Speaker 1: It's hard to get anything done. It's hard to get anything.
Speaker 1: It's hard to get any As you can see, it's
Speaker 1: really hard to get anything done when you're constantly being interrupted. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about distractions at work. This is
Speaker 1: game plan. Hi. I'm Francesca Leady and I'm Rebecca Greenfield. So, Becca,
Speaker 1: have you noticed the newsroom has seemed a little distracted lately. Yes,
Speaker 1: I know there are some sports. I care about the sports,
Speaker 1: but it's March madness. I don't care about the sports either,
Speaker 1: but I do hear occasional shouting from various corners of
Speaker 1: the newsroom, and I know it is about the college sports.
Speaker 1: The team won the match, Yeah, they got the ball
Speaker 1: in the thing. But we are in the minority. Lots
Speaker 1: of people care about March madness, and March madness kind
Speaker 1: of consumes the day for a lot of people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like this particularly office focused thing because the
Speaker 1: games happened during the day, and also people fell out
Speaker 1: their brackets and often they're involved in these work brackets
Speaker 1: that you have like a reason to talk to your colleagues, right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's just like all consuming office distraction. And obviously,
Speaker 1: like we don't care about March madness, but this happens
Speaker 1: periodically throughout the year. Like my version of this is
Speaker 1: the Olympics. I love watching the Olympics, and I just
Speaker 1: like I shamelessly watched during the day, so like every
Speaker 1: four years you will drop everything to the Francesca. Oh,
Speaker 1: you're a winter Olympics person too, Okay, we can talk
Speaker 1: about that offline. But yeah, And there's always these articles
Speaker 1: every March. I know this because this is my beat,
Speaker 1: and it's always like, oh, the productivity cost of get
Speaker 1: pitched the product story about like how March madness is
Speaker 1: costing offices billions of dollars each year. I've read estimates
Speaker 1: of anywhere from one point three to four billion. That
Speaker 1: just sounds really high. Yeah, I think for that to
Speaker 1: be true, you would have to assume that the rest
Speaker 1: of the time, when there isn't March Madness going on,
Speaker 1: people are using all of that time completely productive, which
Speaker 1: of course they're not. Right. That's the thing is, even
Speaker 1: if it is not the Olympics or March Madness, there
Speaker 1: are going to be things disrupting your day and you
Speaker 1: have to kind of have strategies to work around them, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have this theory of distractions. So when I'm writing
Speaker 1: a story and I'm like so at risk of being
Speaker 1: distracted by Twitter or at or anything else, I listened
Speaker 1: to like pretty intense hip hop music, okay, because the
Speaker 1: lyrics and the beat distract me from my other distractions.
Speaker 1: Like I'm so into the music that I can be
Speaker 1: into my writing and not think about going on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Like I have such a problem with distractions that I
Speaker 1: need other distractions. This is intense, Like you told me
Speaker 1: about this, and I'm having trouble getting my head around
Speaker 1: it because I'm like most people where I need music
Speaker 1: that's the equivalent of like noise. If I'm working, it
Speaker 1: has to be ambient kind of music that's a little
Speaker 1: bit boring and has no lyrics because it has to
Speaker 1: just be one step higher than silence. But silence is
Speaker 1: too distracting because I like empty. Yeah, it's kind of
Speaker 1: similar where it's like you want to fill up your
Speaker 1: mind with something so that it doesn't wander to something else.
Speaker 1: But in my mind is just like really needs help
Speaker 1: so you don't end up writing like rap lyrics into
Speaker 1: your stories. Though by accident, I don't know, I'm not
Speaker 1: even listening to the words, I think you have a
Speaker 1: unique mind. Oh, my goodness, so kind, thank you. Maybe
Speaker 1: even march madness in some ways can be a positive distraction.
Speaker 1: Or colleague Polly Muslins wrote a story that said, there
Speaker 1: is a positive element to march madness. It can increase
Speaker 1: camaraderie and office happiness because people have something to share.
