Social Interaction: A Human Superpower

One of the best parts about working for my NGO was my colleagues. Although I was still a few years younger than most of them, they were all relatively young and in touch with popular trends. Because of this, my office had an extremely social atmosphere.

Our lunch break conversations ranged from discussing current political trends involving different countries across all continents all the way to our weekend travel plans. We rated various shows on Netflix, with The Two Popes being a fan favorite. Through our numerous lunch break interactions, we were able to learn about each other’s interests besides our passion for lifelong education.

Fortunately, my office moved completely online the same week that I left Brussels to come home to Boston, which made it much easier to adjust. I did not have to worry about missing out on random social conversation throughout the workday, where someone would read a funny tweet that sparked a 15 minute conversation among all of my coworkers. After these small breaks throughout the work day, we would all continue our work without any distractions.

Based upon my experience interning for the Lifelong Learning Platform this semester, I would say that offices are more innovative with social interaction. Going off of this statement, I also think that this social interaction has to be positive for most members involved. Although there has already been much research done on promoting social interaction in the workspace, I do not think that there is enough research on different types of social interaction.

The first type of social interaction is basic conversation. As I have already mentioned, my colleagues and I talked to each other throughout the work day. I also assume that this is true for many other office spaces. By working in an environment where we were allowed to openly talk to each other without receiving ridicule for being a cause of distraction, work was more productive. We shared opinions on each other’s readings or reports. We also had a book of French puns, similar to this one, that someone would read in the afternoon to lighten up the atmosphere a bit more. Although I am not fluent in French, this type of social interaction allowed me to bond with my colleagues and learn some French vocabulary words that I would definitely not learn in a classroom environment.

The second type of social interaction we had in my office was through online measures. We have a staff group chat on Google Hangouts which everyone texted in throughout the day. We used this group chat for more urgent matters. Along with Google Hangouts, we also emailed each other throughout the day. I know that this is quite normal for the majority of offices, but I like to think that my office had a bit more amusement with these emails than others.

On Friday afternoons, someone in the office would start a staff email called “Fun Friday”, where an initiative would be taken that we would all have to join in on. For example, yesterday’s Fun Friday activity was to share your favorite easy recipe, home to the country which you come from. Obviously I had tough competition considering I have colleagues who come from Italy, but I think some of these American recipes are to die for. We had another Fun Friday a few weeks ago where we shared our favorite part about working from home. These types of social interactions, although much different from in-person conversations, still promote productivity within the office.

I took a General Psychology class at Furman with Dr. Putnam last semester. Although I do not remember all of the exact information (sorry Dr. Putnam!), I do remember learning that studying is more productive for students when it is broken up into different segments across a longer period of time. I think the same research could be applied to a work environment. Humans need breaks throughout their work day, and humans also need social interaction with other humans. Because of this and my time spent at the Lifelong Learning Platform, I believe that offices are much more innovative with social interaction.