Why We Actually Should Talk to Strangers More
By Holly Batchelder, PhD
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how little we talk to strangers. And well, I’m not the only one.
There’s been a lot of conversation recently about the fact that Americans are simply talking less. Like most clinical psychologists, I've spent years talking about loneliness, disconnection, and the social consequences of social isolation, the pandemic, and staying home. We know relationships matter enormously for our well-being.
Though currently I’m interested in something smaller.
What about the people we don’t have relationships with?
Maybe its the stranger sitting next to us on the train. The barista making our coffee. The parent standing beside us at the playground. The person waiting in line with us.
We are more connected online than ever, and there is a lot I genuinely love about that. I can keep up with people I would otherwise lose touch with, find communities I never would have had access to, and learn what someone across the world is thinking while I’m sitting on my couch.
At the same time, we’ve gotten remarkably good at moving through the physical world without interacting with anyone in it.
Headphones in. Phone out. Self-checkout. Order ahead. Groceries delivered. Working from home.
Efficiency is great. But I wonder if we’ve accidentally optimized away some of the tiny interactions that are actually good for us.
And there’s some fascinating psychology suggesting that we have.
We really are talking less
This isn’t entirely anecdotal.
Data from the American Time Use Survey show that Americans are spending less time socializing and communicating than they did a decade ago. In 2014, 38% of Americans reported socializing or communicating on an average day. In 2024, that number was 30%. Average time spent socializing and communicating also declined, from 43 minutes to 35 minutes per day.
Of course, this data doesn’t mean technology caused the decline. And talking to someone online is still talking to someone.
But it does make me curious about the small interactions that have disappeared from our days.
Because research suggests those interactions may matter more than we think.
One of my favorite psychology studies
There is a 2014 paper with a title I love: Mistakenly Seeking Solitude.
Researchers Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder wanted to know what happens when people talk to strangers during their commute.
In one experiment, commuters on a train were randomly assigned to connect with a stranger, remain disconnected, or simply commute as they normally would.
Beforehand, people predicted that keeping to themselves would be more pleasant.
But that’s not what happened.
The people who were instructed to connect with a stranger reported a more positive experience than those instructed to remain disconnected. And talking to someone didn’t make them feel less productive during their commute.
This is so simple. And I find it incredibly compelling.
Because the interesting finding isn’t just that talking to strangers can feel good.
It’s that we seem to be surprisingly bad at predicting that it will.
And this wasn’t one lucky conversation on one train. Across a series of nine experiments, the researchers tested the phenomenon in different contexts, including trains, buses, a waiting room, and studies examining what people predicted would happen when strangers interacted.
Again and again, people seemed to underestimate the potential benefits of connecting with someone they didn’t know.
Why do we get this prediction so wrong?
This is the part that especially interests me as a psychologist.
Think about the thoughts that can happen before talking to someone you don’t know:
They probably don’t want to talk.
It might be awkward.
I don’t know what I would say.
I don’t want to bother them.
So we don’t initiate.
And because we don’t initiate, we never get to find out whether our prediction was right.
Psychologically, that’s interesting because avoidance can be self-reinforcing. If I predict an experience will be uncomfortable and consistently avoid it, I don’t collect much new information about whether my prediction is actually accurate.
Sometimes the only way our brains update their expectations is by having a different experience.
Talk to the person.
Discover that they smile.
Realize they were happy you said something.
Maybe have a surprisingly interesting three-minute conversation.
Your brain gets new data.
That doesn’t mean every interaction will be wonderful. Some conversations will be awkward. Some people genuinely don’t want to talk. But if we avoid the interaction entirely, we don’t give ourselves many opportunities to discover when our prediction was wrong.
Not every meaningful interaction needs to become a meaningful relationship
Another study I love makes this even more interesting.
Researchers Gillian Sandstrom and Elizabeth Dunn studied interactions between customers and coffee-shop baristas. Some participants were instructed to make their interaction as efficient as possible. Others were encouraged to have a genuine social interaction, including smiling, making eye contact, and briefly chatting.
The people who treated the interaction as a social one reported greater positive affect and a stronger sense of belonging afterward.
Think about how small that is.
Nobody made a new best friend.
Nobody exchanged phone numbers.
It was just a slightly more human interaction.
Sandstrom and Dunn have also studied what psychologists sometimes call “weak ties,” the acquaintances and peripheral people in our social worlds. Their research found that on days when people interacted with more weak ties, they reported greater happiness and belonging.
I love this because I think we sometimes have an overly narrow idea of connection.
We think connection means our partner. Our family. Our best friends. The people who really know us.
Those relationships obviously matter enormously.
But perhaps there is another layer of social life that matters too: the tiny moments of recognition scattered throughout our days.
The barista who knows your order. The parent you always see at the playground. Your neighbor walking their dog. The person next to you on an airplane. The woman beside you in line who says something funny.
They don’t have to become part of your life to add something to it.
Maybe our phones aren't replacing conversations
I don’t think most of us are consciously standing in line thinking, I would rather look at Instagram than talk to this person.
Something subtler happens.
We fill the empty space so quickly that the possibility of an interaction never really emerges.
Waiting used to involve more waiting. You looked around. You noticed the people around you. Someone made eye contact. Something happened in the environment and two strangers commented on it.
Now there is almost always somewhere else for our attention to go.
And again, I love my phone. Sometimes I absolutely want to answer a text, read something interesting, or disappear into my headphones.
But I wonder what happens when nearly every small pocket of boredom gets filled.
Maybe phones don’t just replace conversations we would have had. Sometimes they remove the conditions that allow spontaneous conversations to begin in the first place.
Maybe efficiency isn't always the goal
Modern life gives us countless opportunities to remove friction.
And most of the time, I am very grateful for that.
Sometimes I absolutely want to put in my headphones, order my coffee ahead of time, and not talk to anyone.
Solitude is also good for us. Introversion isn’t a problem to solve. And none of this means we should force ourselves into conversations we don’t want to have.
There is also an obvious but important caveat: you never owe a stranger your attention. Safety, boundaries, and your own judgment come first. If an interaction feels uncomfortable or unsafe, disengage.
But there is a difference between choosing solitude because you genuinely want solitude and automatically choosing it because your brain predicts connection will be awkward.
That distinction interests me.
Because maybe the goal isn’t to become more extroverted.
Maybe it’s simply to become a little more open.
A tiny experiment
So here’s something I’ve been trying to do more myself:
Talk to the person next to you.
Ask the barista a question.
Say hello to the parent standing beside you at the playground.
Give someone the compliment you were already thinking.
Occasionally leave the headphones off.
You don’t need to make friends. You don’t need to have a profound conversation. And you certainly don’t need to talk to every stranger you encounter.
Just notice the moments when your instinct is to retreat into your phone or your headphones and occasionally try something different.
Because one of the things I love most about Mistakenly Seeking Solitude is how ordinary the intervention was.
There was no complicated wellness protocol.
People just talked to each other.
And they liked it more than they thought they would.
Maybe we should give strangers a few more chances to surprise us.
References
Epley, N., & Schroeder, J. (2014). Mistakenly seeking solitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(5), 1980–1999.
Sandstrom, G. M., & Dunn, E. W. (2014). Is efficiency overrated? Minimal social interactions lead to belonging and positive affect. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5(4), 437–442.
Sandstrom, G. M., & Dunn, E. W. (2014). Social interactions and well-being: The surprising power of weak ties. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(7), 910–922.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). American Time Use Survey: 2024 results.