhere they go, they talk to strangers. They'll go away on vacation and they'll come back with friends, and they're still doing this. They're late seventies, early eighties at this point, and they are still making friends. They're still out in the world. They're still chatting with everyone they can get their hands on. We still have random people showing up at family holidays. They'll do the move, which is honestly too brazen even for me, of reaching across a table in a crowded restaurant to start a conversation with someone, and they'll pull it off because they just have that manner.

They just had that energy to them. I wasn't horrified by that. It was just the way that they lived. So, I was raised watching that and seeing that it was a pretty good way to live. I also grew up in Boston, which is a town of talkers for sure. I became an adult. I got into journalism. Journalism is, in some way, the art of talking to strangers. So, got good at talking to people, got interested in talking to people. Loved the fact that no matter what you assumed someone was going to say, it always went differently. Anytime you judge someone by what they looked like or their background or anything like that, they were always going to surprise you with these hidden complexities. That's the great joy of doing the job.

But what I realized a few years ago, Andy, and I think this probably started around 2018, is that though I had many hilarious adventures and had many fantastic conversations and made friends and learned things, over the years, I had found that I had stopped talking to strangers. So, I would go into a bar and I'd look at my phone, which is the saddest thing in the world. I would go to the drugstore and I would pick the self-checkout line. I just started withdrawing. It wasn't a conscious choice. I just started doing it, and I noticed it one day. And so, I started wondering what it was exactly that was pushing me to opt out of in-person contact with strangers out in the world. I've always lived in cities. Cities are defined by an abundance of strangers.

So, I thought about my situation a little bit. I looked into the research a little bit, and for me, it was a mix of things. Number one, I had at that point a three-year-old daughter, and children are exhausting, as everyone who listens to this podcast knows. So, I just didn't have a lot of spare time and I didn't have a lot of spare energy. When I did get a moment to myself, I just wanted to sit there quietly. That was one thing, and the other thing was just the phone. If you're of a certain class, certain privileged position in society, and you have a phone, you can go the rest of your life without ever talking to a stranger again. So those things, but I felt like something was missing. I felt like my life was less rich and there was less serendipity and less polarity and less these little moments of connection and empathy.

And so, I wanted to go try to figure out what the benefit of this was, what the benefit of talking to strangers was, to start looking at the research, to start and try to figure out what are the circumstances under which we're more likely to talk to strangers? How do cultures form that are more or less friendly to strangers? Basically going through the psychology research, but also going back to the anthropological record, how traditional societies dealt with strangers, talking to evolutionary biologists, talking to theologians and priests and rabbis and urban planners and everyone I could get my hands on to try to answer what seemed like a simple question, which is, why don't we talk to strangers? When will we, and what happens when we do?

Andy: You cover some very interesting research in this book, and one set of studies I thought was really fascinating is about riding the bus or the train into work and people are imagining how much they would like having a conversation with the person next to them versus just enjoying time to themselves. From the way I read this, they imagine that they would rather spend time to themselves, but then when they actually try it out, they report having a much better experience when they chat up with the person next to them.

Joe: Yeah. It's funny, that study's been done in a couple different ways by a few different people, but the first researchers who did it were Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder at the University of Chicago. This was a few years ago, but their insight came, or their inspiration for this study came, when they were riding the subway in Chicago. They were riding the CTA and they knew from being psychologists that humans are hyper social. Even by any animal standards, we are phenomenally social. Our capacity to connect is remarkable. We don't give ourselves enough credit for it. But they thought it was funny that a species whose secret... The secret of our success was the ability to make connections, to broaden the sense of our group to include strangers and communicate with strangers and cooperate with strangers, that there would be a subway car completely filled with people who weren't talking to each other. They were wondering what that was, what was causing that, and also what would happen if people started talking to each other.

This is America. We've all been subject to "stranger danger" propaganda for many years. We can talk about this in a bit, but "stranger danger" propaganda is both harmful and statistically baseless, and I say that as a kid who spent a lot of time in grade school listening to cops tell us about all manner of terrible things that'll happen if you take candy from someone or whatever. But we are very pessimistic about the prospect of talking to strangers in America, in many cases, in cities more so than some smaller towns, but certainly it's there. So, Epley and Schroeder gathered a few hundred people and the experiment was going to be, one of the groups was going to be sent out on the CTA to talk to strangers. They asked them how they thought this was going to go and everyone said it was going to be a disaster and no one would want to talk to them and they would be bad at it. It was going to be embarrassing, and they were going to be rejected.

