1KHO 434: Don’t Do Everything Alone | William Von Hippel, The Social Paradox

Summary

Podcast Summary: "1KHO 434: Don’t Do Everything Alone | William Von Hippel, The Social Paradox"

Release Date: February 21, 2025

Introduction

In the 434th episode of The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast, host Jenny Ertz engages in a profound conversation with William Von Hippel, known as Bill, a renowned author and independent scientist. The discussion centers around Bill's insightful book, "The Social Paradox," which delves into the intricate balance between autonomy and connection in modern life.

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1. The Happiness Paradox: Wealth vs. Well-being

Bill initiates the conversation by highlighting a compelling paradox: despite significant advancements and increased wealth, human happiness hasn't proportionally risen. Drawing comparisons between hunter-gatherer societies and modern affluent lifestyles, Bill illustrates how abundance and convenience do not necessarily equate to greater happiness.

Bill: “I marveled at their inability to appreciate all this wealth and all these conveniences and all these nice things. I thought, well, you don't appreciate that. But I would, should it ever come to pass that I hit it big, I would be happier if I had those things.” ([02:48])

This reflection challenges the conventional belief that material success leads to fulfillment, prompting listeners to reconsider what truly contributes to genuine happiness.

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2. Autonomy vs. Connection: The Core Tension

At the heart of Bill's book is the tension between autonomy (the desire for personal freedom and individual choices) and connection (the need for meaningful relationships). He posits that modern society often leans heavily towards autonomy, sometimes at the expense of deep, fulfilling connections.

Bill: “The premise of this book… is this tension that we have between autonomy and connection.” ([04:59])

This balance is crucial, especially in an era where children experience diminishing autonomy and connection due to increased screen time and structured schedules.

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3. Urban vs. Rural Living: Impact on Social Satisfaction

Bill and Jenny explore how living environments influence social satisfaction. Contrary to what one might expect, those residing in rural areas often report higher satisfaction with friendships compared to their urban counterparts, despite having fewer choices.

Bill: “People who live in rural areas are more satisfied with their friends than people who live in urban areas.” ([07:05])

Urban living, characterized by high population density and myriad choices, can paradoxically lead to feelings of isolation and weaker social bonds.

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4. The Burden of Choice in Modern Life

Modern society offers an overwhelming array of choices, from career paths to daily decisions, which can lead to decision fatigue and decreased satisfaction. Bill references Sheena Iyengar's chocolate shop study to illustrate how excessive options can hinder rather than help.

Bill: “It's like going into the chocolate shop and being offered too many opportunities.” ([09:42])

This abundance of choice often results in individuals feeling paralyzed or constantly dissatisfied, fearing they've made the wrong decision.

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5. Parenting in the Modern Age: Balancing Autonomy and Structure

The conversation shifts to parenting, where Bill discusses the challenges of granting children autonomy while ensuring they develop strong social connections. He critiques the current trend of highly structured schedules, arguing that it limits unstructured playtime essential for creativity and relationship building.

Bill: “We probably know better…and my example is… we don't have to be alone or want to be alone to do what we're doing.” ([13:50])

He advocates for providing children with more freedom to explore and form friendships organically, rather than adhering strictly to organized activities.

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6. Importance of Unstructured Time and Friendships in Child Development

Unstructured playtime, especially in mixed-age groups, fosters observational learning and stronger, more enduring friendships. Bill emphasizes that such interactions are crucial for developing adaptability and social skills.

Bill: “Kids playing kickball… they are playing together.” ([35:14])

He contrasts this with today's environment, where children often interact within homogenous, same-age groups, limiting their exposure to diverse perspectives and skills.

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7. Impact of Social Media on Relationships and Mental Health

Bill addresses the pervasive influence of social media, noting its role in exacerbating social comparison and envy. The curated nature of online profiles often leads individuals to feel inadequate, undermining real-life relationships and self-esteem.

Bill: “Social media… makes us see that their lives look better than our own.” ([49:18])

He warns that while social media can facilitate distant connections, it often replaces meaningful, in-person interactions that are vital for emotional well-being.

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8. Aging Friendships and Maintaining Connections

Long-term friendships, such as Bill's enduring bonds with childhood friends Sid and Richard, exemplify the strength and resilience of deep connections. Bill shares strategies for maintaining such relationships in adulthood, emphasizing intentionality and adapting to life's changes.

Bill: “Old friends, you can call them or fail to call them.” ([32:18])

These enduring friendships provide stability and support, contrasting with the fleeting nature of many modern relationships influenced by transient digital interactions.

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9. Conclusion: Favorite Memory and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, Bill shares a heartfelt memory of his childhood spent outdoors in Alaska, underscoring the importance of unstructured play and natural connections.

Bill: “My memory of my childhood is being outside… running amok outside.” ([53:04])

This reflection serves as a poignant reminder of the value of freedom and connection in fostering happiness and personal growth.

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Key Takeaways

• Balance is Crucial: Striking a healthy balance between autonomy and connection is essential for personal happiness and societal well-being.

• Reevaluate Choices: Simplifying choices and focusing on meaningful connections can enhance life satisfaction.

• Promote Unstructured Play: Allowing children more freedom to explore and interact naturally fosters creativity and strong relationships.

• Be Mindful of Social Media: Recognizing the impact of curated online lives on mental health can help mitigate feelings of inadequacy and envy.

• Nurture Enduring Friendships: Investing in long-term relationships provides emotional support and stability throughout life's changes.

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Final Thoughts

The Social Paradox offers a compelling exploration of how modern life's emphasis on autonomy can inadvertently erode the very connections that sustain our happiness. Through engaging dialogue, Bill Von Hippel provides valuable insights and practical strategies for rebalancing these fundamental human needs, making this episode a must-listen for parents, educators, and anyone interested in fostering a more connected and fulfilling life.

