Something You Should Know - Why Food Doesn’t Taste As Good As It Used To & Overcoming Awkwardness

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

The corona virus vaccine comes as a shot -most likely two shots! And getting shots is no fun. So this episode begins by explaining what you should do just before, during and after you get the shot to make it hurt less. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9018211/Pain-Grimacing-make-injection-bearable-study-claims-ahead-COVID-vaccine-rollout.html Why are so many people overweight? There are likely several contributing factors and one of them seems to be how food tastes. In short, it doesn’t taste as good as it used to according to Mark Schatzker author of the book The Dorito Effect. (https://amzn.to/2L7E0EB). Listen as Mark explains why good food has gone bland while junk food has gotten irresistible - and what we can do about it.  We are told to not let little things bother us. But they do. Listen as I explain the top-rated irritants that bother people the most. https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/2009/12/hidden-fees-top-survey-of-what-annoys-americans-most/ Who hasn’t felt awkward? Being awkward is embarrassing yet we have all done or said something that has made us feel that awful awkward feeling. Relationship expert Ty Tashiro joins me to discuss awkwardness, how to handle those awkward moments and why we should all understand that awkwardness isn’t as bad as we think. Ty is author of the book Awkward: The Science of Why We’re Socially Awkward and Why That’s Awesome (https://amzn.to/2JNsE8a). PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! Lampsplus.com/something for up to 50% off https://www.lampsplus.com/?src=verit&mdm=display&cmp=new&trm=pod&cnt=something&sourceid=MEVERITPODSOMETHING The Jordan Harbinger Show https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jordan-harbinger-show/id1344999619 HelixSleep.com/sysk (for up to $200 off and two free pillows!) https://helixsleep.com/pages/landing-page?promo=sysk https://www.geico.com Bundle your policies and save! It's Geico easy! Visit https://bluechew.com and get your first order FREE when you use promo code: SOMETHING https://deals.dell.com/en-us or 1-800-BUY DELL for the best savings available now! https://www.bluenile.com Use Promo Code: SYSK to get $50 off orders of $500 or more at BlueNile.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know is all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future.

Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, when you get your coronavirus vaccine shot, there's

something you can do to make it hurt less. Then, something's wrong with the food we eat, and it's causing people to get fat. And what we've done basically is taken wholesome food and made it bland, and taken junk food and made it irresistible. And this explains so much about why so many people are eating too much of the wrong food and not enough of the right food. It comes down to flavor, the pleasure we take in eating. Also, how much do you hate it when you can't get a real human being on the phone? And have you ever done something awkward or felt awkward? We all have.

One of the things that I like to tell people is being awkward is not the worst thing. It's a little inconvenient, I think, until you figure things out. But people are surprisingly patient with social awkwardness once they get to know somebody. All this today on Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared.

It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts.

Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi. Welcome to Something You Should Know. You know, it's pretty difficult to get very far in life without having to get a shot, a needle. And there's this theory that if you smile when you get a shot, it hurts less.

Well, since we are pretty much all about to get a shot or two when the coronavirus vaccine is available, researchers at the University of California in Irvine put this theory to the test. They got 231 volunteers to take saline injections, and they had some people smile, some people grimace, and some people maintained a neutral expression, and some people did a little fake smile. And during the injections, the researchers recorded each participant's heart rate and skin conductance levels, all of which are markers of stress. In addition, each volunteer reported to the researchers how much pain they anticipated and how much pain they felt,

as well as their emotional state during the test. Well, what they found is that people who smile a real smile and people who grimaced reported a pain reduction of about 40% compared to people who had a neutral expression or did a fake smile. The only caveat is that it has to be a genuine smile or a genuine grimace, meaning a smile where you use the muscles around the eyes and a grimace which uses the muscles in the forehead. A fake smile and a fake grimace didn't seem to do much. So, when it's time to go in for your coronavirus vaccine shot,

go in with a big genuine smile on your face, or a big grimace on your face, but make it authentic, and it should hurt less. And that is something you should know. Whenever you hear a discussion about food and health and why people are overweight, the usual suspects in that discussion are things like portion sizes. Portion sizes are too big, or we're too sedentary, we need to move more, or the problem is sugar, we eat too much sugar, or maybe it's fat.