And then, they sent the other group out just to do what they always did. What they wanted to see, like you said, was is it more or less enjoyable? Is your commute more or less enjoyable if you talk to people during your commute? The group that went out dreading to do this, expecting rejection, went out and chatted with people on the subway, and then the other group just went out and did their usual thing, they kept to themselves. What Epley and Schroeder found was that the group who talked to people on the subway had an overwhelmingly positive experience. They felt that their commutes were more enjoyable. They didn't seem to last quite as long. They felt their day was improved by it. None of them were rejected, which is amazing. Not a single one was rejected by a person that they started a conversation with. And then the other people, their commute was their commute. No one liked their commute. So, they continued to not particularly like their commute.

But that was a breakthrough study that showed that we have a very pessimistic bias against talking to strangers, especially in a place like the subway where the norm is not to. But if you actually get past that and do it, you'll find that you enjoy it and also that the other person enjoys it as well. This is one thing that Epley and Schroeder measured was they actually interviewed some of the people who were approached after the fact, just to make sure that the study participants didn't just buttonhole these poor people and talk their ears off and the people just squirmed but couldn't escape because they're on the subway. They interviewed these people and those people reported that they enjoyed it more than they usually did as well. That's not to say that it's going to work a hundred percent of the time or that everyone wants to be talked to on the subway, but it does show that we're not giving ourselves nearly enough credit for how good we are at this and also how enjoyable it can be to talk to other people.

Andy: I think there is such assumption that, "Oh, I'd be bothering them. I don't want to butt in." Especially nowadays, everyone's always on their phone. It's like, "Oh, I don't want to interrupt. They're answering an important text message there or something." But there's also, you read about this phenomenon called the "lesser minds" problem. What is that?

Joe: Yeah, "lesser minds" is an idea forwarded by Nicholas Epley. I think Juliana Schroeder worked on this. I apologize, I forget the name of the other person. Sorry, Adam Waytz?

Andy: Yeah.

Joe: So, Adam Waytz. Lots of University of Chicago people, but basically what it is, is that people, and this seems to be universal, this seems to cut across any category line, we tend not to expect much of strangers. We tend to assume that their inner lives are less vibrant than ours. They don't have the same free will that we have. We tend to dehumanize them a little bit. Just a little bit. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be a monster or you're going to do terrible things. It just means that you're underestimating the capacity of the stranger that you're passing in the street.

The reason why is because you just can't see inside. You don't know what that person's inner life is like. You're just going by visual cues for the most part in your own head. This person is probably not that interesting a person. Maybe, not that complex as I am, maybe not as much of a magical, one-of-a-kind snowflake as I am. The way to get around lesser minds is just to talk to people, and that cuts back to what I was saying about working in journalism is allowing yourself to be surprised by the complexity of other people. It's a really healthy habit to get into. Being open to that, being open to the fact that everyone you meet though they may look a certain way, they may be wearing a shirt of a certain sports team or whatever, that they are going to surprise you with their own complexity if you actually talk to them.

Andy: I wonder also if that plays into, I feel like as teenagers, there's such a tendency to feel like adults don't get you or they can never understand what you're going through. It seems to me maybe this is another shade of the "lesser minds" problem.

Joe: Yeah, it's a couple things. So, it's that, certainly older people don't give younger people a lot of credit. I've traced that back 3000 years of people in Ancient Greece being like, "Young people today are feckless. They're not like we are. They don't respect their elders." That seems to be something that's just been with us forever, underestimating the complexity and the young people. But it goes the other way too, where younger people don't give older people a lot of credit, particularly senior citizens. The age gap between young people and senior citizens is one of the most difficult ones to navigate.

There's this idea of called "intergroup anxiety," and it's this idea that people, they can be a little anxious all the way to extremely anxious about interacting with someone from a different group. That could be a different race, it could be a different ideological orientation, or it could just be a different age. I do think adults just forget what it's like to be teenagers in a lot of ways. I think that happens too. I think one of the good things about raising a child is that it forces you to reconnect with your past self in a way, if you do it well. If you're deluding yourself about what you were really like as a teenager, then it's not going to work. You're not going to connect.