Transcript

[A]

The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit strayer.edu Jack Welchmba to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Shev and has many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia. Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Ertz. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. I read this really cool book about a topic that I've never in my life even considered or thought about it, but it made it was so thought provoking. It's called the Social Paradox. It's about autonomy and connection and sort of balancing out the two to make sure that we live full, happy lives. The author, William Von Hippel, but we're going to call him Bill, is here. Bill, welcome.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

This is exciting. Bill is a faculty member at Ohio State or was a faculty member at Ohio State. I went to U of M. I think we're rivals. I'm not super into sports, but I kind of think that that might be a thing.

[B]

I went to U of M too.

[A]

Oh, yes. Oh.

[B]

Actually I knew that I was an internal rivalry.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, you were. You were the University of New South Wales, the University of Queensland, currently an independent scientist, author and expert focused on helping companies improve research outcomes. You've done so, so many things. You have another book, the Social Leap, and also authored more than 150 publications. I guess I didn't really know what was I. What I was expecting when I opened this book, the Social Paradox, But I was super intrigued by this concept of autonomy and connection and the need for both. And how do we balance the two. And especially in this world where children are having less and less autonomy and less and less connection, both. So I just found it to be so applicable the whole topic of it. But I love how you kick this one off. You're talking about how in comparison to, let's say, hunter gatherers, we are millionaires. We have so many conveniences and so many comforts, and yet we really struggle to be happy. And you told this really good story. I loved it. How you go to a friend's house, he's made a lot of money. We all have friends like that, right? You've got some friends, they like, hit it big. We have friends that made some sort of app. They sold it for millions of dollars. It's like, you know, you're living next door to him one day and then.

[B]

The next day they're gone.

[A]

And you go to his house and you have this guy and he's like, he hits it big time. And so you go. And he's got it now. He's got a chef and now he's got a maid and he's not happy because there's all these little problems. So can we talk about just that in general, which is like this sort of human experience of never being satisfied?

[B]

Yeah, that's a, it's a great question. And I used to, I have to admit, I always felt sort of superior to my wealthy friends because I thought, well, you don't appreciate. I marveled at their inability to appreciate all this wealth and all these conveniences and all these nice things. I thought, well, you don't appreciate that. But I would. Should it ever come to pass that I hit it big, I would be happier if I had those things right. It's just human nature to feel that. And then my sort of smug self satisfaction disappeared when I sat down and read Frank Marlow's wonderful book on the Hadza. He talks about their daily lives. They own almost nothing. Because of course, if you're a hunter gatherer, you have to carry everything with you when you break camp next week or next month. And so you can't own so much that you can't carry it off. And the social rules of their tribes and groups is that you have to share everything equally. And so of course it's. You can't get rich when you are required to give things away if you own more than one or two of them. I was reading about them and I was like, holy cow. I'm just like my friend Steve, you know, I'm a multimillionaire by comparison. You know, they bury almost half their children before the kids ever reach adulthood. I mean, that life is crazy hard. And yet the data show pretty clearly they're at least as happy as we are, if not happier.

[A]

It's unbelievable. Yes, you have written. I just like the wording. I thought it was funny. You know, the cook didn't get along with the maid. He and his wife couldn't agree on where to go on their next vacation. His daughter was waitlisted at the fancy kindergarten. And then you, then you took it back to yourself when you read about this tribe. Then you're like, well, I got upset when I got barbecue pizza and that's not what I ordered. And I think we all can Relate to those types of things that really are trivial, and yet they do mess with the way that we feel about life, and we struggle to be happy. So the premise of this book, and it runs through the whole thing, is this tension that we have between autonomy and connection. Now, I'd never thought about it in my whole life, and I was like, oh, yeah, this is where a lot of sort of our struggles come from is, you know, wanting to do whatever we want to do and then also needing to have relationships. So can you talk about. I guess, considering that I'd never even considered this thought about it, where did you get interested in the topic?

[B]

So, you know, my. My interest was initially sparked when I realized I was just as guilty of my. As my friend Steve was of not appreciating life's gifts. Right. I like it when things go well. One day I like it. I get sad when they don't go as well the other day when I get barbecue sauce on my pizza. But overall, I just feel like I ought to be crazy happy all the time, given how easy my life is. And I have bad days just like everybody else, right? So I was sort of mystified by this problem and trying to figure out why, in general, humans aren't happier. And so for years, the idea kind of percolated in my mind. And kind of ironically, it was how it often works. One of my students asked me a question and. About autonomy and connection and these kinds of things. And I was explaining the answer, and he's like, you know, that's really interesting. Where can I read about this? And I was like, oh, that's a good question. I don't think anybody's written about this particular aspect of the problem. Let me look and find it for you. And so I go looking around, and I can't find it. So then I think, oh, I need to write this paper. And then I laid out what should go in the paper. I was like, oh, this isn't a paper. This is a book. It's just too much stuff here. And so that's kind of where it came from, was letting all this stuff just percolate for a really long time about. About this kind of conflict that we always feel between wanting to do our thing but wanting to connect with other people who may or may not want to do our thing.

[A]

And I love this sentence. And I thought this, like, clearly. It clearly shows the problem. It's better to play kickball with your friends than baseball by yourself. This is the conflict, right? Between. You're like, I really want to play baseball, but if I play baseball, nobody else wants to. And so we're sort of always in this grappling between autonomy and connection. So in our world, then, I guess a big difference between these hunter gatherer tribes and our lives now is we have the opportunity for a whole lot of autonomy. What you write is autonomy used to be a luxury, and I thought. I never really thought about that. And that you didn't really have as much choice, and even you didn't have as much choice in people. You know, now there's Tinder and now there's dating apps. You could meet anybody from around the world. But back then, it was like your choice of a spouse or a friend might have been from six people.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty remarkable, isn't it?

[A]

How does this change affect how we live?

