Together: Why Social Connection Holds the Key to Better Health, Higher Performance, and Greater Happiness

by Vivek H. Murthy

Parigi compared them with friendships that developed organically between offline hosts and travelers. “What we found is that when the couch surfer had more information about that other person he or she was going to meet, the resulting friendship after they met was weaker than in a world where the couch surfers did not have that amount of information about the unknown other.” Virtually front-loading the relationship with social information, it seemed, was a trade-off that eased entry but made the resulting connection “less binding.”13 In contrast, the effort that the group with less up-front information had to put into learning about each other from the ground up actually paid off in friendship. It’s not just what we know about each other that counts, it’s how we get to know it. And time and attention, with a little struggle thrown in, can make a real difference in strengthening connection.