In todays episode I’m chatting to Tessa and Bre who, discuss their research at the University of California Santa Cruz, on body doubling, how folk – especially those with ADHD, use it as a tool for productivity and social interaction. Our conversation looks at the benefits of body doubling, its community-driven nature, different types of body doubling and of course cyber, the role of technology in facilitating these interactions.

Leya Breanna Baltaxe-Admony is a technologist and researcher focused on advancing assistive and healthcare technologies. She has a multidisciplinary background in robotics engineering and human-centered design approaches. She recently graduated with a PhD in computational media from the University of California Santa Cruz, where her dissertation explored equitable engineering and design methods for collaborative development with disabled communities.

You can find Bre on the internet @leyabreanna

Tessa Eagle is a researcher specializing in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and neurodivergent communities. Her research draws from Critical Disability Studies to study online support systems for neurodivergent individuals and push back on neuronormative technology research and healthcare practices. Her expertise lies in driving user-centered design by deeply understanding and engaging with the needs of diverse communities.

Sure, thanks.

2

So thanks for having me.

3

I'm Tessa Eagle.

4

I just finished up my PhD at UC Santa Cruz.

5

Our department is called Computational Media, but it's really human computer interaction.

6

So kind of looking at, you know, how are people interacting with technology?

7

How are technologies shaping social interactions?

8

And so I came in really interested in digital mental health, and then I kind of got into,

you know, the ADHD and neurodivergent spaces.

9

I met Bre.

10

and another two other classmates that were looking into lo-fi as a means of getting work

done.

11

And we started talking about body doubling and spending time in these spaces.

12

It's just something that you kind of naturally learn about.

13

And we realized, you know, we've been doing this and someone's going to be studying it.

14

So maybe we should do it in a kind of careful way.

15

so my name is Lea Brienne Baltaxe- Admony, but I go by Bre.

16

I'm a technologist, coming at it more from a technology angle.

17

And I graduated and finished my PhD in ethical engineering methods.

18

one of my favorite things coming into a PhD program is just getting to talk to so many

people and develop ideas.

19

So like one of these idea offshoots was the whole lo-fi

20

study girl area.

21

and that drew me into the body doubling space.

22

You've both mentioned lo-fi.

23

Could you explain to me what that actually means?

24

Yeah, so have you seen the Lo-Fi study with me videos online?

25

There's one in particular is from a channel where it's just an animated loop of a girl

writing on a page and calming music in the background.

26

And we saw that people were really interested in this and like had this running.

27

a lot in 2014 and we were interested in why people were using it.

28

And we developed this idea people are forming parasocial relationships with this 10 second

animated clip, which is really interesting.

29

And why does having another presence help you get things done?

30

and then Tessa was interested in body doubling.

31

Lo-Fi is really interesting because it's a style of music.

32

So you could listen to it on Spotify, but really YouTube is a place that people go to see

it.

33

And Lo-Fi Girl is always live.

34

there's this constant chat feed.

35

And so you can see, other people are typing and talking studying

36

And there's all these different channels now.

37

Like it started with just the one and now it's like, that you could think of to have a

lo-fi activity doing, there is.

38

I've not actually seen those videos, but I'm totally going to go and Google on YouTube I

can see the attraction of it, And certainly working in the entrepreneurial space, you can,

39

you know, often be working by yourself in a room for long periods of time.

40

What kind of definition did your participants come up with around body doubling then?

41

the definition that was generated by the community is having someone in the room or on a

video call or chat in order to accomplish a task or be productive.

42

So the second person may be doing a different task or a similar one.

43

And it's a form of accountability that helps you stay on task.

44

people use it differently and there's, you know, different ways of engaging in body

doubling that I'm sure we'll talk about, but it seems like people are most often, you

45

know, using this to complete household chores, like dishes, laundry, cleaning, things that

you don't want to do, like schoolwork, studying, work, reading, writing, self care, really

46

just things that

47

And one of the things that really piqued my interest is the fact that you'd talked about

this being a community-driven phenomenon, body doubling.

48

And so often in psychological spaces, for example, we will research or observe

participants, we will come up with theories and then we will think of interventions and

49

deliver those interventions back to a community.

50

But this is the community saying to us, hey, this works for us and this is what we do.

51

Do you want to come and have a look?

52

And how did you get involved with that?

53

is it something that you just kind of became aware of?

54

Yeah, I think that's totally true.

55

in our field as well, we kind of look to subjects to generate knowledge, not as like

having the knowledge themselves.