There's too much fat in the diet, and that's what's causing us to gain weight. And the fact is, all those things probably have something to do with it. But there is another suspect in this investigation. It's taste, flavor, or more accurately, the lack of flavor in our food. This is really interesting, and I hadn't really heard this before, but here to tell you about it is Mark Schatzker. He is a writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

He's a frequent contributor to the Dr. Oz Show, and he is author of a book called The Dorito Effect. Hi, Mark. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me on. So explain what the Dorito Effect is and why it's so important. Yeah, the Dorito effect refers to the fact that all the food we eat is becoming more and more like a Dorito, which is to say that the natural food we grow, the corn part of the Dorito, is getting blander and blander. And yet we have imbued it with this irresistible flavoring.

This is flavor technology. This is that magic powdery awesomeness that makes a simple corn chip light up your brain and go, my God, that tastes awesome. That's happening to all of our food. So why are we growing bland food? I mean, if we know what a good ear of corn tastes like, or we know what a good tomato tastes like, why are we growing tomatoes and corn that tastes so bland?

Well, for a very simple reason is that we have been focused for more than half a century on growing more and more food. And it's been a spectacular success. The yield in agriculture has just been a phenomenal growth. And that's important because we have less land and a lot of mouths to feed, but it's come at a price. We have a lot more food, but that food is less nutritionally dense and it just doesn't have the flavor. And tomatoes are probably the best example of this. We want those tomatoes to have that burst of delicious tomato flavor like they do at the peak of summer, and they so often taste like watery cardboard. And so what's the problem then? So maybe food's more bland, and maybe we snazz it up with some seasoning. So what?

Yeah, so what? Why is this a problem? The problem is because we're essentially programmed to eat for flavor. And what we've done over time is, while the good food problem is because we're essentially programmed to eat for flavor. And what we've done over time is while the good food, the stuff we grow on farms has become bland, we've developed this flavor technology, which essentially replaces the exact chemicals we're losing with, you know, chemicals that come out of a factory. This is what we put on things like potato chips. We put them into soft drinks. And what we've done basically is taken wholesome food and made it bland and taken junk food and made it irresistible. And this explains so much about why so many people are eating too much of the wrong food and not enough of the right food. It comes down to flavor, the pleasure we take in eating. Well, so often in discussions about why people are so heavy, we hear things like, well, it's because

we're, you know, we're not moving enough, we're not exercising enough, or it's portion size, the portion sizes have gotten so big over the last 20 or 30 years, or then it's sugar. Sugar's the problem, that sugar is why people are so fat. And now you're coming along and saying, no, no, it's bland food that we're flavoring up with Dorito sauce that's screwing up everything. Yeah. So not to say any of the things aren't important, but flavor is kind of the wizard behind the curtain that's pulling all the strings. Now, you mentioned sugar, and that's a really interesting example, because we think of things like sugary drinks and it's all that sugar that's the real problem. But think about soft drinks, all those soft drinks on the shelf at the grocery store from a nutritional point of perspective,

that's just soda water and sugar. Now go home and pour yourself a glass of soda water, stir in some sugar and tell me how that tastes. Well, I've done it. It doesn't taste very good. I defy anybody to drink that with their dinner. But when you add flavorings, that is the magic that turns this sugary soda water into all those different soft drinks, Coke, Pepsi, 7-Up, Dr. Pepper. It's the flavorings that give it that distinctiveness and that magic that makes you drink it and go, ah, that tastes delicious. And so is the problem then that we have all this flavoring, the Dorito dust and the flavors in the soda that make us want to consume too much? Yes, that's precisely it. And I'll give you a great anecdote.

The original Doritos were just tortilla chips, just salted tortilla chips like the kind that we dip in salsa. And they bombed. They didn't sell. The complaint was this snack sounds Mexican, but it doesn't taste Mexican. So the next move was to imbue this with something that was very new at the time, flavor technology. The first flavored Doritos tasted like taco. We had the ability to give a corn chip this incredible dynamic flavor that made it kind of like eating a meal. It didn't taste exactly like a taco, but it had that zing. It had that meaty depth. And it turned a snack

that people didn't want to eat into a snack that people could not stop eating. That is the power of flavor technology to make humans eat. Well, when you look at potato chips, just plain old regular potato chips, there isn't a lot of flavor to them. I mean, potatoes are relatively bland. It's really a salty, crunchy experience. It isn't so much the flavor, I don't think, other than the saltiness of just a plain old potato chip, isn't it? Of a natural potato chip.