But being empathetic and living through the eyes of your teenager to remember what that was like and remember the unique challenges of it, that's the connection. A lot of that comes out of actually talking to each other. There are a lot of organizations that try to foster interactions between different groups, and one of the ones that several of the founders mentioned to me was, "We would really love if we could get older people and young people together to talk." The young people could learn from the older people's wisdom. The older people could learn from the energy and the optimism of the young people, and both of them could be reassured about one another, which is really important. It's a good hedge against cynicism and pessimism about a different group.

Andy: You write in the book about disclosure and how people who disclose, may talk about their own personal things that are going on with them, are perceived as more likable and when we do this, then other people are often likely to reciprocate and disclose things about themselves. I guess, there's a lot of times this idea that, "Oh man, I don't want to just unload all of everything that's going on with me on this person," and again, with what we were talking about earlier, "Am I burdening them?" Or, "They're probably busy," or, "They don't want to talk to me." But it's really interesting to see this research in a lot of studies showing that actually most of the time, by volunteering information about yourself, it works out well.

Joe: That goes way back basically to the dawn of humanity. There is an evolutionary advantage to be able to bond with strangers. As long as you can do it safely, as long as you're not under threat, there's an evolutionary advantage to growing your group and cooperating and communicating and using teamwork and building societies, because that's what protects us from the wild, basically. So, humanity excelled because it was so easy, because we had such a talent for socializing, for making those bonds, for making those connections. That's the reason why we evolved. It's the reason why we are what we are today. On a chemical level, there is an incentive for us to make those connections. It feels really good. There hasn't been proper research done on this, but some of the leading experts in oxytocin production at least hypothesized to me that having a meaningful interaction with a stranger might trigger the release of oxytocin, which is the bonding molecule, the chemical that bonds us to each other.

It's produced when mothers are nursing their children. It's produced during sex. Anytime there's an intense personal connection with another person, that oxytocin floods your system and that helps you solidify a bond. The reason why on a physical level our bodies incentivize that sort of thing is because bonding with others is good for us, and bonding for others is the reason... This is our nature. We're social. So, this is what happens when we honor our nature. Our physiognomy rewards us for it. When it comes to disclosure, it makes sense that our brains and our bodies are pushing us to connect. How do we connect with people? How do you have a meaningful interaction with someone? You need to be reassured that they're not dangerous. You need to be assured that you have something in common. But there's also this exchange that happens, and a lot of humanity and a lot of human culture is based on exchange and it works on all levels.

Andy: There's a back and forth that needs to go on.

Joe: Yeah. So, you give a gift. It's like the idea of the gift. You tell someone something and by disclosing something... You can't dump all your shit on someone right out of the gate. It has to be timed. It's a delicate dance, but you say something that's a little bit personal, a little bit private. You give somebody a little piece of what it is to be you, and what that says is that, "I trust you enough to handle this information. I'm making myself a little bit vulnerable." And then, they respond with that trust and that vulnerability by giving something back. People have the most amazing conversations on planes, on buses. We've all been in that situation where you just have an amazingly deep conversation with a total stranger that you'll never see again.

You can feel the conversation progressing as you're trading disclosures. This person says a little something, they go a little deeper. This person responds by matching them, and they follow each other down. You have to be very socially adept. You have to be very aware of the other person while you're doing it, because if someone's like, "How are you doing today?" And then you just give them all your garbage, all your worst stuff, it's not going to work. They're going to think that there's something wrong with you, that you're chaotic, that you're a threat, and they're going to want to get out of there. We've all been in those conversations too, where someone just wasn't reading your responses. But if you're paying attention to each other and you're listening to each other, you can have phenomenally good conversations with a total stranger, and you get a little tour of their lives.

It's almost like travel. You just get a guided tour through the life of another person. It could be interesting and it can be entertaining, but also, it works the empathy muscles a little bit, particularly if it's someone you wouldn't ordinarily talk to. You're just reassured again of the complexity of that person and by extension, the complexity of anyone you don't know. That's just good for you. That makes you a better person. That makes you a more empathetic person. A lot of social harm is caused by people who have a simplistic perception of other people. That's basically what racism is. You're just oversimplifying another group. So, anything you can do to hedge against that is going to make you more worldly, more empathetic, and you're also going to make a lot more friends, which is cool. I made so many friends too on this book, which was fantastic.