56

And we both identify as neurodivergent.

57

So we're already a part of those communities.

58

And we are just trying to do the best research that we can.

59

how do we want to properly engage with communities and uplift them as knowers and makers?

60

And yeah, so it comes along with our own ethos, our own position

61

our PhD and our advisor is coming from a disability studies perspective, which has been a

really interesting journey to go on.

62

I discovered I was neurodivergent in grad school and everything started to click and make

sense.

63

And, you know, I think we mentioned we didn't have we didn't come up with body doubling.

64

Like we both use it and see it as something that people are using a lot.

65

My research was looking at online communities for ADHD, so it just felt kind of like a

natural progression and a good marrying of, you know, Bree's and Kevin and Lee's work with

66

Lo-Fi.

67

And we kind of grappled with this a lot of, you know, should we even be doing this in

academia?

68

Like the community doesn't need us to legitimize them and their practices, but people are,

already developing technology.

69

and platforms around this phenomenon and someone was gonna research it.

70

So not that we're automatically qualified to be the ones to do it just because we're

neurodivergent, but I think our lab has really emphasized the importance of care in the

71

research process and reflexivity and giving back to the community and really prioritizing

them.

72

So we really wanted this work to be, know, forefronting the community.

73

I think that really shines through.

74

One of the things that I was kind of thinking when I was considering the types of

questions I wanted to ask you is, given that you've spoken to lots of people and your own

75

interest in this area, what are the main benefits that you think folk find in body

doubling?

76

So that's actually one of the questions that we asked.

77

We asked, why do you do this and why do you think it helps separately?

78

you mentioned in the beginning, you have worked with people who use it as a form of

accountability.

79

We think accountability is part of it, but it's not all of it because you can do

accountability in many ways.

80

We talked to people who said that they felt being perceived was part of it.

81

So my favorite quote is someone had said that they have to cos- play as a productive

person.

82

Body doubling kind of forces them to

83

to go through the motions of, my hands are on the keyboard if I'm supposed to be writing

or my, you know, I'm at least walking around, I'm in the right area.

84

So accountability plus, you know, getting the basics of starting.

85

I think there's a social component of it.

86

You don't have to be doing this with someone you know, but it could help if you're doing a

monotonous task that you have someone who you can talk to as you're doing it.

87

So I think there's a lot of different factors happening.

88

quite interesting isn't it, that whole cosplay type of thing because when I researched

imposter phenomenon there was something around enclothed cognition and when we wear

89

clothes that make us feel more confident etc.

90

So this is kind of subverting that a little bit and saying I don't need to put clothes on

but actually if I get myself into a space where I perceive myself to be that type of

91

person actually it's not even about a uniform, it's about the sense.

92

How intriguing.

93

Yeah, and I think also like in ADHD realm, getting yourself to do a task, like I just have

to go stand next to the dishwasher or like, you know, go to the general area.

94

So I think that initiation is a thing that I personally really struggle with and that, you

know, having someone watch you do the thing, even if they're not actually watching you do

95

the thing, it helps me.

96

One of the first tips I found when I started interacting with the ADHD community was, you

know, leave your shoes on if you want to be productive, like, or put your shoes on if

97

you're home.

98

Like, you know, you get home, you take your shoes off, you get into kind of relax mode.

99

And so I thought that was very funny and that, you know, spending more time in the space,

I started to learn about, you know, analysis paralysis is a common term in this space of

100

this loop of kind of avoidance and, you know, not wanting to

101

engage in a task and so you just get very stuck.

102

And so, you know, one of the benefits I think can also be reducing the overwhelm about a

task.

103

Like, Bre and I talked a lot when we were doing this about the stages of doing a task.

104

Like, there are so many, it's not just, you know, okay, I'll just go do this, which is how

most people think of a task.

105

But really, you know, there's getting ready to start a task, starting the task, staying on

task, completing the task.

106

There's a lot of

107

hurdles for neurodivergent minds.

108

And, you know, it's interesting because the people that we surveyed, it's not just ADHD.

109

So mostly people responded and identified with ADHD.

110

But we had a lot of other like forms of neurodivergence present, which is, I think,

something that's kind of interesting and unique about body doubling.