Speaker 1: And like you said, you know you're being distracted by
Speaker 1: something anyway, maybe it's better to be distracted by something
Speaker 1: that does have these elements of team building. So we
Speaker 1: have this theory between us that not all distractions are
Speaker 1: created equal. But let's talk to somebody who's actually an
Speaker 1: expert on distractions, interruptions and everything. Like Gloria Mark is
Speaker 1: an expert on human computer interaction. She is a professor
Speaker 1: at the University of California IRV and prolific researcher on distractions, interruptions,
Speaker 1: and multitasking. Thanks for talking to us, by Gloria, My pleasure.
Speaker 1: So why don't we start by just talking a little
Speaker 1: bit about this state of distraction at work today? Like
Speaker 1: what is distracting people? Well, I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: since the mid two thousand's people were mostly distracted by
Speaker 1: social media. I would say more recently, it's shifted and
Speaker 1: it's now become people being distracted by news. People checking
Speaker 1: the news because the news is updated so frequently, there's
Speaker 1: so many news sites. People participate in generating news, commenting,
Speaker 1: sharing news. So I think this has shifted from uh,
Speaker 1: you know, more general social media to more particular news following.
Speaker 1: Are those different types of interrupts or distractions or are
Speaker 1: they in the same category. I would say that interrupting
Speaker 1: your work to look at news is a very similar
Speaker 1: kind of distraction to social media. And let me explain why.
Speaker 1: So we did a recent study. This was in the
Speaker 1: in a workplace, and we contrasted people taking breaks, in
Speaker 1: other words, interrupting themselves either with face to face intractions
Speaker 1: or going to social media. One of the things we
Speaker 1: were interested in was how distractions affect workplace mood, and
Speaker 1: we found that right after people have a face to
Speaker 1: face interaction, they were happier than right after they had
Speaker 1: a Facebook interaction. But when we look at the cumulative
Speaker 1: amount of time spent on distractions, like over the whole day,
Speaker 1: people are actually happier the more time they spent on Facebook.
Speaker 1: And this was very curious and here's why. Because the
Speaker 1: more engaged people were in their work that day, the
Speaker 1: more time they spent on Facebook. And when you go
Speaker 1: onto social media, not just Facebook, but any kind of
Speaker 1: social media or even a news site, you are in
Speaker 1: control of your time, whereas if you're in a face
Speaker 1: to face interaction, you're a prisoner of that interaction in
Speaker 1: the sense that we have social interaction rituals that we
Speaker 1: go through. Right, you can't break away quickly from a
Speaker 1: face to face interaction. It's rude, right, it sends the
Speaker 1: wrong social signals. But on social media, you can control
Speaker 1: when you take that distraction, how long you spent, what
Speaker 1: you do on that site. You know, whether you share
Speaker 1: something or like something, or changed to a different site.
Speaker 1: And the same with news sites. So I think that
Speaker 1: the main difference is that these kinds of distractions social
Speaker 1: media news sites offer people a kind of control of
Speaker 1: their time. So I'm sort of surprised to learn that
Speaker 1: people who spent a lot of time on Facebook during
Speaker 1: the day are are happier. But it sounds like for
Speaker 1: a certain type of employee that that you can actually
Speaker 1: be a positive sort of distraction. What are the negative
Speaker 1: effects of interruptions or distractions at work? So one of
Speaker 1: the main effects is that it's related to stress. So
Speaker 1: usually I do UH studies in the workplace, but to
Speaker 1: investigate interruptions, I did a laboratory study and we interrupted people.
