Awkward silence, it's a...
Hi, welcome to DNews, I'm Ross Everett.
Silences.
They can be awkward.
You know that moment where you say something in a group of your friends and it's met with
a deafening...
That moment that makes you want to grab someone and shake them saying "I TAKE IT BACK!
WHATEVER I DID TO MAKE YOU HATE ME I JUST WANT TO UNDO IT!
COME BACK TO ME.
And while they feel like they last eons, turns out the amount of time it takes to make a
silence awkward is just four seconds...
Of course on an Internet video four seconds seems even longer.
Case and point: skippable pre-roll ads.
My beard grows in by the time the skip button shows up.
? But what exactly happens in those four seconds
that makes us willing to be anywhere else?
Well, a social experiment, or as Facebook calls it: a new feature, was conducted at
the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, that showed the importance of conversational
flow.
When a conversation is going strong, or riffing as I like to call it, we experience positive
emotions, social validation, and a sense of belonging.
So it only makes sense that when it's brought to a screeching halt, or stiffing as I call
it, we're flooded by feelings of rejection and ostracism.
They found this out by having a group of sixty undergrads watch one of two six-minute videos
of a conversation.
In both videos one person makes a controversial remark.
In one of the videos, the conversation continues smoothly and moves onto a different topic.
But in the other video, eeeeerp- the conversation stops.
For four seconds of silence, after which the conversation continues.
And while the conversation continues the exact same way in both videos, the silence in between
made all the difference.
It disrupted the flow enough to make those that watched the video with the pause feel
"more rejection, more negative emotions, and less positive emotions" which seems a little
redundant but I wanna give you all the facts.
You never disrupt the flow.
Unless, of course, you're aiming to create one of those silences that's, well... awkward.
So, what do you guys do during an awkward silence?
Let me know in the comments down below.
And, hey, if you're all into trending topics but don't know all the little specifics about
what's going on, head on over to the new TestTube show and subscribe so you can get that show
in your sub box the same way you're getting DNews now.
I'm Ross Everett...
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