111

when you talk about the stages of doing something, my early career I used to do a lot of

training and one of the training exercises we used to do in a train the trainer setting

112

was to say to somebody write some instructions for making a cup of tea and you'd think

it'd be quite simple you could do it in six steps or less and we actually used to have

113

competitions because there's about 30 steps in making a cup of tea when you start to

114

think about it and then you get the analysis paralysis of going how much detail am I

supposed to be going to here

115

I think there's a lot of our lives and everyday stuff that we just take for granted and

that thing around shoes, it's so obvious isn't it when you think about it

116

include the stage of making a cup of tea, which is forgetting about it, putting it in the

microwave to warm it up, and then forgetting about it again.

117

Because that's me every day.

118

putting

119

I like the idea of, in your description of body doubling, as a tool to get unstuck and

generate momentum Your research points to the challenges of language around productivity

120

So productivity is such a loaded concept that I feel like we love talking about,

especially in academia where, you know, that is your worth, right?

121

Like your productivity, your output, your papers, your grants.

122

Something we talk about a lot in our lab and, you know, in disability studies is that we

exist in a world that isn't built for us, for neurodivergent and disabled people.

123

Like our social norms are very much built for neurotypical people.

124

And this doesn't work with our different ways of thinking and being and our need for

flexibility.

125

So this can lead to not meeting traditional success metrics like good grades and

promotions.

126

So we always are thinking a lot about productivity and kind of trying to push back on

norms and timelines.

127

But it's really interesting talking about it more broadly.

128

Like I always say, and you know, this is kind of a hot topic post like girl boss era and

you know, side hustle era.

129

But you know, Devin Price has a really great book called Laziness Does Not Exist.

130

And it talks about, we don't have to be productive to justify our right to exist.

131

Like here in the US, health insurance is tied to your employment typically.

132

So it's like, if you're not employed, you're not worthy of health insurance.

133

And so we're kind of pushing ourselves, but you're meeting this kind of brick wall of like

the society that isn't built for you.

134

Like we always feel like we're not doing enough.

135

And this concept is very much shaped here by, you know, puritanical principles and, know,

a capitalist society where we're only valued for our labor.

136

And so I think this is a big topic in

137

know, disability spaces.

138

It's definitely reinforced, right?

139

Like you hear like, you're just lazy or like, can't you just get a planner or, you know,

just try harder.

140

So I think like hearing that again and again and again messes up all of our relationships

with productivity,

141

I also wanted to highlight, body doubling doesn't need to be just used for productivity

purposes.

142

We had a lot of people say, really love gaming in the same space as someone who's doing

crafts, right?

143

I really love doing this for self-care.

144

It helps me get to sleep on time and get good sleep if I am coordinating with someone or

it helps me brush my teeth.

145

Mm-hmm.

146

So maybe some of that momentum is also around motivation.

147

But I think we have to do a little bit more research into this to figure out why it really

works.

148

I think the thing that I like around body doubling and the way that it's kind of exposing

some of those narratives around productivity I mean, you alluded to obviously that

149

capitalist and neoliberal sensibility of women having it all and, you know, there's that

kind of ethos that...

150

if you work hard then you get results and actually some people work harder than others to

get the same results because it takes them twice as long to get started, get going and

151

stay motivated and stay on track.

152

there's some real privilege isn't there in the way that the world of work is set up

153

you have to keep pushing and pushing and advancing.

154

But, know, especially like autistic burnout is a phrase that gets discussed a lot in these

spaces, but it's just exhausting.

155

does that work then?

156

So I think with my experiences of body doubling, I've used body doubling in an academic

setting around PhD writing.

157

It's used quite a lot to bring people together, like-minded people into one space.

158

Writing days, writing is quite difficult to do, isn't it?

159

Because you just kind of sat there with a blank piece of paper, usually, some results that

you've got to make into 10,000 words.

160

But also, I've

161

I see body doubling happening more often than not in virtual spaces and that's where my

research has mostly sat.

162

I've often wondered how, especially if we think about autism and sensory overload and that

kind of thing, is how helpful is body doubling in that kind of space?

163

Because it feels a little bit counterproductive or counterintuitive perhaps that you've

got something that could be quite sensory.

164

How is that helping?

165

the interplay between masking, getting overstimulated on all this stuff is definitely

something to look into.

166

I would say that like,

167

People who deal with these things know themselves the best so they can choose the type of

thing that works the best for them.

168

You know, being in a coffee shop surrounded by a bunch of noise and people might be

overwhelming, but then like having your own environment and having just a computer screen

169

with a lo-fi study channel, there's like not a lot of human engagement, but you're still

getting that body doubling.

