Abstract There is so much in the world that we have to engage with. The world around us was made to explore, to change and evolve with us. As social creatures, engagement is necessary to feel as though you are leading the most thorough life. It has become increasingly easy to retreat away from society, not only with the advancements of technology, but also the recessive tendencies of humans ourselves, there is an equation to interacting with another person in even the simplest of way. What levels of comfort do we have within our own comfortable societies? What discomforts do we have, not only with ourselves, but with those around us? It is hard to make an all encompassing claim to an area of existence that is so seemingly passive. How often do you speak to a stranger on your commute? Do you find yourself open to interaction or attempting to shy away from it? In what public areas do you find yourself most comfortable? Each of those questions hold essential information for the reasonings people have for allowing others to connect with them. During this case-study I will be observing others’ willingness to interact with me, a stranger, during their evening commute. I will be attempting to initiate an interaction with randomly chosen subjects. If the initiation is successful I will move into a more qualitative state of analysis and ask a two questions that may speak more closely to their reasonings when deciding to interact with me, as well as overall, quantitatively determining people’s willingness to interact with a stranger during transit, based solely on the numbers of successful interactions as opposed to failed attempts of interaction.
Research During my research I discovered many theories on human-human interaction and its benefits; however, pertaining to my question in particular, my research was inconclusive.While looking into these seemingly unrelated theories, I found that people commonly shy away from public/ social interactions, particularly within crowded areas due to fear of the unknown. It is also common for people to feel isolated in thoroughly occupied places for the same reason. The elements of context and setting proved to be essential within the realm of human-human linguistic interaction and is seemingly one of the only forms of human-human interaction that can be analyzed and concluded in different manners at all as noted by Delvin et al. (2006). Human interaction has many levels of intensity as well as levels of distinction. “[...] [W]e may equally well consider the linguistic interaction as a transmission of information. This would correspond to our analysis of the tennis match, with the information passed from one person to the other at any one stage being the analogue of the tennis ball. Of course, as with any analogy, it is important to recognize the limitations of the comparison. In the case of a tennis game, the same ball gets passed back and forth between one player and another; in human interaction,
considered as mediated by an exchange of information, different information is conveyed at each stage”, (Delvin, et al; 2006). The escalation of human linguistic interaction insinuates an inability to truly analyze the information transmission (conversation) due to the inequality of either subjects abilities. Interaction itself is also entirely based on consenting to the interaction. Humans being social creatures has little effect abilities or willingness to communicate/interact and instead takes the most toll on mental health and ability to interact in terms of development as opposed to etiquette (social graces). This is seen in many studies, however it has been most prominently displayed in studies comparing the social levels of only children to those of children that have siblings; the children were between the ages of 11 and 14 years old. In this study they simply tracked the conversation skills, caliber of conversation (ie; ability to disagree, emotional reaction/response), comfort level with sustaining a conversation and overall mood of the child. Through this study it was concluded that those with no siblings, but having awareness of social graces and feeling comfortable with their ability to sustain a conversation showed no difference in ability comfortably interact and had no issues engaging. In contrast children with no siblings and no noticeable knowledge of social graces had issues sustaining a conversation, expressed feeling unable to comfortable interact and had issues in sustained engagement. In a revised study of the same nature it was concluded that the discomfort of interaction and sustained engagement was not a reflection of introversion or extroversion, but a lack of understanding social engagement and consent. For example, look at those in transitional and emergency housing as compared to panhandlers. Both people are seemingly in need, however the panhandler is more like to obtain the resources they seek due to their expressiveness as well as public integration. The panhandler’s resource obtainment is entirely based on the pedestrians’ willingness to communicate and interact with them. This is a simple, understandable model for the question that piqued my curiosity, what elements make a person willing/ open to human-human interaction in settings of transit? What is social consent? The phrasing of my second may be misunderstood due to the connotation of the word consent, but that has no impact on the importance of this element in any engagement. Social consent has a broad spectrum and can be expressed in many different forms, most passively through the use of body language and most aggressively through acts of ignoring the subject of interaction and physical means of disengagement (ie; using headphones to avoid interaction, moving away from the source of interaction). Based on these parameters and parameters made by my own resource, I created the criteria I have the subject use to define our interaction. During my case-study I aimed to test and analyze the boundaries and flexibility of social consent. Introduction I decided to focus on the ability to interact in a setting of transit initially based on my own interactions (or lack thereof) with people I routinely commute with. This dynamic was also raised to me by a colleague who was curious as to why people seem less willing to reciprocate simple gestures and well-wishes (ie; waving hello, saying, “Good Morning”). Through this
question I was able to sharpen it, as well as my idea of what I was trying to discover before I figured out my plan of analysis.To totally encompass all the possible catalytic elements as to why a person is or is not willing to interact is a feat I neither had the time for nor resources, or could complete through my observational process, so I decided to focus more on an aspect of interaction that had less to do with my own ability to make someone comfortable enough to talk to me, and more so became about my unintentional elements of comfort as well as whether is interaction is a disruption as opposed to a means of connecting and socializing.