Andy: Well, you mentioned listening, and I guess that's the other side of the coin is disclosing and also listening and making people feel like we really hear them or we're really listening to them. That's not always easy to do.

Joe: No, it's really hard to do. I think everyone, or a lot of people, have the tendency to just search whatever the other person is saying for something that's relevant to them. Sometimes, that's fine. Sometimes, you're just at a party and you're talking to someone and eventually you find out that you're both soccer fans or whatever. And so sometimes it can work, but it can also limit because anytime you talk to someone, you're circling each other and almost invariably, you'll find something to talk about. There's got to be something in common. Having kids is the best. Having kids and pets, that's the thing. You can find so many people who are going through a similar experience that you are.

But that can really hinder a conversation. So, if you're talking to someone and you're just like, "Oh, you like baseball. Let's talk about baseball," then you're stuck. You're only talking about baseball. But if you listen to what they're saying and you resist the temptation to jump in and you resist the temptation just to search for things that are interesting to you, and you let them have the microphone and you just practice being curious, they say something and then just do... It's journalism 101. You just ask people open-ended questions, why, who, how, when, and then you just let them go. I mean, it was a weird experience for me because in journalism, a lot of times you're trying to control the conversation because you have limited time. You're doing a specific story.

That's why the interviews that go on forever are great because they can just find their own direction. But it feels vulnerable and a little disorienting just to let someone go, to not try to jump in, to not try to find something that you're interested in. They say something and instead of arguing or stepping in to try to offer advice or whatever you're usually doing, just try to understand how they got to that point, how they got to a place where they experienced that, and then just let them go. That's where you have really phenomenally good conversations. I keep saying this, but the name of the game is to experience the complexity of other people, and the only way you can really do that is by really listening.

There's some tricks to listening too. You maintain eye contact, which is very uncomfortable for a lot of people. You don't stare, but you want to make eye contact. You show them that you're listening through your body language by saying, "Yes." I just feel a little iffy about this stuff because it's been so completely co-opted by salespeople, but you can paraphrase. So, if they say something, you can repeat it back to them using slightly different words just to show them that you're listening. You can echo people. So, whatever they say at the end of their statement, you can say it back to them.

These things help people feel reassured. They help them feel listened to. They'll make them like you more. I mean, this is why this is also sales 101. It's a cheap way to get people to connect, so you can sell them whatever you're selling. I always feel a little weird about it, but there are all those techniques and they're very simple and they take a little bit of practice. They can be a little uncomfortable at first, but once you learn them and you just do it instinctually, it really opens the way for fascinating conversations, connections, and oftentimes friendship.

Andy: Yes, and I love what you point out here when you talk about listening a lot in the book. One thing you point out is that researchers have found people who feel listened to have a stronger sense of wellbeing and feel less anxious. I think that's just so true. It's such an easy thing to do, to just listen to somebody, but also it's not. It seems like it should be easy, but yet we don't do it that often or a lot of time, we're not really truly listening. I don't know, it's a nice reminder just to-

Joe: Yeah. One thing, I spoke to so many college professors for this, and it was almost universal, their experience with their students. What I heard again and again was that they were shocked at how difficult a time their students had socializing, making connections, and making friends. One of the reasons why it's so anxiety-producing for younger people to talk to strangers, and these could be strangers in their peer groups, they can be other kids at school, is that they're accustomed to controlling their conversations. So, if you're communicating largely by text, by digital platforms, you're in control of the conversation. There's no such thing really as what they call the wit of the staircase, when you have a conversation with someone and then 20 minutes later or afterwards, the best line hits you. You're like, "Oh, I should have said that."

You're in control when you're texting, and this is why I love texting too. You can set the terms of the exchange by waiting as long as you want to respond. By thinking through your response, you're controlling it. But when you're talking to someone in person, that is a live fire situation. You have relinquished control of the terms of this conversation, and that can be overwhelming for a lot of people, for a lot of younger people particularly. The good news is there have been lots of studies done where teenagers were sent out to talk to strangers. Again, they greeted the prospect with absolute dread. And then, they went out and did it and they had a phenomenally positive experience, and they were shocked not only by how receptive people were, but also the fact that they seemed to have a natural ability to do it. The muscle is there. It might have atrophied a little bit, but it's there because again, this is our nature. Our nature is to communicate. Our nature is to cooperate and to connect with people.