170

We definitely saw that people had different preferences, not only for, you know, in

general, I like this, but also for this kind of task, I like this kind of body doubling

171

for this kind of task, I this kind of body doubling.

172

So I think it can really be person to person and they could figure out their own

preferences.

173

I

174

I'm excited to have collected all of this so that people can explore the different types

of body doubling that exist.

175

There's a lot of flexibility in it.

176

I've kept a watch out on articles and keywords around body doubling and finally yours kind

of popped up I was really excited because it's the kind of area I think there will be

177

loads of psychological research on this but there's actually very little in your paper you

talk about some related theories that could explain.

178

how body doubling works.

179

So for those listeners I've got who are very interested in that, but why, why is this

working?

180

You'd identified parallel play, mirror neurons, social facilitation and diffuse sociality.

181

So parallel play is something that we often kind of associate with.

182

child play.

183

Is that right?

184

Yeah, it's typically seen as a stage in the developmental process for children, but it's

something that has gotten more popular as a concept a lot in autistic spaces, but in adult

185

spaces in general.

186

think the concept of there's less pressure and you're just kind of in the same room as

each other.

187

think like Bre was saying, maybe I'm playing a video game and

188

my friend is crafting, but it's kind of this sense of, companionship and you don't have to

be sitting and staring at each other and talking and you're just in the the presence of

189

someone who you also enjoy.

190

Sounds a bit to me like my marriage in the evenings where one of us will be watching TV

and then I'll often get told are you online again?

191

I'm quite happily sat there not listening to the TV but doing some research around body

doubling or something else.

192

And then there was mirror neurons and I mean mirror neurons We think this is something

that

193

allows us to react to other people's emotions.

194

it's around observation, isn't it?

195

So when we observe somebody else doing something, then we think it has a mirror effect on

us as an individual.

196

by the very act of being in a body doubling space, observing someone else doing something

could help you.

197

Is that it?

198

Yeah, it's a little bit like we were talking about earlier, where just like, being near

someone that's doing something, even if they're not watching you do something, it helps

199

you to get started.

200

It helps you with all these things.

201

And so all these things are theories that we think probably play into body doubling, but

don't fully describe body doubling on their own.

202

the social social facilitation was one that I was interested in, I think from a work

perspective.

203

I think we know that some teams are high performance and work very well together and you

get competition and people facilitate each other's performance.

204

In traditional work settings you see that a lot.

205

In the entrepreneurial space, I found it quite intriguing that we've had this

206

rise in online spaces where people will virtually come together and create.

207

It's almost a bit like self-selecting your own virtual work team.

208

And I do wonder if some of that performance enhancement is playing into the success of

body doubling across different communities, not just for neurodivergence, but also just

209

for anyone who thinks, yes, this will give me bit of edge, you know, I'll get a bit more

done today.

210

I think that's why, you know, I think it's so common to go to a coffee shop or the

library, even if you're not neurodivergent, right?

211

You see other people being productive, someone in our survey mentioned it's kind of a

physical reminder of what they feel like they're supposed to be doing.

212

Or like Bre mentioned earlier, like cosplaying, being productive.

213

And I think social facilitation is interesting because

214

it's often working on the same task and it tended to be like more kind of competitive.

215

Whereas, you know, in co-working or in body doubling, know, it doesn't have to be the same

task.

216

It doesn't have to be, especially in body doubling, a work-related task.

217

I find that really interesting.

218

I was rereading a paper by Robin Dunbar and he's the psychologist who wrote the book about

friends and quality of friendships.

219

But he referenced something around synchronized tasks.

220

and how when we synchronise tasks with other people, either through singing or whatever,

it can enhance performance and also pain thresholds.

221

there's obviously quite a few psychological theories we can kind of draw from when we look

at it, but like you say, it's just kind of going, well, which bits to explore next and

222

how.

223

The final one was diffuse sociality.

224

And I think you've touched on that, but the example is going to a coffee shop.

225

And it's interesting because you want to be around people, but you either don't want to be

social, like maybe you don't feel like you have the spoons for that, or you don't want to

226

do it because you know that you won't be productive and you'll get distracted.

227

Like, I don't know if you've seen, there's a lot of memes of people at their offices and

they either put a note on their door or on their chair and it's like, please do not talk

228

to me, I am very distractible.

229

So I think that's kind of, you you're getting that social aspect while also kind of being

in your own little bubble.

230

think boundaries have changed quite a lot in the workspace.

231

Quite often I'm working in flexible spaces with different people, sat next to different

people all the time.