But then you think of all those flavored potato chips, and there's like just, I mean, too many to count. And those are a completely different kind of eating experience. It's just dynamic, and it's wonderful. I mean, people love it. And so the problem is that because we love it, we eat more of it, and it tends to be high in calories, and then people get fat. And it's even deeper than that.

It's because the question is, why does food have flavor to begin with? And we get the answer from animals. You know, animals don't know a thing about nutrition. They don't know what calories or protein, carbs. Yet, obviously, they must have this ability to eat what they need. Otherwise, they'd die. They'd all be extinct. Well, how do animals do it? And they do it using something called flavor feedback, which is to say their brains associate the flavor of the food they're eating with what they need.

So if, let's say, a goat or a sheep becomes deficient in a nutrient like phosphorus or a vitamin, it will seek out flavors. It will begin to crave flavors that will bring it the nutrition that it needs. So when we put these flavors in foods, we think, oh, what's the big deal? There's no calories and flavors. We're just making it taste better. But what you're doing is you're actually, you're putting this sort of sheen of nutrition onto something where it doesn't belong. So your brain thinks it's eating, you know, get back to that taco Dorito. Your brain thinks it's getting protein. It's getting more than that taco Dorito. Your brain thinks it's getting protein. It's getting more than just a corn chip.

But what does it get in the stomach? It just gets fat, salt, and carbs. So it's really quite devious. It's not just a simple indulgence. We're actually really messing with how our eating program works. So why wasn't this ever a problem before in the sense that, you know, I mean, if I look back and think of some of the best food and the best meals I ate, it wasn't junk. It was, you know, grandma's apple pie. And, you know, if I could, I'd eat half the pie.

But I didn't. That's right. And that's because real food is satiating in a way that junk food just isn't. It has so much more going on. You know, it's really interesting. We talk a lot about chemicals and we think, oh, there's too many chemicals in junk food. But the truth is, it's real food that has all these chemicals. If you look at something like a strawberry, there's thousands of chemicals in them. Junk food is actually really simple. So it has this sort of simple flavor that's enticing, but in truth,

it doesn't come close to what nature can achieve. But the problem is we've denuded the food that we grow of its actual flavor that it's just not really fun anymore. That's why we're searching for things like heirloom chickens and heirloom tomatoes, because we want to get that flavor back. You know, it's really interesting. If you look at the recipes for chicken over time, 80 years ago, when we roasted a chicken, it was just salt and pepper because chicken had this inherent goodness to it. Well, now you've got to brine it. You've got to put a rub on it. You've got to blitz it in something when it's done. We have to work so hard to make the food that we grow taste good because it's just all kind of becoming like wet cardboard. Really? I mean, chickens really taste that different than they did 80 years ago.

Oh, I mean, I've done it. I've bought, I've made what I would call classic fried chicken. You make this from a fryer chicken, which is about a 12-week-old chicken, which was a young chicken in the 1940s and is twice as old as a chicken as today and much smaller but which is all to say it has this incredible chickeny flavor you take one bite and you just light up and it it's impossible to describe until you've experienced it but you know we say chicken doesn't have flavor chicken does have flavor or it used to it just doesn't anymore well so what do we do about this i mean if if the food that we buy at the store is bland, it's bland. I mean, it is what it is. So now what? Yeah, it seems hopeless, doesn't it? But I don't think

it is because I think there's lots of signs that our palate, though it can go in the wrong direction, it can also go in the right direction. If you think of something like the craft beer movement, whether you like it or don't like it, what's really interesting is that if you've gotten a time machine, went to the late 80s and told a bunch of beer executives that, you know, off in the future, there'll be all these people spending lots of money on these beers that have, you know, IPAs with hops and they've got coffee in them or these lagers made to these German recipes, they say, not a chance. Everybody just drinks basically the same beer, but with a different label. But we are now motivated and we spend money to drink beer that really has a distinctive

flavor where the craft of making it and who made it is important to us. So I think this can happen again. There's lots of promising science. There's a scientist at the University of Florida who has been studying tomatoes essentially his whole life, and he's found the genes that produce flavor in tomatoes. Now, one thing that's interesting is they're all connected to the nutrition of a tomato. But the other thing is we can now undo the damage. We can breed tomatoes, we can grow tomatoes, that you get a big crop, it's disease-resistant, it's got all these traits

that we need for it to survive in the marketplace of today, but they also taste delicious. So we can get the flavor back in there. We just have to care about it. We have to spend money on it. We have to tell the producers, hey, we want our food to taste good. We're talking about the bland, flavorless food you're probably eating and the ramifications of eating it. We're talking with Mark Schatzker. He's author of the book, The Dorito Effect. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about

a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show.

Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes.

Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Mark, it also seems worth adding to the mix in this conversation is the fact that people don't eat at home anymore. We're not eating home cooking, which traditionally has been more healthy than eating, you know, fast food, deep fried junk.

And so by not eating dinner around the dinner table and instead eating out or getting takeout, that's certainly got to be contributing to the problem, no matter how flavorful the food is. Well, and here's the other thing is a lot of the time, you know, we talk about fast food restaurants, a lot of these sit down restaurants that we think are restaurants are not. Their food is pre-made in factories, and it's just reheated. They call it re-thermalizing. So, you know, the waiter or waitress will say, I'll get your food from the kitchen. It's not a kitchen. They're not preparing food. They don't have raw ingredients that they're chopping and cooking and making sauces.

And when you look at their ingredient lists, when they publish these things, you see all the same stuff that you find in potato chips and soft drinks, which is to say, flavorings. They might call it artificial flavorings, they might call it natural flavorings, but it's the same thing. They're putting stuff in food that gives it the simulation of deliciousness, but it's not real food, at least not for me. But it also seems as if there are some restaurants, some foods that people do crave. I mean, here in California, the line at In-N-Out Burger every day is huge because people are like devotees of that. Those burgers do something, but they're not particularly low in calories, nor are they particularly small. Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting point. And I think, you know, one of the reasons we're

eating so much food is that when we confuse our brains, when we cross wires and start to confuse, you know, the brain thinks, I thought I was eating blueberries, but what I got was this sugar water. I think one of the ways we compensate is by eating more. We're kind of in a confused state. And we've all had that experience. We're kind of in a confused state. And we've all had that experience where you're hungry, you start to eat while you're eating, you know, you're stuffing your mouth. And then afterwards, you feel regret, you think, why did I do that? I feel awful. I ate too much food. And I think it's because we've kind of become disconnected from what the eating experience should be. Well, I think too, part of the eating experience is also

cooking it. And if everybody's eating out and just grabbing a bag full of goo instead of, you know, learning about food and what it does and how it works. I mean, I think that's, that's part of the equation. It may not be the big part, but I totally agree with you. And I think we get back into this problem that when you're using bland ingredients, like when your tomatoes and your chicken and your carrots all don't have flavor, you cook according to the recipe. It might be like from a famous French chef or something, and you're disappointed. And you think, oh, I'm a terrible chef. But when you cook with better ingredients, if you go to a farmer's market or something, they get really good ingredients. Cooking's easy. I mean, you just need three good ingredients in a pot and you'll be amazed at how good it tastes.

So since you mentioned farmer's markets, what's your sense of the things that are available at a farmer's market versus the same thing at the grocery store where it's just a world of difference? I think tomatoes are a big one i think you know i'm a meat eater um i think if you can get pastured pork or pastured chicken it's just unbelievable the difference in flavor i like to make my own sausages there's an italian recipe i love that's got fennel seeds in it and when i make this recipe with pastured pork which is you know pigs raised the way they're supposed to be outdoors burrowrowing, eating this and that, the flavor will just blow you away. And when I make this with the cheap, cheap pork that I buy at the supermarket, you just bite into it and you're just kind of like, it's just missing

something. It just doesn't have it. What about more traditional old-fashioned butcher shops, or even the stores that seemingly are more natural and and you know like whole foods and sprouts and those kind of stores would those be better bets to buy the kind of food you're talking about i think sometimes but as far as this being kind of a cure-all no it's not that simple you really need to ask questions now you can go to some of these places and you know for example for beef they might have a really good imported grass-fed beef. For example, that might be great. But just because you bought it there doesn't mean it's better. There's some of these local butcher shops that try really hard to forge relationships

with local farmers. They do a great job. And some of them just put on this kind of old-timey act and put on the old apron and the funny hat, and they're just selling commodity stuff. So unfortunately, you kind of have to be a scholar just to get good food. You have to be like a intrepid reporter and, you know, get to the bottom of what you're eating. I wish it wasn't this way. I think it will change. But, you know, you got to work hard. Well, I mean, it's kind of good news, but it's kind of bad news because there is no easy way

