conversations with strangers
Human communication is a vital part of one’s cognitive development. However, in the recent past, increased individualism and distrust has tremendously affected the perception of the value of engaging with strangers. In the article, “Hello strangers” the author notes that people perceive having their time in solitude as being of more importance to them than engaging in conversations with strangers. In contrast, as the research findings from various behavioral scientists indicate, this is an incorrect assumption based on biased views. Engaging with strangers in a public place has more social cognitive benefits to an individual compared to “me time” that people have when they choose to spend time catching up on their thoughts. Arguably, conversations with strangers improve one’s psychological state as opposed to remaining in solitude.
Conversations with strangers help to build a genuine human connection that stimulates positive emotions. Notably, conversations allow people to share tragic personal experiences and receive some psychological support that significantly creates a form of balance. When people choose to ignore engaging in such conversations, these sad events affect their mental stability leading to various mental health. In the article, “Hello Stranger”, Campbell observes that research conducted on the way people felt after engaging in conversation with a stranger in a public environment helped to calm them down. In their view, the positive experience helped to overcome different forms of anxiety after the conversation (“Opinion | Hello, Stranger,” 2014). Not only is conversations with stranger beneficial to them but also helps them develop sentiments of trust towards people which is an essential element of psychological growth.
The choice to have “me time” is detrimental to the cognitive balance and increases worry. Primarily, it inhibits positive emotions, and as a result, most persons tend to have high levels of stress and cognitive imbalance. Noteworthy, conversations with strangers help to suppress these negative feelings because it evokes feelings of compassion and care. In more precise terms, the conversations with strangers are critical towards ensuring that an individual does not become lost in their thoughts which may affect their growth or personal development. As Campbell observes in her article, strangers tend to put on their most friendly faces and in most cases express the positive side of their personality that include sharing affectionate feelings and compassion (“Opinion | Hello, Stranger,” 2014). Therefore, conversations with strangers will rarely result in a heated and negative emotion as encounters with them encourage positive behaviour. It is an instinct for human beings to react with compassion when engaging strangers.
In the article, “Hello Stranger”, the findings of Dr Epley and Schroeder noted that engaging with strangers is contagious, and the positive experience is much more pleasant than solitude. Arguably, the participants of the research asserted that they had better experiences during throughout their day after engaging in conversations with strangers than when they spent the same time in solitude (“Opinion | Hello, Stranger,” 2014). For a fact, as the finding above indicate, one stand to gain more from a conversation with a stranger than remaining in solitude.
To conclude, conversations with strangers are by far beneficial for an individual, both emotionally and psychologically, than solitude. It is an erroneous presumption that inaccurately misguides one understands the real value of conversations with strangers. People would be healthier, psychologically stable and enjoy the pleasure of positive emotions if they choose to engage with strangers in small talk conversations rather than remaining in solitude as a way of having one’s “me time”.