An Adult’s Guide to Social Skills, for Those Who Were Never Taught (Published 2020)

how to be anti-social - n8

a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

How I Learned to Read Way, Way More

I had to rethink my relationship to attention

The short instructional manifesto for relationship anarchy

Andie Nordgren The short instructional manifesto for relationship anarchy 2006

We've Lost the Spaces That Foster Friendship

We keep offering individual fixes for loneliness while ignoring the disappearance of the spaces where adults once built real relationships.

Small talk acts like social glue – here’s how to get better at it

Maybe think of small talk as a technology: a human invention for accomplishing social goals.

Talking with strangers is surprisingly informative

A meaningful amount of people’s knowledge comes from their conversations with others. The amount people expect to learn predicts their interest in having a conversation (pretests 1 and 2), suggesting that the presumed information value of conversations guides decisions of whom to talk with. The results of seven experiments, however, suggest that people may systematically underestimate the informational benefit of conversation, creating a barrier to talking with—and hence learning from—others in daily life. Participants who were asked to talk with another person expected to learn significantly less from the conversation than they actually reported learning afterward, regardless of whether they had conversation prompts and whether they had the goal to learn (experiments 1 and 2). Undervaluing conversation does not stem from having systematically poor opinions of how much others know (experiment 3) but is instead related to the inherent uncertainty involved in conversation itself. Consequently, people underestimate learning to a lesser extent when uncertainty is reduced, as in a nonsocial context (surfing the web, experiment 4); when talking to an acquainted conversation partner (experiment 5); and after knowing the content of the conversation (experiment 6). Underestimating learning in conversation is distinct from underestimating other positive qualities in conversation, such as enjoyment (experiment 7). Misunderstanding how much can be learned in conversation could keep people from learning from others in daily life.

Is Your Social Life Missing Something? This Is For You.

Podcast Episode · The Ezra Klein Show · 02/03/2026 · 1h 31m

The Emergence of Social Norms and Conventions

The utility of our actions frequently depends upon the beliefs and behavior of other agents. Thankfully, through experience, we learn norms and conventions that provide stable expectations for navigating our social world. Here, we review several distinct influences on their content and distribution. At the level of individuals locally interacting in dyads, success depends on rapidly adapting pre-existing norms to the local context. Hence, norms are shaped by complex cognitive processes involved in learning and social reasoning.

Misplaced Divides? Discussing Political Disagreement With Strangers Can Be Unexpectedly Positive

Differences of opinion between people are common in everyday life, but discussing those differences openly in conversation may be unnecessarily rare. We report three experiments ( N = 1,264 U.S.-based adults) demonstrating that people’s interest in discussing important but potentially divisive topics is guided by their expectations about how positively the conversation will unfold, leaving them more interested in having a conversation with someone who agrees versus disagrees with them. People’s expectations about their conversations, however, were systematically miscalibrated such that people underestimated how positive these conversations would be—especially in cases of disagreement. Miscalibrated expectations stemmed from underestimating the degree of common ground that would emerge in conversation and from failing to appreciate the power of social forces in conversation that create social connection. Misunderstanding the outcomes of conversation could lead people to avoid discussing disagreements more often, creating a misplaced barrier to learning, social connection, free inquiry, and free expression.

You have more ways to connect than ever, but deep friendship feels hard to find – here’s how to build better connections

Despite being more connected than any previous generation, many young people report struggling to build friendships that provide a genuine sense of closeness.

Best practices: conversation design

An introduction to IBM Research’s Natural Conversation Framework

Relational Tech Project — Build what we need

Many of us wish our neighborhoods were more connected. We want to live in neighborhoods where we learn from the creativity, care, and skills of our neighbors — and share our gifts too.

Is AI Creating a Culture of Avoidance?

As chatbots and AI companions emerge as communication tools of choice for humans, a new and unsettling dynamic is taking shape. Tools that can smooth over difficult communication between friends and coworkers—reducing misunderstandings, hurt feelings, or social discomfort—also have a downside. Left unchecked, they may erode human intuition and sabotage empathy.

Groundings with my Siblings: Lessons Learned Building for Community

I had the privilege of discussing Blacksky and AT Protocol at several different college campuses, conference venues and other settings along with webinars and doing user research. I plan to share those learnings to help others build better products and how we particularly plan to incorporate those learnings from both a product and operations standpoint.