to fix this because we've been gone down this road, it seems, for so long. It's hard to imagine a U-turn here. That's right. And you know something, I think the turn will happen, but I think it's like a U-turn for an aircraft carrier. It takes a long time. And, you know, we see promise with things like farmer's markets, like craft beer, American cheese has gotten a lot more interesting and gotten better. We see things like grass-fed beef and so forth, but it's all incremental. Things are much better now than they were 15 years ago, but we've got a long way to go. Right. Well, I mean, but the fast food problem hasn't gone anywhere,

and the obesity problem hasn't gone anywhere. It's gotten worse. It keeps getting worse. I mean, it's the worst problem we face. You know, we're making progress with cancer and heart disease. Obesity is getting worse. The harder we fight it, the worse it gets. And it does seem that, well, I mean, it seems like there are so many prongs to the problem that you can't just point and say, if everybody just did this, the problem would go

away. It just seems there's so many pieces to this puzzle that it's almost impossible to put it together. So, you know, I think you're right. This is a really complex puzzle, but what's fueling it all is the choices that we make. Every time we buy something, we're giving an incentive to industry to do this or to do that. If we think of flavor being really important, but flavor made by nature, if that's how we spend our dollars, every time we do that, we're giving the system a little signal that this is what I want. I don't know what the right metaphor is, whether the cat is already out of the bag or it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle or whatever the metaphor is most appropriate. But we already have Doritos and we already have all these really tasty fake foods that people love. It's hard to imagine people would give that up. They do. And these are hard habits to break. The only thing I can say is when you do have these experiences of really good food, if you have incredible wild blueberries or a really good tomato, that's addictive in its own way too. That keeps you

coming back. So I think that's the only way you can fight the power of fake flavor is with even better real flavor. It is interesting that we humans who are supposedly the smartest creatures on the planet, this problem of lots of us being overweight, this problem doesn't seem to affect other animals who are supposedly not as smart as us, but they've got it figured out. Well, I think, you know, the part of this research that so interested me was this amazing ability that animals have to seek out the nutrients they need. And the big question I had

is, are humans the same? And of course, we don't think that now. We think, well, what are we doing? We're eating all this terrible food. We can't control what we eat. But if you look historically, there's some really interesting stuff. I found a chaplain's record of a voyage. It was a ship called the Centurion. And they were lost at sea in the Pacific Ocean. They had scurvy, which is a vitamin C deficiency. And back then, the scientists had no idea what caused scurvy. They thought it was like fog and all sorts of wacky ideas. But the sailors knew that one of the first signs of scurvy was a craving for fruits and vegetables.

They would sit there, and they would dream of eating fruits and vegetables, and they would wake up in tears. And finally, this ship with this horribly sick crew washed up on this island called Juan Fernandez in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and they scampered on shore and they started eating like wild turnips and moss and they said how delicious it tastes. Now imagine that, wild turnips and moss. And this tells you that our palates are intelligent. And that's what we messed up with flavor technology.

We got this really intelligent part of our brains confused. Well, it is interesting to think, and it certainly makes a lot of sense the way you've described it, how part of this problem is the quality of our food, the flavor of our food. And if we had more flavorful food like we used to, at least part of the problem might go away. Mark Schatzker has been my guest. He is a writer and author. His book is called The Dorito Effect. And you'll find a link to his book in the show notes. Thank you, Mark.

Well, it's been a pleasure chatting. Thanks so much for having me. Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice.

Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong? And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle.

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You and I and everyone else has had awkward moments where we've said something or done something other people have noticed and we feel awkward. Then there are people who seem to be socially awkward much of the time when they're in the company of other people. I think part of the definition of the term nerd includes social awkwardness. So how should we handle our own awkwardness, and how should we handle other people's awkwardness, given that all of us are awkward some of the time? Joining me with some insight into awkwardness is Ty Tashiro. Ty is a relationship expert who received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Minnesota. He's been an award-winning professor at the