Hypothesis Due to my experiences on urban public transit, and my research I believe people will see little to no issue interacting with me because I am a woman and typically seen as more approachable and welcoming as depicted through stereotypes. I also predicted that I will have a male skewed interaction rate due to that same fact. Experiment Materials: Notebook, writing utensil, third party opinion on the interaction Procedure: 1. Bring your notebook and utensil. 2. Locate a public, fairly busy (preferably urban) space. 3. Make sure to have a neutral to mildly pleasant demeanor. 4. Make intentional eye contact, with intentionally random subjects, as this is the primary communicative initiator in human-human linguistic interaction. 5. Document number of times eye contact was reciprocated, but no direct engagement/ interaction took place. 6. To document a successful (direct and linguistic) interaction obtain the information for the following elements: Gender, Age, Location, Rating of Destination Importance (1-unimportant, non-emergency, leisurely to 10-urgent emergency, extremely important, necessary), and Subject Rationale of Interaction, Date and Time.
Data Date: 03/05/2018 5:25pm Montrose Blue line Platform Total Intentional Attempts: 3
Intentional Interaction Successes: 2 Intentional Interaction Failures: 1 S1: Gender: Female/ Age: 19/ Location: Montrose Blue line Platform/ Destination importance rating 1(minimal importance) - 10(urgent/ high importance): 4 / Reason for interaction: “Looked approachable.” S2: Time: 5:37pm/ Gender: Male/ Age: 27/ Location: Montrose Blue line Platform/ Destination importance rating 1(minimal importance) - 10(urgent/ high importance): 6/ Reason for interaction: “You looked nice.”
Date: 03/06/2018: 5:25pm Jackson Redline Platform Total Intentional Attempts: 4 Intentional Interaction Successes: 1 Intentional Interaction Failures: 3 S3: Gender: Male/ Age: 34/ Location: Jackson Redline Platform/Destination importance rating 1(minimal importance) - 10(urgent/ high importance): 2/ Reason for interaction: “I was curious”
Date: 03/07/2018: 5:25pm Western Brownline Platform Total Intentional Attempts: 5 Intentional Interaction Successes: 2 Intentional Interaction Failures: 3 S4: Gender: Male/ Age: 29/ Location: Western Brownline Platform//Destination importance rating 1(minimal importance) - 10(urgent/ high importance): 3/ Reason for Interaction: “You don’t seem intimidating.” S5: Time: 5:33/Gender: Female/ Age: 26/ Location: Western Brownline/ Destination Importance Rating 1(minimal importance) - 10(urgent/ high importance): 5/ Reason for interaction: “You looked inviting.”
Figure 1: The data below is a visualization of the gender analytics of the subjects I was able to successfully interact with. The interactions I attempted to initiate were random based how who I felt was most approachable/ receptive, which will be further explored in the conclusion.
Figure 2: Below is a visual display of age ranges of the interaction that occured as well as the frequencies of subjects within that age range. Due to the data collected those between the ages of 25 and 32 were most receptive and willing to interact during their commute. Those between the ages of 17 and 24 may have been unreceptive and uncomfortable to interact with a person who is obviously attempting to engage, this may be due to the lack of adept socially interactive skills that those of older ages. In contrast, it is also reasonable to say that those within the oldest age range were receptive to my attempts, but simply disinterested in having any sort of interaction and navigated accordingly.