[B]

Well, so it's. It's a super interesting change. On the one hand, you'd think, oh, it's just got to make everything better. So with 10 zillion people, I can choose to be my friends, I must have much better friends than our ancestors had. With 10 zillion people that I can choose to be my romantic partners, I must have a much happier marriage than my ancestors have. That. The data don't support that. And, in fact, they sometimes go against that. And the example that I always come back to is, think about living in the city versus living in the country. If I live in the city, which I do, I could show you out the window. There's a massive apartment building there and another one there, and I'm in an apartment right now with hundreds of other people. So in principle, I've got hundreds of people who are my neighbors and could and should be my friends. But I know almost none of them. I couldn't pick them out of a crowd unless they live on my floor and they get off the lift like I do almost every day. And with a few exceptions, in contrast, if I live in the country, even though my nearest neighbor might be a quarter mile down the road, the chances are really good that not only do I know that person well, but that I like them a lot. And so when we look at representative surveys of the United States and we ask people, how satisfied are you with your friendships? People who live in rural areas are more satisfied with their friends than people who live in urban areas, even though they have way fewer choices, but they're more likely to know them, they're more likely to spend time with them. And when they're asked, do you have a neighbor that you would trust? With your house keys, the answer is more likely to be yes.

[A]

That's really interesting.

[B]

It's amazing.

[A]

I love being exposed, Bill, to things I've never thought about. You know, you just kind of. It like just spins in your mind. This has been spinning in my mind. Never thought about it. This also applies to career choice. What are we going to do with our life? So, I mean, I've never thought about. In terms of hunter gatherer.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, your options are very limited.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And yet you say they were. They were really happy, or at least as happy as we are. So their options with what they can do with their life is. Is extremely limited. I mean, you've got, you know, a dozen. A dozen options, maybe, or something. But what can you do with your time? You know, there's just a few things. Well, what can you do now? You know, you. There's an unlimited amount of things that you can do with your time and with your life. You wrote the change to pursue your past. The chance to pursue your passion is an enormous opportunity, but it is often a significant burden. When faced with so much choice, we often do a poor job picking. It's easier when there are fewer options. How should we live in spite of this? Or I guess in knowing this. I don't know if even in spite of this is the right way to frame that. But like, yeah, how. How should this inform the way that we.

[B]

How can I guide you? Well, the thing is that we have. It's best if, you know, you know, it's this old Socrates always said, know yourself now. That was his big agenda. And then he tried to pointed everybody's weaknesses out to themselves and nobody wanted to hear it, so they eventually got rid of him. But you have to ask yourself, when do I like choice? And when is choice kind of just exhausting? And the example for me is there's this wonderful work by this woman, Sheena Iyengar at Columbia, where she shows that you wander into a. Like a fancy chocolate shop that has 300 options of truffles. You're just overwhelmed. You don't have a clue which ones you're gonna. Which one you're gonna like. And. And that kind of choice is too much for two reasons. One, they often look a lot alike. So if I'm a chocolate expert, that's like nirvana. Oh, this is perfect. I've been trying to decide between these two hazelnut pralines. Now I can pick the one I really love, but most of us don't know that much, right? And so it's not Nirvana. It's like this overwhelming choice. Secondarily, if you're in a chocolate shop and trying to find your favorite, you can't try a hundred chocolates. By the time you're done with 30 of them, you're sick. Right? And so you also can't try a hundred careers you can't try. The list is so long of what you can't try that once you make one choice, you preclude all sorts of other choices. And. And that's what's really hard for humans, is we get overwhelmed and worried that the path not chosen is the better one when there's so many forks in the road. And so for some of us, all those forks in a road is just. It's a blessing because we know since we were 10 years old, I want to study blop or I want to do X, I want to be a professional, whatever. But most people aren't like that. You know, people have lots of paths they could follow. And so when I talk to students about, you know, finding your passion, which they're always saying, oh, I want to find my passion, a lot of times that's more of a threat than an opportunity. What if I close the door on my passion thinking it's this thing, but it's really that thing? And I went down the wrong road. You know, a friend of mine is a doctor in Sydney, and we were talking about it, and he goes, you know, I hate medicine. I was like, what are you talking about? And he goes, well, every step of the way, I kind of thought this was going to be a good road. And when I graduated medical school, I thought, this isn't even fun or interesting. I really would like to be a lawyer. And then I thought, what if I started that and I don't like it? And so I started a practice to see if I would like it. And then I got, you know, better at it. And I had lots of patients, and I can't just abandon them and go to law school. And it's just got its own momentum. And now every day I go into this expensive office, and admittedly I make a lot of money, but I can't escape from it. And I was like, God, that's. That's terrible. And that could have easily happened to me. Right. I got lucky that I went down this road that I really love, but I didn't know what I was doing. I was meandering.

[A]

Wow, it's really interesting. Yeah, it definitely gives you a better sense of, I guess, of like, not desiring so much autonomy. Like, it's. It seems like it's. It's like a natural, innate thing. Like we want to do our own thing. I want all. I want all the options. Give me all the options. But, yeah, in the end, I mean, I am awful at ordering at restaurants. I will always get the same thing. And then if I veer off, I hate it. Every time. Every time I think it's like I freeze and I don't know what to get. And it. It does make things just, I don't know, more difficult to. Interesting, I guess, thing to think about. And when you're talking about autonomy, I guess this is a total shift. But when you're talking about parenting, you're talking about parenting in here. It's like, I guess we have this natural proclivity to be autonomous. And what you're showcasing is, you know, too much of it might not be the best thing. So our kids, though, I mean, we all have this natural wanting of autonomy. And so you have these little sort of, like, tricks in there about when your kids want to be autonomous because we all have this, like, this reactance, you call it, which an automatic response to fight back. And so you wrote, like, this is very pertinent for this audience. If I want my kids to go outside and they're not keen, all I had to do was say, they shouldn't go out, or, I really want you to stay inside and bang out the door. They went. Or if I wanted them to take a bath, I would just give it with two choices. Would you like to take a bath with your duck? Or would you like to take a bath with the boat toy or whatever it is? How can this drive for autonomy? It can derail parenting a little bit. You know, kids want to do what they want to do. What are some hacks that we can use there?