Speaker 1: We had them do a workplace tasks and we simulated
Speaker 1: workplace and we found that the more that people were interrupted,
Speaker 1: the more stressed that they were. What was interesting, though,
Speaker 1: was that the interruptions did not affect the quality or
Speaker 1: the accuracy of their task. So what happened was that
Speaker 1: people sped up. They sped up the rate at which
Speaker 1: they worked because they knew they were getting interrupted. And
Speaker 1: I think this is what happens in the workplace. So
Speaker 1: if you're in an environment and you anticipate being interrupted,
Speaker 1: you're going to work a lot more efficiently. You know,
Speaker 1: you know you've got to leave a certain time at
Speaker 1: the end of the day most most people do. Some
Speaker 1: people work late, and so you want to optimize what
Speaker 1: you can do during that time. And so you know,
Speaker 1: you you'll attend to distractions interruptions, but the time you
Speaker 1: spend on task, you'll try to be a lot more efficient.
Speaker 1: But the end result is that it increases stress. So
Speaker 1: it sounds like there are good things and bad things
Speaker 1: I think people will be surprised to hear that there
Speaker 1: are benefits to distractions. Are there certain distractions that we
Speaker 1: should be trying to seek out more than others? I
Speaker 1: think dist actions that relate to your context at hand
Speaker 1: are are very beneficial. So, you know, if I'm working
Speaker 1: on a very complex project and a colleague comes in
Speaker 1: interrupts me with a question exactly about that project, then
Speaker 1: it's very beneficial because it might help me to think
Speaker 1: very differently about that project. It might give me a
Speaker 1: new inside, It might lead me to think of something
Speaker 1: I had forgotten, you know, just a new perspective on it.
Speaker 1: If we're interrupted by things that are completely a different context,
Speaker 1: we have to do what's called a context shift, and
Speaker 1: this requires more cognitive resources to make that shift right,
Speaker 1: because we have to orient to a completely new context.
Speaker 1: And this creates stress. And when you do this over
Speaker 1: the course of a day, day in and day out,
Speaker 1: the stress cumulates, right because you're all you're constantly making
Speaker 1: these shifts. We know also from our research that people
Speaker 1: have very short attention durations when they work on the computer.
Speaker 1: The media attention duration on any computer screen is forty seconds,
Speaker 1: and what that means is that people are continually shifting attention.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're shifting to the same task, sometimes they're completely
Speaker 1: changing to other tasks. So again, if you're making context shifts,
Speaker 1: this plays a role in increasing stress. So if everyone
Speaker 1: is constantly switching between one thing and another, should we
Speaker 1: be trying to do less of that or should we
Speaker 1: just be trying to keep the switches in the same context.
Speaker 1: I think ideally it's best to try to shift as
Speaker 1: little as possible. Of course, some things don't require much
Speaker 1: time to deal with, UH, such as email. But but
Speaker 1: this is a whole other kind of distraction that that
Speaker 1: creates stress as well. What kind of distraction is that?
Speaker 1: So email is definitely associated with stress. We we've done
Speaker 1: studies just focusing on the effects of email. In one
Speaker 1: study that we did, we had people we we did
Speaker 1: a baseline measure that this was using sensors to measure
Speaker 1: their stress. UH. They worked as they did ordinarily, and
Speaker 1: then we had them spend a work week without email,
Speaker 1: so everything else was the same, and if they needed
Speaker 1: to contact someone, they could pick up the phone, they
Speaker 1: could walk out of the office, and we found that
Speaker 1: stress went down significantly. People were significantly more relaxed and
Speaker 1: we also found that their focus of attention on any
Speaker 1: computer screw mean, on any task was significantly longer. And
Speaker 1: it turns out that people were quite happy to not
Speaker 1: have email for that week. And at the end of
Speaker 1: the week, we showed them their emails that they missed
Speaker 1: for that week, and it turns out that information ages
Speaker 1: very very quickly, and if you don't attend to an
Speaker 1: email very quickly, very often the problem gets solved. Another
Speaker 1: thing I will say about email distractions, uh that makes
Speaker 1: it a little bit different, is that email requires focused attention.
