It's funny the whole that our fear of awkwardness has over us.

Like walking around, looking at a phone instead of our surroundings, that could be physically

dangerous.

But staring down at your screen does eliminate the possibility

you'll have to make eye contact with other people or even engage in a dreaded bit of small talk.

From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. I'm Chris Boyd. The thing is our brains are excellent at identifying

what we find easy and pleasurable, not quite so great at making

us want what is actually good for us. In this era of remote work, political division, and an

endless supply of digital content to occupy us, maybe we don't mind that we socialize less than

we used to. But my guest says that does not mean more isolation is good for us, and he's got the research to prove it.

Ben Ryan is a neuroscientist, chief science officer of the Mind Science Foundation, adjunct lecturer at Stanford and clinical assistant professor at SUNY Buffalo.

His book is called Why Brains Need Friends, the Neuroscience of Social Connection.

Ben, welcome back to think.

Thank you so much for having me. You argue here that socialization is as important as exercise,

a good diet, sleep. Why is it that those things have finally penetrated our consciousness as

important things to do every day? And socialization is not quite there yet.

That's a good question as for why it's kind of fallen behind. You know, I think maybe one answer is that those other things like exercise, diet, sleep, you can feel the impact of them. And,

you know, you go to the gym, you come out, you're like, this is good. I can see the impact on my body. You can feel the energy. Socializing is kind of viewed in like a different category where if you pay attention, you will notice that you feel better after socializing, but people don't really think of it that way. They often think of the energy associated with that you have to expend in order to socialize,

where, you know, when you get a good night of sleep, you wake up and it's like, wow, that was good for me.

I feel good. But socializing, I don't know, it's viewed as like a leisure activity.

But the truth is, I mean, if you look at the research across a variety of disciplines, neuroscience, you know,

all systems of the body basically benefit

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