[B]

Yeah, so that's a funny case where I sometimes think we offer too much choice to our kids when it just kind of overwhelms them, just like it does with adults. And sometimes I think we offer not enough. And so if you look at the too much choice side, we'll. We're constantly, you know, imagine you're in the grocery aisle and you're like, well, do you want the yogurt with princess so and so on it? Or do you want the yogurt with a little mermaid on it? Or do you want the purple one? They don't know, right? It's like going into the. The chocolate shop and being offered too many opportunities. And so in those circumstances, I think that we Just make their life difficult. We probably know better. And in fact that's a cultural thing as well. Lots of cultures just don't even dream of asking little kids about their preferences on things like that. They I'm your mother, I know you like this one the best. That's what I'm going to buy because you're going to eat that. On the other hand, we also worry a lot. And I know this is relevant, I think, well, I believe this is relevant to your audience. We worry a lot about unscheduled time with our kids. And too many parents are like, well no, you, what's that block going to be between 3 and 4? Is that skating lessons or is that piano or is that, you know, and a play date with somebody that's arranged in advance. And you know, I was raised. Kids today are raised more like orchids, right? They're in this hot house greenhouse and they're carefully taken care of and there's only one of them. And I was raised like a dandelion where, you know, you're outside, if you stomp on it, it's probably still going to be fine. And so if you look at the data, in the 1960s, parents spent an average of 30 minutes per kid of parenting a day. And now in the 2020s they spend an average of 90 minutes of parenting per kid per day. And so it's gone because A, we parent more and B, we have fewer kids. And it's not 100% clear to me that that increased face time with your parents is always a good thing. Because at the same time what's happened is parents have become worried, fair enough, about all sorts of bad things that could happen that we didn't worry about. And then it creates self fulfill prophecies. And so my example is, so I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska and I asked my mother one day, well, when did I start walking to school? And she said, well, kindergarten. And so I'm a kindergarten kid and I know where my kindergarten is. It's a half a mile from my home. And I go, well, that would have been an autumn and spring, right? She goes, no, no, all year long. And so it'd be minus 20 and I would walk as a 5 year old or a 6 year old to school. Well, that sounds dangerous, but it's actually not because the streets are full of 5 and 6 year olds walking to the same place, right? And so you and 10 zillion of your conspecifics of your little friends are off on this trek together. You're not going to get lost, none of the bad things. But now if you're the only one who wants to send your kid to walk to school in the city or in the country, they're walking down the road by themselves. And it is weird. Right? And so once the masses shift their behaviors, everybody gets driven everybody's play dates rather than randomly deciding who to play with, then it actually changes the ecosystem and it becomes less safe to do. I think parents are very afraid of unstructured time. They don't give their kids enough autonomy to just go outside and sort out what they're going to do and let them be bored until they can figure out a solution to the problem. And all we had when I was a kid was unstructured time. Nobody gave us homework because realistically, what primary school kid needs homework? They're in school plenty. And so that we came home at the end of the day and then we disappeared until dinner. And our parents were only upset if we were late for dinner. Right. That was the only rule. Right. And so in my house in Anchorage, it's still in fact this way. That was the 1960s. It's still this way 60 years later. There's behind my yard is square miles of open territory and moose live there and occasionally bears and lots of other bunny rabbits and random stuff. And we just played back there all the time and, and it, it's perfectly safe. But now I don't know that it'll be that safe because we'd be the only kids out there. Right. And so you, you, there's this tension. Anyway, that's where I feel like we don't give our kids enough autonomy is to let them just roam free.

[A]

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[B]

Yeah, the balance is super hard. And for me, what I think has happened is that. So remember, I talk about this as a form of mis wanting that evolution is really slow and cultural change can be really fast. And so our psychology is the same psychology as our hunter gatherer ancestors who needed to connect with each other to survive. Now that's why we feel that way. Snow leopards don't feel a need to connect because they don't need it to survive. They just ignore each other and get on with their day. But we feel the strong need to connect because we used to need it to survive and now we don't. And the problem is that our psychology hasn't caught up with the fact that we don't need it anymore. And so we feel very disconnected when we're not close with others. But we have this problem that because every time we choose to go autonomous, every time we weighed autonomy over connect connection, we sacrifice our connections in some ways. So if I decide, you know, you and I are chatting and we both want to go exercise and you're like, I want to go for a jog outside, and I say, I want to lift Weights in the gym. Well, we should find a solution that we both want to do, but instead you go off your way and I go off my. That's what humans do. And the problem is that we think that's going to make us happy in the moment. Every time we make that choice, it feels like the right one. But the long term consequences are we start to lose these really important connections. You and I drift apart, we're not as close anymore. And then when something important happens to one of us, our natural tendency to get back together and talk about it feels weakened and dissatisfying because we're not the tight connections that we used to be with each other. So in my mind, the way to find the balance is to avoid doing anything alone, that you don't actually have to be alone or want to be alone. So we all need some alone time, or almost all of us do. Not everybody, but almost all of us do. But if you don't need to be alone or really want to be alone to do what you're doing, then don't. And you know, in my own. And it's very simple, you know, in today's world it's ideal if you get together in person. But in today's world, so easy to chit chat at great distances. You're in Michigan right now, I'm in Australia, and we're chit chatting away. And this is like pretty darn satisfying. It's way better than being on the phone because we can see each other. It feels like we're there in person. And so from my perspective, you just try to structure your life so that the things that you really enjoy doing, you find someone else who really wants to do those things with you and then you're off to the race.

[A]

Okay, so a lot to think about there. This book is about just this tug between autonomy and connection. Let's talk about connection. The world has really, really changed in terms of friendships and in terms of the relationships that we have. When would you say things started to change? Oh, that's a really bad question.

[B]

No, that's not terrible. Okay, That's a perfectly good question. I got no problem with that. So rarely do we see discontinuities where the world is like this and then it's like that. There are some. The Internet was an example. AI looks like it's going to be an example.