Speaker 1: In other words, it requires work because people have to
Speaker 1: very often carefully craft emails, especially if it's two people
Speaker 1: who are colleagues or people who are supervisors or customers clients,
Speaker 1: So you have to be very careful about the language
Speaker 1: you use. And it requires at ten and consequently stress,
Speaker 1: And we find that when we're measuring stress with sensors
Speaker 1: were logging the time that that they spend on email,
Speaker 1: we find a very very interesting relationship. When people go
Speaker 1: on email, stress goes up in real time. They go
Speaker 1: off email, the stress goes down in real time. And
Speaker 1: we control for every possible thing we can think of.
Speaker 1: We control for work, role, and gender and experience and
Speaker 1: all these things that could possibly affect the relationship of
Speaker 1: stress and email, and it's a very robust result. We
Speaker 1: just did a whole episode on email, and I think
Speaker 1: our guest would would definitely agree with you if you have.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if you've replicated that with the new
Speaker 1: chat apps that are now out there, Like, yeah, we haven't,
Speaker 1: but that is something that I am planning to do. Yes,
Speaker 1: So right now, a lot of people at work are
Speaker 1: paying a lot of attention to college basketball. Um it's
Speaker 1: that time of year when people spend time betting on
Speaker 1: basketball and watching games, and you often hear employers complain
Speaker 1: about how much time it takes up and how much
Speaker 1: distraction it causes. I'm wondering, is that the kind of
Speaker 1: distraction that is actually possibly good for you because it
Speaker 1: makes people happy and it causes camaraderie. I would say
Speaker 1: it could be good. I would also imagine that this
Speaker 1: kind of distraction is going to be really engaging for
Speaker 1: people in the sense that it's going to be hard
Speaker 1: to pull away. So I mentioned earlier that when people
Speaker 1: go on to social media, we found that they were
Speaker 1: in control of their time. I'm just wondering for these
Speaker 1: kinds of distractions that people are very emotionally involved in,
Speaker 1: like sports, it might be very hard to pull away,
Speaker 1: and it might be hard to go back and do
Speaker 1: work that's probably more Monday. So you should just give
Speaker 1: into it. I think the best strategy is you just
Speaker 1: a lot a certain amount of time to you know,
Speaker 1: go on go online, you know, look at the sports coverage,
Speaker 1: get it out of your system, and then you cut
Speaker 1: it off and then you go back to work. And
Speaker 1: it really does involve discipline, but you've got to cut
Speaker 1: it off because otherwise, uh, it'll be very hard to
Speaker 1: to control. I'm wondering do certain people deal with distractions
Speaker 1: better than others. I know there are people around me
Speaker 1: who seem like they can both be on Twitter all
Speaker 1: day and write a million articles. It seems like they're
Speaker 1: really good at being distracted and getting stuff done. Have
Speaker 1: you found any differences between people and your research. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, most people prefer what's called mono chronic work,
Speaker 1: and that means working one task through the completion before
Speaker 1: you start something else. I I am that way, but
Speaker 1: you know, we live in an environment that requires us
Speaker 1: to be what's called poly chronic, which is working on
Speaker 1: different tasks, switching back and forth depending on the priorities, deadlines,
Speaker 1: and so on. Now, there are some people that actually
Speaker 1: prefer polychronic work, so they thrive in an environment where
Speaker 1: they can work on several things at the same time.
Speaker 1: These are the multi taskers we always hear about, right,
Speaker 1: These are the multitaskers extraordinaire who can switch back and forth.
