... all week waiting, waiting for a friend?

friend?Actually, you know what? It's, it's funny.

I, I, I mean, I, from a very young age, I worked with kids, and, uh, that- that's why I became a developmental psychologist in the first place.

And that's what kind of raised my interest in shy and socially anxious kids because I would be working, like, at a day camp or s- you know, an extracurricular activity, and I, I was sort of drawn to the kids who were sort of off by themselves and didn't wanna play with the other kids.

And when I started my research career, that was my primary focus.

And I, I spent, oof, hours and hours and hours, you know, watching kids at school, in the playground, uh, you know, uh, uh, at kindergarten, at recess.

And, and, uh, we were very focused, of course, on the kids who were kind of off by themselves, 'cause that's what shy kids tend to do when they're feeling nervous, and, and they don't play with other kids.

Yeah

What are the benefits of solitude other than, you know, it's quieter?

Yeah, so I mean quieter is, is actually a pretty good place to start.

The word, the one word that I would use to sort of as an umbrella term for all of the benefits of solitude, a lot of it has to do with freedom or different kinds of freedom.

So for one thing, solitude provides freedom from.

So when you're among other people, when you're outside in the world, it's noisy, it's busy, there's a lot of input into your senses.

You have to watch how you behave, you have to watch what you say, you have to modulate your facial expressions and your posture and you've got to pay attention to what other people are saying and you're being bombarded with all these different kinds of sounds and input and it can really be exhausting.

So for one thing solitude is just a chance to catch your breath, it's freedom from that input.

Is- is that a good use of your solitude?

Wow.

I started off, um, mostly focused on kids who are shy and socially anxious.

I'm a developmental psychologist by training.

Spent a lot of time watching shy kids, you know, not playing when they were around other kids, right? They tend to be off to the side.

They watch other kids.

They don't join in.

But while I was watching these shy kids, I also noticed these other kids that were quite happy to play by themselves.

Tell me about the social battery and how this could really help people.