[A]

And let's. I want to explain because for people who are listening, you're basically what you did with your fingers was instead of like doing. If you're thinking about a Graph. Instead of it being like this gradual up, you're saying, like, rarely did it go straight up and change immediately in one day. Like almost like a bar graph.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Yep. Yeah, exactly. Rarely do we have these step functions rather than these slow linear changes. And they do exist and they are important when they happen. But let's look at city living as a for example, because I think that's one of the most disruptive things to the balance, because cities are all about autonomy and opportunity. I want to move to the city because there's so many jobs, so many educational opportunities, whatever you're, whatever it is that interests you. So if, if we look at cities, they first started about 5,000 years ago. The first city that we know of in Mesopotamia was already 50,000 people 5,000 years ago. So big city. So over the next 5,000 years, they very slowly grew. Until about 150 years ago, one in 10 people lived in cities. So 10% of humanity is in a city by 1850. Now, Americans started moving to cities earlier than the rest of the world. The rest of the world starts around 1900. America starts around 1840. The sort of mass migration to cities because of opportunity. Right. And now here we are. By the 1960s, instead of 10% are in cities now, 1 in 3 are in cities. And by the year 2007, it's 50. 50 half of all of human humanity lives in cities. And so if you want to trace the origins of the problem, in my mind, they start in the mid-1800s when we go from a world where 90% of humanity lives rurally. They're tightly connected to each other. Now, mind you, that's not uniformly a good thing. In the 1850s, 90% of humanity was in abject poverty. 90% of humanity was illiterate. So lots and lots of great things are happening at the same time. But 90% of humanity is also tightly connected to each other. And now here we are, 150 years later, and rather than being tightly connected to each other, we are barely connected at all.

[A]

I liked what you said too, about how most of the changes are these linear, slow things, but that the Internet was a big change. And AI similarly looks like it might be really, really interesting things to think about. Okay, so currently, right now, Americans are not connected to each other in a myriad of ways like they had been. You're talking about, like, different clubs and things that people used to join, and similar to when you talked about how if no kids are walking to school, so there's no one to walk to school. With if no one's going to clubs and the clubs disappear, then there's just. There are. It's hard, it is hard to find ways to build relationships. There's a lot of conflicting factors there. Like what? You know, when are you available and when are your kids busy in. I mean, there's so many pieces of the puzzle there. It's really tricky. Like, you know, do you have similar person. You know, dear. Personalities mesh. I mean, there's so many pieces there to fit together. And if there aren't these sort of societal structures where you can go to this club or that lodge or whatever, it just makes it really tricky. So you say Americans are no longer members of clubs like the Lions and the Elks. They no longer spend much time with their neighbors or friends, and they even spend less quality time with their spouses. The inevitable consequences. They are spending increasing amounts of time alone, more likely to spend their leisure time alone. Even pre Covid Americans are spending about half their free time alone. So this is a big change that's happening in our world. And you specify that for women and men, the friendships are different. And I actually thought this was pretty interesting because I feel this. The female friendships demand more sacrifice, but they tend to be stronger.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

It's a give and take there. But I think that sometimes. So I have these conversations with my husband. I'm like, we need to invite this family over. And I'll be like, well, why? You know, And I'm like, well, because last time we went there and it's like this whole thing, it is a whole rigmarole. I need to help them with their kids because they said last time. So it, it's, it's a hefty load. It is a hefty load, I feel like, to hold, to hold friendships in this day and age. But can you talk about why we need them? Why is it important? How should we manage this situation?

[B]

Yeah, so look, it's super complicated for a host of reasons, like you said. One of them is, is gender, where women tend to have a tight network of a small and tight network of close friends and men tend to have a large loose network of not so close friends. And so men have advantages in that, that they can kind of abandon each other in the last minute and nobody takes it personally or they can cross each other, argue. Nobody takes it personally. A little bit like when they're boys and girls, you know, boys can have a fistfight and they're buddies again an hour later. Whereas if one girl betrays another girl, it can nothing Physical happens, but it can take weeks, if not months, if not forever, to cure. Right. And we see the same differences between the sexes in chimpanzees and in lots of monkeys as well. So there seems to be a biological component to that which makes sense. And happy to chat about that. But setting that aside for the moment, from my perspective, the easiest solutions are acknowledge that you live in a modern world and that if you go to the Elks Club for dinner, nobody else is going to be there. And so that's not the solution anymore. And so what you want to do is say, all right, well, how can I connect in a modern way without disrupting my life? Because I'm also a busy person. As a. For example, I've now got a little toddler, and every morning after she leaves for daycare, the house is a complete mess. And I know that I'll be tidying up at some point every morning. Well, that's a great time for me to catch up with friends. Right? It's not intellectually demanding to go around the house and pick up and sort and all that kind of stuff. So it's a perfect time to put a earbud in my ear and call that person who I know is doing the exact same thing. And so for me, it's about how do I hack my life in a way that nothing becomes more difficult. I don't have to go out of my way to get together with that friend who's now going to feel obligated to invite me to their house. You know, lots of these things are hard, but lots of them are also easy. And it can just be on the phone if they're good friends, particularly. But it also can be in person where there's I want to get fit or I want to learn Spanish or, you know, whatever your list might be. You say, well, how can I do that with other people? Because they'll have similar lifestyle goals. I've just got to find the right person who wants to do what I want to do.

[A]

There's a lot of intentionality there, but it's important because you talk about alloparenting. And I related to this that when you have that group of friends, you help each other out. So I used to live. We lived in a townhouse for a bit, and there was a mom that lives like three townhouses down. It was wonderful. I mean, we had kids that were the exact same age. And occasionally we're like, well, I. I made too much dinner. Well, it was more her because I was the worst cook. But she would be like, I made. Maybe she just knew, you know, that my kids are going to be eating something gross and she made something good. I made. I made double. You know, I can. You want to come grab it? You know, I have an extra pan of baked spaghetti. Or, you know, my kids just woke up from nap and we're waiting till dinner time. And it's sort of like that. That awful time of the day where you're just like, everyone's kind of crabby and hungry. And we would spend that time together. You know, it's interesting, in a world that's pushing toward autonomy, those connections do improve the quality of your life. But I do think that they are demanding. I mean, I would say that that's, you know, one of the trickier parts of my adult life has been trying to manage those relationships and balance that out with all the other needs that are there, you know, and there just aren't as many societal structures for it anymore. So it's tricky.