Speaker 1: You can't, you can't physically work on two things at
Speaker 1: the same time. People's attentional resources don't allow that. But
Speaker 1: people can switch their attentional resources back and forth. There's
Speaker 1: there is another thing, though, You asked about differences in people,
Speaker 1: and we did find that people well who spend very
Speaker 1: short attention durations on the computer. In other words, these
Speaker 1: are people that switch really frequently. We looked at personality differences,
Speaker 1: and indeed we found that these people score very high
Speaker 1: on a neuroticism personality trait. They also score high and
Speaker 1: what's called an impulsivity trait, giving way to impulsive behavior,
Speaker 1: and they're all some more susceptible to stress. So there
Speaker 1: there are yes individual differences among people who who do
Speaker 1: switching behavior. I'm wondering if those people have that personality type,
Speaker 1: or they've developed those traits from working in the type
Speaker 1: of job where they have to switch between screens over
Speaker 1: and over again. You basically just diagnosed both of us
Speaker 1: were out. Uh. Well, So neuroticism is believed to be invariant,
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a personality trait that is not
Speaker 1: believed to change very much. The same with impulsivity, So
Speaker 1: people are more or less impulsive. However, people being susceptible
Speaker 1: to stress, this can change. This, This can vary among people,
Speaker 1: among individuals. One day I may be more susceptible than
Speaker 1: another day. I mean, it depends not just on what's
Speaker 1: going on in workplace, but what's going on in my
Speaker 1: personal life. So so yeah, it's it's really a mix
Speaker 1: of inherent traits and things that can vary. So I
Speaker 1: just want to wrap up by asking you whether your
Speaker 1: research has given you any insight into how you handle distractions.
Speaker 1: If anything, it's just made me more aware of how
Speaker 1: distractable I am. I am as much a victim to
Speaker 1: distractions as anyone that I study. I have tried different things.
Speaker 1: I've tried, uh, catching my my email. Uh, in other words,
Speaker 1: looking at just certain times of the day at email. Uh,
Speaker 1: the same with social media, the same with news sites. Uh.
Speaker 1: I have not succeeded very well, I have to admit,
Speaker 1: but but I do find that if I make a
Speaker 1: list at the beginning of the day of what I
Speaker 1: want to accomplish that day, I I generally do quite well.
Speaker 1: So lists can help, and surprisingly they can also help
Speaker 1: keep me on track from from always going to social
Speaker 1: media or news or email. Well, your research is helping
Speaker 1: the rest of us out here in the world fight distraction.
Speaker 1: So we appreciate all the good work you're doing. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for talking to us. It was my pleasure.
Speaker 1: There seems to be more different kinds of distractions than
Speaker 1: I ever even realized. Like there's a self interruption, and
Speaker 1: then there's being interrupted by somebody else. Like there's so
Speaker 1: many different I'm overwhelmed and distracted by how distracting all
Speaker 1: the different types of distractions are. It does seem to
Speaker 1: confirm my theory a little bit. How there's like different
Speaker 1: types of distractions and my music distraction is a different
Speaker 1: kind of distraction than the Twitter distraction. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: they are good ones and bad ones, And it's interesting.
Speaker 1: All we hear about is how to get rid of
Speaker 1: distractions like that. There are people who have their whole
Speaker 1: lives too, like our guest last week, Dan r Ellie,
Speaker 1: who made an app so he doesn't check his email,
Speaker 1: And when I heard about his way of life, I
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, I should just do that, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to be so much more productive and happier, and
Speaker 1: I really have like envy. Yeah. But then Gloria Mark's
Speaker 1: research shows that actually people seem to adjust to the
Speaker 1: distractions that they have, so that was kind of reassuring
Speaker 1: to me, Like, you become more efficient as a result
Speaker 1: of having all these distractions, so it's not necessarily a
Speaker 1: productivity cost so much as a stress induce her like,
Speaker 1: her research found that people are just super stressed out
Speaker 1: by all these distractions, and I actually related to that
Speaker 1: now that I think about it, I think, having just
Speaker 1: grown up working with Internet distractions, it's like I can't
Speaker 1: do my work without a certain level of distractions, Like
Speaker 1: I've become like I've worked them into my workflow so much.