Figure 3: Below is a third visualization of the data I collected during my field study. This is simply a comparison of the destination rating data to see if any conclusion can be drawn on the basis of lack of urgent goal. Based on the data collected it can be drawn that those who rated the importance/ urgency of their destination lowly, meaning unnecessary or leisurely, were more open to an interaction that may of been time consuming. The inference of this data is that people who are commuting or completing any sort of task are more willing to engage with others when the task or destination is light-hearted or enjoyable one. Based on the nature of my interactions and the way I initiated them, it was obvious that I wanted a light-hearted experience and had no real motive. This is contrasted by the initiation tactics used by panhadnlers.
Analysis During the fieldwork I conducted throughout the completion of this case study I found it difficult to truly host an environment of your own within a public and transitional setting. As opposed to “normal” social interactions (ie; interactions without any semblance of repertoire, a designated and clear goal and the attention of your “partner”), it is entirely dependent on demeanor and comfortably directed attention. While collecting the data I made sure to be occupying the transit space during the same periods of time as to ensure the same relative mindset of the people I was interacting with as a way to ensure some consistency. It is hard to draw a completely solid conclusion due to the nature of this case study, but the data supports a certain receptiveness to interaction within a particular age category. This conclusion, being viewed through the lense of social development, is reasonable as that age range is not only more likely to have solidified their comfort within social capacities and interactions, but is also still curious enough to engage with little legitimate motive. I have seen this firsthand within my personal life as well, those around within the age range of 25 to 32 generally have more security within themselves as well as find an elevated sense of importance in social interactions/ connectedness. While organizing the collected data I found a trend in male subjects. As a woman I find this reasonable, during a commute men tend to be more comfortable interacting with others in general, however during commutes I noticed that I purposely attempt to exude a demeanor that disengages and can is often perceived as reserved. Also from the data I recorded it can be said that those who are in an eased state of mind, with minimal or leisurely obligations/destination based goals, were more likely to interact as well as receptive to interaction.
Verification Due to the nature of my observational fieldwork, to obtain video/photographic evidence of the encounter would completely shift and compromise the environment I was trying to facilitate. I found a great difficulty obtaining tangible evidence without encountering legal issues as well as a general shift in the intention of the interaction. Despite these things I did have a third party (CTA Personnel) monitoring each interaction, gauging and summarizing the tone, timeframe and smoothness of each. My third person monitor ensured the validity of the time data as well as platform location.
Conclusion
Within the realm of my small case-study, my hypothesis was supported. As I predicted, the outcomes of my interactions were predominantly male skewed. I predicted this to occur based on my own interaction with the male species during transit. However, it would be a reasonable to strike my conclusion as concrete due to possible bias during the procedure regardless of the guideline, due to the fact that there was no guideline on gender ratio during the process of deciding on a subject. I had hoped that by leaving the subject choice “random” it would allow for more organic results, but for the validity of the research I now see that it would have been far more beneficial to implement a 1:1 ratio on “gendered” subjects to give each species (male/female) a chance to properly display their communicative habits. The conclusion of my findings are based in the smoothness of each interaction. I discovered that when interacting with woman there is more transparency with intent as well as overall emotional communicative responses (ie: laughing, smiling, frowning, hand gestures, leaning forward/backward) as opposed to when interacting with males who purposely kept themselves contained, minimal facial expression, closed body language (ie; arms folded, minimal leaning), as well as an overall reserved/cautiousness when intentionally interacting (ie; leaning forward/toward me, smiling, comfortable shaking hands). From my quantitative data it can be deduced that those with low ratings of destination importance were more willing to interact due to pursuit of a leisurely/ non-urgent activity. It can also be deduced that those who have aged past the boundaries of relative adolescence and found comfort within themselves as a part of a social interaction had a much organic and enjoyable experience interacting based on displayed body language (ie; steady eye contact, facial expression, attentive posture, hand gestures, leaning). Overall I found that there is no way to truly insure or force an interaction. During the completion of my fieldwork I found little success in my intentional interactions, but found a surplus of interaction during breaks between subjects, as well as through piquing the interest of a non-targeted commuter.
Works Cited Index of /~Kdevlin/Papers, web.stanford.edu/~kdevlin/Papers. “Research Suggests a Positive Correlation between Social Interaction and Health.” National Institute on Aging, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
www.nia.nih.gov/about/living-long-well-21st-century-strategic-directions-research-a ging/research-suggests-positive. Umberson, Debra, and Jennifer Karas Montez. ​Journal of Health and Social Behavior​, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2010, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3150158/#R42.