University of Maryland and the University of Colorado, and he is author of the book Awkward, the science of why we're socially awkward and why that's awesome. Hi, Ty, welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. So let's start with a definition. What is awkwardness? What does it mean to be awkward? Everyone has awkward moments. And that's one way to think about defining awkwardness is what happens when you have an awkward moment. Well, those are just small deviations from minor social expectations. So not having spinach between your two front teeth, that's a pretty minor social expectation when you put it in context. But when that happens, when you make that mistake, it sure causes a lot of

embarrassment and a lot of discomfort. It just shows you how attuned the human brain is to maintaining smooth social interactions and social harmony. Now, you can also define awkwardness as someone who's an awkward person. And awkward people not only have more awkward moments than the average person, but we know from psychological studies, they actually see the world and think about the social world differently than people who aren't awkward. And so some of those differences in how they see the world makes it difficult for them to process social information in an efficient and smooth manner. And so do we have a sense of how many people consider themselves to be awkward? That's actually interesting

because around 40% of people consider themselves to be like a chronically awkward person, which is probably a little bit high. So if listeners are thinking, maybe I'm awkward, it might be the case, but it's really only about 10 to 15% of people would qualify as actually chronically socially awkward. But it says something about our society and about our social life that so many people feel like their social interactions are consistently awkward. Why do you suppose that is? Why would we feel so not in step with everybody else when, at least according to you, that that's just not true, that we're just hard

on ourselves or we're just too self-critical or what? I think that's part of it, Mike. You know, I think we are, we have gotten really hard on ourselves. We've gotten really perfectionistic, not only about our social lives, but our work lives and a whole host of other things. There's also the issue that social life and society is changing at a really rapid rate these days. So if you just take social media, for example, by itself, that's actually a whole set of new social expectations to get used to as far as how you present yourself on, let's say, Twitter versus Instagram versus TikTok, how you receive other people's information and interact with that, whether you like it or comment on it. And so there's all these different things now because of technology,

because we're more urban, far more urban than we used to be. We have to adapt to new social expectations all the time. And then that just makes it easier for us to not know completely what to do or to trip up on what might be expected. Do you think awkward people think their awkwardness makes them less than or just different than? Well, yeah. So for kids and teenagers and even young adults, their social awkwardness is associated with, you know, feeling worse about themselves, a lower self-concept, more depression, more anxiety. And it's understandable because we all need to fit in. We all need to feel like we belong. And if one of the things in life that's kind of tricky for you are the set of skills needed to make that happen, yeah, it can be

pretty tough. And I think for kids, one of the things that gets me is when I hear high school students or junior high students who come up to me and talk about just how tough it is for them internally, but then also they can get bullied or made fun of or whatever else. It's kind of the last thing you need when you're 12, 15 years old, trying to figure out how to navigate the world. And here you're a bit socially awkward. That just makes things tougher. The good news is that as people get older, you can learn the social skills you need to learn. We also get, of course, more centered in ourselves. And as that natural maturation process happens, then you find that

awkward people settle in really nicely. Well, do you distinguish between socially awkward, physically awkward? Is it all the same thing? Is there different kinds of flavors of awkward? Yeah, that's one of the interesting aspects of awkwardness is it can manifest in so many different ways. If we all think back to junior high, it seems like all of the forces of awkwardness manifest at once, for better or for worse. You're kind of gangly and physically clumsy and things are growing at erratic rates. Your social skills can be uneven. Sometimes you're popular. Next day, maybe not. One of the things they found in research is that these things are kind of loosely correlated or loosely associated with each other. So, for example, physical clumsiness is kind of associated with some of the socially awkward things like communication skills or social skill deficits.

It's not guaranteed, but they do tend to kind of cluster together. That stereotypical junior high awkwardness, though, I think almost everybody feels it to some extent or another. And in most cases, it would appear that it goes away, that it's that time of life, and then it disappears for many, but not all. Is that usually where it starts? Yeah, so you're right about that. So I've never met a person, actually, who says that junior high went really smoothly for them. Everyone I've run into will say, yeah, I was super awkward when I was in junior high. And there's a few reasons for that. One is that we gain a lot more abstract thinking capability. So we can think about our social relationships in terms of popularity and reputation and all these kind of abstract things that go with social life that previously we didn't think as much about.