Speaker 1: But maybe trying to create a post distraction world for yourself,
Speaker 1: which a lot of people do. They have you know,
Speaker 1: Chrome extensions installed to block certain apps, you're smiling because
Speaker 1: you do this, and you recommended this to me, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't successful at keeping the extension installed. But now
Speaker 1: you can justify this behavior to yourself because maybe sometimes
Speaker 1: distractions happen. And yeah, and if you try to live
Speaker 1: in a sensory deprivation tank and like have a world
Speaker 1: with no distractions in it, I think you're just creating
Speaker 1: this really fragile bubble that as soon as it gets shattered,
Speaker 1: like your your workflows destroyed because you haven't taught yourself
Speaker 1: the coping skills that you need to with distraction. So basically,
Speaker 1: go ahead and watch your march badness. Yeah, take your break,
Speaker 1: enjoy it, and know that if you were doing that,
Speaker 1: you would just be doing something else distracting. And let's
Speaker 1: distract ourselves with some half big takes half fake takes,
Speaker 1: a little bit of housekeeping before we get to our
Speaker 1: half big takes. You can leave a message with your
Speaker 1: half big take by calling two and two six zero
Speaker 1: one six six. This week, a listener called in with
Speaker 1: a story and reaction to our episode about crying at
Speaker 1: work from a couple of weeks ago, and her own
Speaker 1: half big take. Hey, I just heard your podcast about
Speaker 1: how it was okay to cry at work, and it
Speaker 1: made me think of a funny, tragic story that happened
Speaker 1: to me. I had a phase in my life where
Speaker 1: work would make me cry almost every day, like I
Speaker 1: would spend almost an hour a day in the bathroom stall.
Speaker 1: And there was one night where I ended up having
Speaker 1: a panic attack and it wentn't hit in a cube
Speaker 1: for someone that hadn't been there. Because I work second shifts,
Speaker 1: of the entire building, essentially upstairs or downstairs is cleaned out.
Speaker 1: So I ended up going and crying in a cube
Speaker 1: somewhere and someone walked up and found me, and it
Speaker 1: was like the most awkward conversation ever. I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: with tears running down my face, hyper ventilating, just like
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, And so she goes, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you did a great job because you scared the crap
Speaker 1: out of me. So yeah, that's my story about crying.
Speaker 1: In case anyone ever had like a major crying incident,
Speaker 1: I can totally relate. And also, my half baked take
Speaker 1: is that I work in an office where for a
Speaker 1: shift and second shift have to share cubicles and desks.
Speaker 1: So my half bake take is that no matter what
Speaker 1: time your shift starts, you shouldn't have to worry about
Speaker 1: your someone sitting in your seat when you come into work.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's it. Thank you by so much in
Speaker 1: that message that I even came up with my own
Speaker 1: half big take off of her crying story, which is
Speaker 1: that if you work in a really toxic environment, you
Speaker 1: should probably have your crying spot picked out. Um, and
Speaker 1: that's for her half big take. Yeah, if you have
Speaker 1: to share a desk already, you should be extra courteous
Speaker 1: of your co workers if you're in a desk sharing situation,
Speaker 1: because desk sharing situations kind of suck. Yeah, there's they're
Speaker 1: kind of hip now, Yeah, there's hot desking, hoteling, hot desking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hot desking. It's like when you have their own desk.