[B]

It is super tricky. And they are super demanding, and they're. They're unforgiving when you get it wrong, like if you accidentally let somebody down or did on purpose, but then regret it, either way, there's a price to pay. Because that's. That's why connection and autonomy are always at odds with each other, is that sometimes you want to do your thing, but then that's. It can be letting down a partner. It can be failing to be interdependent. It can be failing to do those things. And for me, that's why there's no way to underestimate the value of old friends. And so, for example, my two oldest friends in the world, we've been buddies since the 1960s, since we were in kindergarten together.

[A]

Sid and Richard.

[B]

Yes, Sid and Richard. That's right. And we have this text group where we just chat with each other on text whenever something comes up that we want to. And because we've been friends for so long, they're not offended if I don't even answer them or if I take three days to answer them, because everybody understands eventually we'll all dive into this and we'll deal with it. And so old friends, you can call them or fail to call them. You can. And so trying to reconnect with them when you're free is like. Is a really good way to put connection back into your life. So when I. For me, it's. When am I going to be alone? And how can I use that alone time to not necessarily be alone? How can I plan my schedule so that I'll do the activities that I would usually do alone. I can now do them at least in some form of company, either in person. Like, you know, imagine that you like to paint. You know, why not go to a studio and have and paint at the same time as your friends or yard work or whatever the case might be. Or you can do them with e connections, you know, get on the phone together. My little sister lives in London and we do the New York Times crossword puzzle together three or four days a week. Just because A, it's easier when you have her help, but B, it's fun to do the puzzle chat with her while we're doing it at the same time. And then lots of random chit chat. And the kind of benefits that come from connection.

[A]

I loved that you wrote about Sid and Richard. Yeah, Your oldest friends in the world. We met in the 1960s and have been friends ever since, despite now living thousands of miles apart. But here's the thing, Bill. I just wonder if today's kids, if many of them aren't even going to have that.

[B]

Yeah, they may not. And the thing is that part of the reason that Sid and Richard and I are oldest friends in the world is because, well, we lived on the same street. So there's no magic to the Sid and Richard of the world. It's just that they were people who actually I am simpatico with, I do like and get along with that I plucked out of my street. I could have plucked them out of any street. So a little bit, that's a little bit like being a hunter gatherer. Right. Wherever I happened to live in those days, the kids who live nearby would have been my friends. The ones who are conceivably friends of mine. The ones who, I can't lie, you know, not. And then we're left to our own devices. And so we spend a huge amount of time together playing kickball and wandering around saying, what do you want to do? I don't know. You know, if we schedule all that for our kids, it does remove some of that and it does make it less likely they're going to have these old friends who they keep in touch with their whole lives just because they have that original connection that can't be replaced.

[A]

It's a really, really interesting train of thought, Bill, and a very long term one because it makes you think about how, you know, we're talking about having unstructured play for the purposes of now. Right. I mean, it's good for today. It helps your kid be more Creative and you know, you can be a little bit more hands off in ways that make your life easier as a parent. And then we also talk about things like maybe it makes the kid more flexible or creative or imaginative and the world is changing rapidly. These are good skills to have. But that's a really interesting piece that we've never talked about, Bill, which is that maybe they come out of it with these friendships that are just more sturdy because they have stood the test of time and, and they come out of childhood and you see that every once in a while like different people on. This is going to be a really dumb example but like maybe on ICP1 YouTube where it'll be like these two guys have this channel and they've been friends since they were in middle school and they made videos. When they were 13 they lived next door neighbor and they're making all these videos and, and their friendship has just lasted for decades. So I guess that's a really insightful thing to think about and to consider with our kids is, is letting them have the time to play and are they getting a chance to build strong friendships in childhood that might hold them through? I notice it with families that have maybe like there's a bunch of sisters or. Well, that's it. I don't have a sister. I have brothers, they're great. And I have two sister in laws, they are great. But I don't have sisters. So I don't have that childhood built in, you know, sisters that I played with and I have found and I could be wrong but that pretty much every single friend I've ever had since adulthood also doesn't have sisters almost exclusively. Not 100%, but almost. They also don't have sisters. And the ones that have sisters are just like fine. I almost feel like they don't seem like they need anybody else.

[B]

Yeah, it's interesting. These early life experiences shape us in ways that we don't realize. They shape our preferences and our habits and I guess to resonate with the kind of idea of thousand hours outside. One of the biggest things that we're taking away from our kids in this very screened world, you know, world full of screens. The plus is of course you and I are on a screen together and it's easier to connect from thousands of miles away. The negative is I'm walking down the street the other day and I used to walk by construction sites all the time back in the 70s and 80s and they're all out there just having a good time. I walk by construction sites now and Every single one. They're lined up just like before. But they're all on their individual phones. And in one sense that's good, right? Because probably whatever's on their phone is more interesting than the ads next to them. But actually that's not why we connect. It's not because that person has interesting facts or video or something to show us. It's because that's what makes us feel comfortable and happy. And so those guys just aren't going to have the same friends that they would have had. And the same exact thing naturally is happening with our kids now. It's not all bad. And so I remember when my son was little, I'm an adult son, I'd hear him screaming in his bedroom and I go, oh, is everything okay? And he's got an earphone in and he's playing a game with all of his friends who aren't in his room and they're all shooting the bad guys or whatever they're doing. Right. And so he is connected and he's having a great time. But a ton of that is separating yourself from others and not connecting. And so for me, it's like everything else you want to balance because those games are cool. When I was little, all we could do is play Monopoly, which is pretty mindless, going around and around a board. Right. And we would have loved to have the kinds of electronic games that kids have today, especially when those games allow us to connect with each other at the same time. But when it replaces it, it's really bad when it replaces that kind of connection that we would usually form.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. It just gives me a lot of thought about, you know, those childhood friendships and how for you, they've really sustained you. And you know, and I noticed that like I said, like with the sisters, it's like, well, that you, those are your built in childhood friends that you played all the time with. And you know, especially people that are my age, they would have played their whole childhood. There was hardly any screens to choose from. The TV was hardly ever on. So, you know, we think a lot about, I guess, the long term ramifications of the decisions that we're making. And that is just one that we've never really touched on or covered. Is that those friends that your kids are making right now when they're romping around in your neighborhood or they're riding their bikes and you're letting them go do that, they might be friends with them, you know, decades down the road.

