65. Doing Things Together Bonds People Together

What do they have in common?

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• Caption: Fans cheering at a game
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• Caption: People at church

Slide 2

• They are engaging in Synchronous Activity!

People who engage in Synchronous activities...

• Are more...
• Cooperative in completing subsequent tasks
• Willing to make personal sacrifices to benefit a group

Synchronous Activities...

• Are actions you take with others, where everyone is doing the same thing at the same time in physical proximity to one another.

Wiltermuth and Heath's Research (2009)

• Showed that:
• You don't have to feel good about a group or activity in order to be more cooperative.
• Just the act of doing the synchronous activity seems to strengthen social attachment among group members.
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Do people need it to be happy?

• There is a certain type of happiness that humans canNOT get any other way other than engaging in synchronous activity.

Online Interactions are not Synchronous

• They fulfill other social needs, not the desire and pleasure from synchronous activity.
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Look for opportunities as a designer to...

• Build synchronous activity into your product using:
• Live video streaming
• Audio connection
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