Speaker 1: So yeah, tidy up your desk and leave your desk
Speaker 1: on time so that the next shift that seems like
Speaker 1: a reason start to their shift. Becca, what is your
Speaker 1: not fully fleshed out thought that you'd like to share
Speaker 1: with the world. So there's some sad news that we
Speaker 1: need to share that Sam Grobart, who was taking over
Speaker 1: while you were on maternity leave, has moved on to
Speaker 1: a new job, but he inspired me in so many ways,
Speaker 1: but also for this half big take and that if
Speaker 1: you are starting a new job you should be a
Speaker 1: little bit scared. I'm with that, Okay, go on, And
Speaker 1: I think it's like, you know, if you're leaving a
Speaker 1: job that you I think if you're leaving a job
Speaker 1: you like, which I think Sam liked it here, it's
Speaker 1: different if you're like leaving a toxic environment and you're
Speaker 1: just like trying to get out. But if you're like
Speaker 1: choosing to move on, I think like there should be
Speaker 1: a little bit of fear because or else maybe it
Speaker 1: wasn't the right decision. You shouldn't move on to something
Speaker 1: more comfortable. Fear means you're taking a risk. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: risks are good. And if you're happy and comfortable and
Speaker 1: you know it's just going to be a piece of
Speaker 1: cake job, then yeah, why are you even doing it?
Speaker 1: I guess that's like the weird, ambitious persons warped version
Speaker 1: of working. I will tell you that before I started
Speaker 1: my job here, I took a week off between leaving
Speaker 1: my old job and starting here. I thought I was
Speaker 1: going to have like a staycation and get lots of
Speaker 1: stuff downe around the house, and that whole week was
Speaker 1: ruined because I was just racked with anxiety about starting
Speaker 1: this new job. And look at you now, so obviously
Speaker 1: it's a great job, because I was so nervous about
Speaker 1: exactly why I started. Anyway, what's your happy to take?
Speaker 1: My half? Big take is a troubling phenomenon that seems
Speaker 1: to be becoming more and more common in my office life.
Speaker 1: I have virtual friendships with people that I work with
Speaker 1: that are not matched by my I r L relationship
Speaker 1: with them. So like, either on chat or on Twitter,
Speaker 1: I communicate with these people and we like yuck it up,
Speaker 1: like there's lots of jokes, we say witticisms to each other,
Speaker 1: and then we like pass each other in the office
Speaker 1: and barely even acknowledge each other. I just it's like
Speaker 1: there are some people that I'm not even sure they
Speaker 1: would know who I am if they saw me, but
Speaker 1: on Twitter like we're best. But I have a lot
Speaker 1: of thoughts about this. One is that some people are
Speaker 1: just really awkward in person and they do better online.
Speaker 1: But also that I do believe that chat friendships are
Speaker 1: real friendships. That's what I was going to ask, because
Speaker 1: I get pleasure out of them. I feel like I
Speaker 1: know these people better. And then it's like I walk
Speaker 1: up to them and I'm like, yeah, how you try?
Speaker 1: Do you try to be friends? Because I think you
Speaker 1: should try? How far do I have to go to try?
Speaker 1: I don't know enough to tar it's out loud, mhm.
Speaker 1: It seems like a lot of work. I think I'll
Speaker 1: just stick to the Twitter. This isn't so much a
Speaker 1: half big take as like a little therapy sash. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just I get real pleasure out of the online repartee,
Speaker 1: and then I expected to translate into real life and
Speaker 1: then I feel like I'm missing something when it doesn't
Speaker 1: so me. My half big take on your half big
Speaker 1: take is it's okay to just have online friendships. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you for that permission. This has been half big takes,
Speaker 1: half fake takes. Thank you for listening to game Plan.
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter at Francesca today and I'm at RZ
Speaker 1: Greenfield and you can tweet your half bag takes two
Speaker 1: at game Plan, or you can call into our super
Speaker 1: awesome hotline at two and two six seven zero one
Speaker 1: six six. If you like our show, please go to
Speaker 1: iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, rate review, subscribe,
Speaker 1: leaving your reviews really really helps. And while you're there,
Speaker 1: check out our fellow Bloomberg podcast, Decrypted. It's all about
Speaker 1: technology stuff. This show was produced by Liz Smith and
Speaker 1: Magnus Hendrickson. The head of podcast is Alec McCabe and
Speaker 1: we'll see you next week. Bye. I hope that on
Speaker 1: the credits of the episode I get credit for UM
Speaker 1: tried to un pressing