[B]

Probably will.

[A]

Yeah. Even if they live thousands of miles apart. What A cool thing. Sid and Richard. I love that. I can say to my new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a finger so I can get in more squats anywhere I can. 1, 2, 3.

[B]

Will that be cash or credit? Credit.

[A]

4 Galaxy S25 Ultra. The AI companion that does the heavy lifting. So you can do. You get [e-mail] compatible with select apps. Requires Google Gemini account Results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.

[B]

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[A]

Get the Angel Reese Special at McDonald's.

[B]

Now let's break it down.

[A]

My favorite barbecue sauce, American cheese, crispy bacon, pickles, onions, and a sesame seed bun, of course. And don't forget the fries and the drinks. Sound good?

[B]

Ba da ba ba ba.

[A]

I participate in restaurants for a limited time. Okay, so then you talk about. This is just really random, but I found that it was kind of interesting. And it has nothing to do with getting outside. But you talk a lot about, you know, male, female relationships. You talk about marriages. Pretty interesting stuff. Like the stats for unmarried people look a lot like divorced people in terms of happiness. So just interesting things for people to look at in this book. It's on page 207. It's called the Social Paradox. But there was like this really interesting thing on Tinder. Okay, so these are saying autonomy makes us desirable. So that's a thing. But then you also want to be warm. You know, we care if people are capable and we also care if they're friendly. But warmth matters more for survival than competence. There's a lot of interesting things in here about the autonomy and the connection. Autonomy, connection. But this says on Tinder a minority of men get the majority of interest, but the interest in women is spread much more evenly.

[B]

Yeah, so it's a. There's this weird effect, you know, you can think about when we usually think about inequality. We think about money, for example. And we have some countries where a few people are really rich, and everybody else is really poor. And that's like South Africa, for example. A couple of rich people run the place, and everybody else is struggling. And then you've got places like Denmark where basically everybody has about the same amount. Now, if you look at a platform like Tinder, to be a woman is to live in Denmark, and to be a man is to live in South Africa. If 20% of the guys have 80% of the female interest, and the other 80% of the guys, basically nobody, almost nobody, contacts them. And so if you're either inundated, you're either rich, inundated with interest, or you're ignored. If you're a woman, it's the opposite. 80% of the women get contacted to get lots of attention, and only 20% of them don't get very much attention. And so for most women, the platforms like that give them, you know, lots of opportunity for connection, and for most men, it doesn't. And it creates this unfortunate imbalance in a whole host of ways. One of which, though, is that what you have is that 80% of women have interest in them, but they're really mostly just interested in the 20% of the guys. It doesn't end up making either side really happy, because, yes, those 20% of the guys are happy to date 80% of the women, but you can just do the math and realize they're not doing it exclusively. Right. They're, you know, having lots of partners at the same time. And so it's unfortunate that these systems like this emerge that don't actually help us form connections in the way you'd think they would. Like, I remember when Tinder was first invented, I was like, could that have been really cool if that existed when I was young? But I'm not so sure in retrospect, that it would have been any better than not.

[A]

Yes. I have a friend who told me that it's actually kind of the way that it's awful is in the autonomy piece, there's too much choice. And so he said that whereas before, it was like, look, you know, you know, these. Like, when I was growing up and before there was, like, dating apps, it was like, well, you only know who you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you might, you know, you might meet a friend of a friend or something like that, but basically, you know who you know. And he said that with the dating apps, you, like, hone in on one stupid thing that you don't like about them. He was like, if you don't like how they eat their peas, then you just go on to the next person. He said it makes it seem like there's an inexhaustible pool of people to choose from. And so you're just maybe too choosy or too picky in a way that undermines connection. So that's just a really interesting thing. I, I never heard about that. So I'm. Thank you for explaining it. You're. We talk about connection, we also talk about learning. And there's just an interesting, you know, talk about school. It seems so individualistic. But you had some really interesting things in here. And I liked this. Especially when we're getting outside. Especially if we're getting outside in multi age age groups, which a lot of people that are listening, they do that. They get together with another family or a couple families and kids are all sorts of different ages. You talk about observational learning, this is like a couple pages later. But I just want to bring it up before we, it kind of relates, but I thought it was funny and I don't want to forget it. You know that when we're around other people, we, we sort of conform to the norms and we, and we learn things and we, you know, we, we lift our expectations of ourselves and we try and fit in. And one of the things that you said was like you would never stand facing the back of an elevator. And I was like, yeah, it was like a total societal norm. It doesn't really matter either way. But like you would never just step into an elevator and just like not.

[B]

Turn around, stare at all the people facing forward. Right? That would be weird.

[A]

Yeah, it would be super weird. So anyway, I just, I thought that was an interesting example. But in terms of connection, this is a great way for kids to learn.

[B]

Yes. You know, the beauty is that small children just automatically think everyone's their friend. They're like little hunter gatherers who are whatever our group is, that's us and we're happy. Off they go together. Now mind you, they can be really harsh with one another, but they're also really forgiving about their harshness. Right. They're not, they're not quite. Like, we become more sensitive and all that as we get older. The great thing about these cross age groups, which is super common in smaller communities but becomes increasingly rare, like as kids, as population density grows, kids tend to sequester themselves with same sex and same age friends. As the population density decreases, they stop doing that. Now there's advantages to same sex same age friends because they tend to have similar interest and abilities. But there's a disadvantage that you no longer get the chance to learn from kids who are older or who do things differently than you do. And if you look at little children, they immediately resonate to other children, particularly who are slightly older than themselves. And so if you watch their eyes when they go out to the playground or whatever, they, from a very early age, they're super keen to find not somebody who's twice their size, but somebody who's a little bit bigger. Right. Because that person has all sorts of skills that maybe they could acquire that they didn't even necessarily know exist. And so there's a massive advantage to the kinds of things that we tend to see mostly in rural communities, which is kids playing in these mixed age, mixed sex groups across, you know, doing lots of different kinds of things where you start to where you're just exposed to new and different ways of doing things that might be better. And so maybe it's a learning opportunity.