232

And so I think about this a lot.

233

And I think, why is it that I dislike sitting in offices less now than I used to?

234

It's not that I don't like being in an office.

235

It's perhaps that the office space has changed so much, you know.

236

you'd developed this space time and mutuality model.

237

Could you just explain what can we do with that?

238

How's that going to help us when we're thinking about body doubling?

239

Yeah, I think we saw all of these different forms of body doubling and how we were like,

okay, how do these all relate to each other?

240

sometimes you can be in person with someone, sometimes you don't have to be in person.

241

Sometimes you know the person you're working with.

242

Sometimes you really want to be in a coffee shop, not know the people that you're working

with so you don't get distracted.

243

So that's that mutuality bit, right?

244

Is do you know who you're working with?

245

And then we have this other part of a graph that we made to map all these things out,

which is space and time, right?

246

One of the things that we haven't really talked about is you can body double not at the

same time with someone.

247

So technology kind of helps us out here where there's these videos of, you know, study

with me, work with me, two hour Pomodoro blocks.

248

where someone's writing at their desk or coding at their desk and you can have that up,

but it's prerecorded.

249

so that's time aspect of it doesn't have to be happening at the same time, but it also

could be.

250

You could be on a Zoom with someone at the same time.

251

And we've seen technologies pop up kind of all over this graph of, or actually,

252

Most of the technology that we've seen pop up has been not sharing the same space, so

online and also at the same time.

253

There's YouTube videos which are not at the same time.

254

But we wanted to have this overly researchy, graphy thing so that technologists and

researchers could look at this and be like, where could I fill in the spaces?

255

Mm hmm.

256

It's interesting to like, think going back to what you're saying earlier about, you know,

being online and like, there's sensory preferences, even if you want to do it online.

257

There's so many ways to do it.

258

Like Bre said, you know, there's this website called Focusmate, which pairs you with a

stranger and it's one on one and you talk briefly about what you want to get done.

259

And it can be anything like you could be cleaning your room, you could be writing a

dissertation.

260

whereas some people on Twitch or TikTok host these live stream body doubling sessions

where it's very much focused on them and then there's people in the chat, but there's less

261

pressure on you individually.

262

Yeah, for me, I use both.

263

But Focusmate for me is like a last resort.

264

Like I really need to get this thing done and I need someone's webcam pointing at me in

order to do it.

265

But it definitely does feel like a lot more pressure.

266

Could I ask you then, suppose, I ask you first Bre, is there anything that you heard or

listened to or observed in this research that you thought, wow, God, I might give that a

267

go.

268

Do you do anything differently now?

269

Oh yeah, I had not heard of Focusmate before we did this, so I did use that.

270

And then also, you know, we started this project before I started writing my dissertation.

271

So I think it really shaped the way that I approached writing my dissertation.

272

You know, I wasn't just relying on, you know, grad student work together.

273

I called a lot of my friends and family and I was like, hey, do you want to meet up at

their coffee shop and work today?

274

I realized how much body doubling really does help me.

275

So that shaped my work life a lot.

276

And it's great doing research that helps the way that you work and live too and kind of

validates your own process.

277

So that was great.

278

Thank you.

279

And Tessa,

280

Yeah, I think it's been interesting how it evolved.

281

Like, I think you mentioned, you know, your work practices during the pandemic.

282

And, you know, I was body doubling before I knew about it.

283

And that's something I think that's super interesting about this work is most of our

respondents didn't have a name for this concept and they learned it while they were taking

284

our survey.

285

But, you know, I would not have gone through the pandemic without Discord and, you know,

talking with two of my classmates, like every day we would just get on a chat.

286

I found out about some new apps, like Bre said, through this research.

287

There's this app, Forest, on your phone that it's supposed to help you focus and it grows

like a little tree, the less you use your phone.

288

So it's been fun to experiment and really like find out what works best for you.

289

We would always laugh while we were doing this process because we're like, we're body

tumbling and we're writing about body tumbling.

290

I think we said that in the paper too, there's like a footnote maybe.

291

It kind of takes the reflexivity and positionality to a whole new level doesn't it?

292

I do like that.

293

where would you like to take this next?

294

Yeah, I also would just like to plug Misfit Lab.

295

think both of us have graduated, but they're still continuing to do a lot of this work,

especially in the neurodiversity space.

296

So that's Misfit Lab at UCSC, UC Santa Cruz.