And of course, that's very confusing to think about. How much should I meet other people's expectations? How much should I go my own way and be very independent? Whether that's with how you play with one another, the kinds of interests you have, or even the kind of styles you wear. That's one of the reasons why I think in junior high, so many of us struggle with those kinds of things. Now, people who will go on to be awkward in young adulthood and adulthood, they're actually further behind the curve in junior high. So they have these studies where they'll compare people on things like eye contact or how well they understand other people's emotions. And people who are going to grow up

to be awkward are actually a little bit below average on all of those different kinds of things. And so it just continues to be a problem as they get older. Do most people who consider themselves awkward, are they seen as awkward by other people? Or is this more of a self-critical thing? In social psychology, we would call this self-observer agreement. i rate myself let's say as awkward at like a nine out of ten the question is would other people who know me teachers friends classmates would they agree with my rating and what they find in those studies is that yes there tends to be pretty good agreement between how awkward people

think about themselves and how other people see them. Now, that can be alarming for someone who feels socially awkward. But, you know, one of the things that I like to tell people is being awkward is not the worst thing. It's a little inconvenient, I think, until you figure things out. But to be someone who's mean, to be someone who's inconsiderate or unfair, those are the kinds of things interpersonally that are real problems, not just in how you relate to somebody else, but other people. those are the kinds of things that they'll definitely reject you for. And they'll definitely say, this is not the kind of person I want to be around. People are surprisingly patient with social awkwardness once they get to know somebody. So when people self-identify as awkward, why are they awkward?

In other words, if you asked awkward people to complete this sentence, I feel awkward because I do what? What are the top answers to that? One is social skills. So they have a harder time picking up on the social signals other people are trying to send. And then they have a hard time executing the appropriate social skill in a situation. So take personal space, for example. In the United States, the typical amount of personal space is about 18 inches between people. Awkward people might stand a little bit too far away. And it's funny, if someone's standing 24 inches away, it's actually perceptible,

and you feel like the person is oddly distant from you. They could be a space invader and be a close talker. And that's, of course, uncomfortable and awkward in its own way. And so that'd be an example of a social skill where it's a kind of a small thing, but it can actually make the interaction uncomfortable. The second category is communication problems. So awkward people have a hard time picking up on the kind of underlying meaning that we send in conversation. So sometimes just out of diplomacy, for example, we'll beat around the bush and not really get to the point. If you're not awkward, you get the underlying message someone's trying to send you in those situations. But awkward people have a hard time picking up on that. And then conversely, they sometimes have a hard time clearly communicating to other people how they're

feeling or what it is that they want. And one of the things they found in laboratory studies is awkward people have a hard time picking up on prosody. And prosody is the sing-song nature of speech, the up and down inflections that convey whether we're curious or angry or being declarative. They seem to miss that cue. And of course, then that makes it hard for them to communicate. The third thing you find is they have obsessive interests. And of course, then that makes it hard for them to communicate. The third thing you find is they have obsessive interests. And so when awkward people like something, they really love it. And I think that's actually a good quality. But they tend to gravitate towards sometimes esoteric interests. So the old stereotype of like the Star Trek nerd or the Star Wars nerd, that's actually a little bit true. So they really, really get into something,

sometimes to their own social detriment. And why do they do this? Or why do they lack the ability to know what personal space? Is it just a lack of maybe people? Well, this is another question. Does awkwardness run in families? If you have an awkward parent, are you more likely to be awkward because you never learned how not to be? That's right. You get it in two ways, actually. For boys, awkwardness shows heritability, so a genetic component. It's about 53% genetic. For girls, it's about 39%. Now, if you're raised by your biological parents, let's say one of them is awkward, or both of them are awkward. Now you have this disposition to be socially awkward. And then the modeling you're getting for social skills in the house is maybe a little bit off or, quite what you get with non-awkward parents.

And so the kids kind of get it in two different ways. And the genetic component manifests in a lot of different ways. But one of the things you see with awkward kids at a very early age and continues on into adulthood is they have a very sharp focus. So I call it a spotlighted focus. And so most people see social life, if you can imagine a stage at a theater, for example, most people see that stage fully lit. And so they can see everything that happens socially and get social context. Awkward people tend to see their social stages spotlighted. And so whatever they're focusing on, they focus on with great intensity. But it also means they're sacrificing the bigger picture. And that's not really a choice they're making.

It's just how their brains are wired. I'm sure there's no single answer to this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. When awkward people are lying in bed at night thinking about awkwardness, do they feel bad about it? Does it hurt to be awkward or not? Or is being awkward, that's all they know, and they're fine with it? Well, yeah, when you're younger, you kind of want the same things most people want, right? So to be the homecoming king or queen or captain of the team or whatever else. And certainly sometimes just to not be clumsy socially would be good enough for some awkward kids. But, you know, I think one of the things that typically happens is once the awkward student leaves high school and gets into a more specialized situation, whether that's a vocation or university or whatever, they are more likely to find their

people. So to find people who share their passionate interest for whatever it is that they love, to be a little more patient with some of the social skill problems that they might have. And so once people get into that, they find the other folks who love science or love math. I don't know if you've watched The Queen's Gambit, maybe love chess. Once they find their group, then they tend to really thrive. Well, I want to go back to what you said at the beginning that you said 40% of people would say they're awkward. And yet, by your definition, it's much less than that. Why are, if so many people self-identify as being awkward, doesn't that make them awkward?