[A]

Yes. And then you talk about how, you know, even just the way that we have this, the formal schooling, and especially because it's taking up so much of the day and so much less time goes to recess that that can undermine the connections that kids need. I'm reading about this in actually a couple books. It's really interesting that it's coming up a lot. Bill. I just read this one called Love to Learn by this woman named Isabel Howe. And her book was about, you know, she talked about some similar things, which was that we learn in relationship. Like she said that babies who are around other babies learn more and the more babies there are, the more they learn. So just this thing about being around other people, it helps our education, our life education. And so I love that you just have the sentence don't do things alone.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that Microsoft interactions are better than no interactions at all. So just good things to remember. There was one other thing I was interested in asking you and I lost my train of thought. So I'm trying to find it.

[B]

No rush.

[A]

I found my spot. I found my spot. Okay, so we're talking about relationships. Kids are learning. The relationships are so important. And I'm going to focus in here a little bit on teens because talk about this in the book that, you know, our teens are struggling. And I thought this was an interesting piece about connection too, is that here comes social media. I would say social media might be one of those graph things that just goes straight up, like change things very, very rapidly. It was not a gradual change everyone's adjusting to. You know, how do we manage our reputation online and what are the rules. I always say, I do not envy kids today. Like, there's so many more rules. My kids are now going through it, and you would relate, which is like, how often do you have to text back and, yeah, you know, what are all those? It's a whole extra set of rules that kids have to learn and sort of abide by and all of that. It seems very, very tricky. I have some empathy for that. But we're looking at social things and, you know, in some ways they give us more opportunity to connect. But one of the things that you talked about is social comparison and that it's really hard to not be envious of other people. It's hard to quash our tendency to engage in social comparison. I thought that was a really important thing to talk about. And I'm so glad that you brought it up, Bill, because I, you know, it's like, well, don't be jealous. You know, you see everybody else's stuff and it helped explain why that part of it can be in, in a way detrimental to relationships because we're seeing all of these things that other people are doing that maybe we normally wouldn't have. What are your thoughts on that?

[B]

I think that's a, it's a, it's a great question and it's a big concern. And that is that when we use social media in these very curated ways, we, you know, put up on our Facebook page or whatever, we're all part of Instagram. We always put up our favorite photo of our favorite meal or this great moment we had together with our partner or whatever. And the consequence is that everybody's lives look better than our own. And so we can't help but be jealous, right? Can't help but be envious. And I remember when reality TV first started, it was actually an MTV show. I don't know, Maybe it's even 20 years ago now. It's been a while. And I, I remember thinking, why on earth would anybody want to actually watch that? And it's, it's actually reflecting on social media that makes me realize that the answer is you actually start to see that their lives aren't really any better than your own. Because reality TV is all the day to day, stub your toe, cry, can't find the eggs that you know for breakfast, whatever. The long list of the same. Whether you're rich and famous and handsome and beautiful and strong and smart, whatever you are, we all are taking out the trash and doing all this kind of random, unappealing stuff. And social media unfortunately tends to Erase all that. And so, in retrospect, it makes sense to me why people like reality tv. Because it reassures them that their life is okay. Because they just watch these two celebrities who ought to be happy as screaming at each other about some random stupidity, and they go, oh, I'm just as happy as they are. But if you looked at anybody, you think, oh, I have the worst life out of everybody I know. And that's hard.

[A]

It is hard. And I do think that there is the possibility there that it starts to undermine friendships.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, so something that seemed like it was going to be such a great connector ends up being a thing where, you know, you just, just, you know too much about people in a way that might make you envious and also, you know too much about people. I had someone say one time, and I was like, oh, I never thought about this, you know, too much. So then you don't, you don't have anything to talk about. It's like, oh, yeah, I already know. Yeah, I already know. You went and saw your grandma last weekend. I saw all your pictures. It, it just changes even the conversation topics. So this is really interesting. Like you said, you've been talking about it with your students for a very long time, to the point where your students are asking you, like, I want to read more about this autonomy connection thing, but for me, it was a first pass. Never thought about it, never considered it, but it makes so much sense in terms of finding happiness and being content with the lives that we have. So what a fantastic read. The Social Paradox, Autonomy, Connection, and why We Need Both to Find Happiness. It will be out by the time this podcast goes live. The author is William Von Hippel. Also wrote a book called the social leap in 2024. So you had back to back books. Sucks.

[B]

No, no, I'm, that's an error. The socially came out in 2018, so I'm not sure.

[A]

Okay. I, I, I was like, dang.

[B]

No, that, no, that, I didn't do that. That'd be crazy hard to do. I'm not capable of that.

[A]

It might have just been my own typo because I was like, wow. Wow, Bill. Like one right after the other. Okay, so the Social Leap came out in 2018, and this one is a social paradox box. It will be out by the time this podcast launches. Lots to learn in it, lots to think about, lots of think about in terms of how we're parenting our kids and, and aiming for that balance between autonomy and connection. For me in particular, it was a reminder to try and take more of my alone time and spend it with other people, whether that be spouse, because you said that that's even gotten less spouse, kids, friends, all that. I liked the idea of micro interactions. I thought that was really good. And there's just a lot to take away from it. We always end our show with the same question. And that question is, Bill, what is a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside? You kind of alluded to it earlier.

[B]

Yeah, look, I had this really lovely childhood running amok outside. And I think my favorite memories aren't one specific thing, but so much as just the general principle of always being out and about with my friends in these fields behind the house, exploring. In the winter, we would be on skis. Maybe in the summer we'd be on our bikes. But for me, my memory of my childhood is being outside.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

How inspiring. And in Alaska.

[B]

And in Alaska. In Alaska, I'm too soft now. I would just freeze if I were there. I can't do it anymore.

[A]

But people do ask, they say, what do we do with our kids in the winter? And there's all sorts of people getting their kids out in Alaska and all sorts of. Of other places around the world.

[B]

Yeah. Just bundling up.

[A]

Yep. Bundling up. Bill, thank you so, so much.

[B]

Yeah, thank you, Jenny. It's really nice to chat with.