297

But for me personally, you know, I'm transitioning out of academia, so looking to see

what's next.

298

I'm really thankful to have been a part of this research.

299

And if I find a job that's continuing to work in neurodiversity and tech, like, amazing.

300

Job done.

301

I've had some conversations with startups that are doing work in this space, which had

been interesting.

302

So I think it'd be cool.

303

Like, I don't know, maybe we could partner with them or like go present to startups.

304

But I think you were saying earlier, it'd be interesting to explore, like further explore

the nuances of body doubling, even

305

I think observing people body doubling might be counterintuitive too.

306

I don't know, that might be something Kevin is working on.

307

think Kevin is going to be interviewing people about their work practices and their use of

body doubling, so getting even more direct feedback on that.

308

But further exploring the nuances, like you said, there's different preferences around

sensory things and modalities.

309

it'd be cool to say like, this is what we're seeing with ADHD or autism or OCD.

310

And there's a lot of overlap.

311

And so I don't know if you can necessarily parse all of that out, but it'd be cool to kind

of explore like what's working for people.

312

Looking at, you know, situational uses of body doubling.

313

And I think there's so many interesting ways this could go, not necessarily that we'll be

working on them, like, you know, with VR and AR and, people are developing companion

314

robots.

315

It's going to be interesting to see what comes of this.

316

I think some of my open questions are like, what's the interplay between body doubling and

masking?

317

And then also, like, what does the physical person need to look like?

318

Like, if we're seeing people body doubling with a 10 second animated loop, could that just

be a light that pops up when Tess is at her desk and I'm at my desk?

319

But we're in different spaces.

320

You know, what

321

what does that actual interplay look like and can it be technologically mediated?

322

And I think we have a lot of space to look at on our time space mutuality.

323

You know, there could be a lot of things developed and that we don't know that exist yet.

324

I was just talking to someone about that.

325

I don't know if you've seen these pillows that they like light up when your long distance

partner is like sleeping on them or something.

326

And I was saying, it'd be nice like, you you can't always find a person to body double

with and there's backups, like there's YouTube, there's Twitch.

327

But I was telling them, you know, I would love something that sits on my desk and it

lights up like, Breeze Online.

328

Or, you know, so I think there's a lot of cool ways that this could go.

329

we're quite used to notifications as a way of kind of prompting or nudging behaviour and I

was thinking there in terms of what you were saying, Bre, in terms of faces and I jumped

330

to cognition and if I think about masking and emotional regulation then we know that

having the presence of somebody else's face, human to human face, cognition

331

We know that there's an emotional regulation at play there.

332

So at what point does that meet a threshold of need versus go over?

333

And does some people body double to a point at which they're comfortable masking and then

have to like come away from it?

334

And like you say, I'm really interested in or intrigued certainly from the work I do with

my own clients is what is enough for one person versus what's too much for another?

335

So I think there's just so much, there's so much here isn't there to kind of explore and

to think about.

336

And I really wanted to just kind of get you on because it just feels like one of those

topics that we use the word body doubling, but actually, like you say, it's so nuanced,

337

we have a colleague, Kritika, who's doing some research on masking.

338

And so I don't know if there will be any interesting connection with this, but that made

me think about, you know, our respondents mostly indicated that they're body doubling with

339

friends and family.

340

So I think there could be some interesting interplay there maybe having someone you know

can enable you to kind of like unmask a bit more.

341

I've just recorded actually, this episode will come in after my first episode on

accountability.

342

And I was reflecting about a time where I did some long distance running and how myself

and a friend kept each other accountable.

343

And actually it was a form of body doubling, but I hadn't associated it with being body

doubling, because we were just texting each other all the time and when we started, when

344

we finished.

345

But it did make me think that

346

The presence of social bonds and the quality of that social relationship, and that's what

Robin Dunbar talks about, is the thing that leads to better health for us.

347

And we know it's better for people to not have to mask because it leads to better health

outcomes.

348

So yeah, I think it's all related.

349

It's just knowing how, isn't it?

350

And that's the psychological query that always comes around is how is this related and

what are the effects?

351

Well, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast.

352

It's just been wonderful to actually chat with people who've explored this from a

scientific perspective.

353

And I can't wait to see where the research goes with the lab, et cetera.

354

I'll put all details in the show notes for anyone who's interested.

355

And I think your paper is open access.

356

So I think people can get to that and read it.

357

Fantastic.

358

Thanks for having us.

359

This has been so interesting.

360

Thank you!