Talking on the subway? Why?

First of all, welcome to the blog! I do Tumblr and stuff, but I figured it was about time to get a formal blog. If you want to pop over to your Bookmarks Bar and add this to it, that'd be awesome for me, and hopefully just as good for you! I'm going to update this every day, so you'll want to be checking frequently.

Anyways, here goes.

So I'm studying Psychology at Tufts. I'm interested in how people work--how they think when they're by themselves, how they behave when they're around other people, how they decide to remain calm or to freak out. I sometimes call myself a brain-worshiper. Did you know that brains physically change themselves based on how and what you think? That's just nuts. Brains are crazy! (If you don't agree, take one Psych class.Or even just check out this page of brain facts.)

Anyways, for a Social Psychology class last semester, two team members and I had to perform a social experiment with strangers. We chose to ride the subway--in our case, the Red Line of the Boston MBTA, which has a stop right near Tufts. The details of the experiment aren't relevant, other than that to perform it, we approached around 30 individuals and attempted to engage them in conversation.

Doing that, something amazing happened. People were happy to talk to us! Certainly, there were a few people who chose to keep to themselves, but as soon as we made the first move and asked someone a question, we saw eyes light up and mouths eagerly open. One man I talked to willingly handed over his smartphone so that I could look something up! So here was my question--if people are so glad to talk to strangers, why is there such a taboo against talking to strangers in public places?

Think about it. When's the last time you turned to the person next to you in line at Dunkin' Donuts, or the person waiting to cross the busy street next to you in the morning, and said, "Hey, how's it going?" I know the answer. It's never.

Well, I have a theory that if people did this, the world would be a happier place. So I'm out to prove it--and that's what this blog is going to be. We're going to look at meeting people. My journey began with talking to people on the subway--where will yours start?

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