I mean, if they feel that way, then they are. Yeah, I wrestled with this quite a bit, actually, Mike, when I was parsing out the research. And as you make categories in social science, you want to be really careful because if you get it wrong and that can have an impact on how people see themselves or how people decide to deal with things. So one of the criteria that I used was to think about accuracy. And so in a social situation, for example, if the task in a study is to decipher what someone else is feeling. And so I have these studies where you're talking to somebody else. They'll ask you at some point to write down what it is you think the other person is feeling.

And then the conversation partner will write down what they're actually feeling at that moment. Now, people who are in that 10 to 15% who are awkward, they'll get that wrong a lot more often than people who aren't socially awkward. And so sometimes someone can feel like they're awkward. But if you look at how they're navigating the social world, as far as picking up on social cues, inferring what other people are thinking or feeling, and then acting appropriately, they're doing okay in all those regards. For whatever reason, they just feel uncomfortable as they're going through social life. So when I say someone's awkward, it's they feel that way, but they're also objectively struggling with the tasks of everyday social life.

Having studied this as you have, do you have any recommendations for people who are not awkward when you encounter, when you're having a conversation, and you can clearly see that the person you're talking to is struggling somewhat, they're not comfortable, they are, by your definition, awkward. Is there some way to put them at ease or make this easier for them and make it a better interaction? Yeah, I appreciate the question because there's definitely things that folks can do. And one thing that might not seem totally obvious is if you're interacting with someone else who's awkward, that will probably make you a little bit anxious because as they're stumbling around and so forth,

your anxiety is going to increase. One of the things folks can do is to recognize that they're getting ramped up talking to this awkward person and to just kind of slow themselves down, maybe be a bit mindful or meditative about it and take a deep breath and just think about slowing the interaction down. There's two reasons for that. One of the problems the awkward person is having is that they're feeling anxious in the situation. If you get anxious as well, that's just going to ramp up their anxiety and it's going to be a lot harder. The second thing is, is if you slow it down, that's really advantageous for the awkward person because now the conversation and the exchange is happening at a pace that they can process the information more thoroughly.

And they can also be a little more thoughtful about how they're going to respond and how they can get through the interaction in a way that's interesting for the both of you. One thing I'll also say is that if you just give the person five or ten minutes to settle in to the interaction oddly enough awkward people often struggle the most during the early part of an interaction when you're exchanging those little social niceties or small talk and once you get into the groove of a conversation and find out the things that they're interested in and they and find out the things that they're interested in, and they can find out the things that you're interested in that are more meaningful, oftentimes you'll find that

it's a really great interaction and that they're really passionate and interested about certain things. And if they've practiced their good social skills, they will also take a great interest in the kinds of things you're interested in. And it'll end up being a really good interaction. Well, I think this is not only really interesting, but it's also important because we have all felt awkward in a situation or we've been with someone else who is clearly awkward. And, you know, some of us are more awkward than others. But awkwardness is so universal, and it's interesting to get some understanding about it. My guest has been Tai Tashiro. He's author of the book, Awkward, the Science of Why We're Socially Awkward and Why That's Awesome.

And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Tai. Hey, thanks so much. I appreciate it. You're not supposed to let little things bother you, but little things probably do bother you. They bother me. And a survey a few years ago showed that little things bother a lot of people. 1,125 people were asked to score their gripes on a 1 to 10 scale. Here are the top annoyances and their average scores. At the top, hidden fees got an 8.9.

Not being able to get a human on the phone, 8.6. Tailgating, 8.3. Cell phone use by other drivers, an 8.0. Incomprehensible bills, a 7.8. Dog droppings, 7.6. That probably goes up a little bit if it's on the bottom of your shoe.

And unreliable internet service, 7.6. And that is something you should know. If you hear a commercial for an advertiser in this podcast and you'd like to find out more and see their website and all, you will find links and promo codes, everything you need in the show notes. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group.

Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family.

But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural.

It had a pretty good run. 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic

brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes, so please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.