[HN Gopher] Body Doubling ___________________________________________________________________ Body Doubling Author : snee Score : 212 points Date : 2022-11-05 06:31 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (bodydoubling.com) (TXT) w3m dump (bodydoubling.com) | c7b wrote: | I read about influencers who basically stream themselves while | studying, seems to be a similar idea with more even participation | (and less likelihood of becoming internet-rich). | Spivak wrote: | Even participation isn't really a good unto itself. Most people | can successfully body double to a stream or Youtube video and | so one person can provide the "passive" service to millions of | people. | | Having this kind of content plentiful and available 24/7 is | really helpful. | c7b wrote: | You're presenting it as if there was something intrinsically | better or more efficient about streaming, but the millions of | people could also be matched in pairs or small groups. There | would be a bit more friction, but also more personal touch. | | Objectively, I think they're fairly similar. It really does | come down whether you value even participation or the chance | to participate in a lottery that will may propel a few | individuals to stardom (and leave a lot more disappointed) | more, which is ultimately subjective. | marshmallowmad wrote: | I think this is the reason why in-person work environments will | be more productive over the longer term for any larger | organization. Not saying I'm against remote work, as I actually | prefer it myself. | eyelidlessness wrote: | Surely it'll depend on many factors: employees' own | preferences, level and sincerity of support-in-principle from | leadership, actual working environments, relative distribution | of remote vs in-person, level and burden of effort to | accommodate mixed teams. | | I also prefer remote (and have been remote probably 75% of my | career). I'm also ADHD, and while I'd never even heard of "body | doubling" by name it's something I've found helpful _sometimes, | under some circumstances_. | | For the minority of my career spent in office, it's ranged from | wildly productive (great team fit, good balance in favor of | focus time) to hilariously counterproductive (excessive | meetings and process ceremony, continuous interruptions whether | ostensibly work-related or social, unbearably noisy). | | For the times I've worked on mixed remote/office, I've | generally felt my own and my teams' productivity is great | _except_ when leadership found the arrangement objectionable | (self-fulfilling prophecy I guess), or when team communications | became challenging at scale (eg we found it hard to do | "standups" with ~15 people in office and ~10 people on a | screen; but realistically we shouldn't have had that many | people in _any meetings_ ). | Riseed wrote: | To add on to your "helpful sometimes": | | As someone else with ADHD, I've found that one of the | downfalls of "body doubling" is that it works both ways. | Productivity can lead to more productivity because the body | double can help me overcome the urge to research woodgas | vehicles or the history of bread in Mesoamerica. But the | double's lack of focus (e.g. being social, or forced | meetings) destroys all focus because it's already enough of a | task to manage my own executive functioning in a good | environment. | | The best balance I've found is remote work (so I am my only | distraction), maybe with occasional in-person focused work | sessions (a la hackathon), and occasional remote "body | doubling" sessions with a friend or internet stranger. | | TLDR: Solo remote work is better than attempting body | doubling in an office environment, but remote "body doubling" | is also occasionally helpful. | klenwell wrote: | I actually do this more effectively working from home with my | wife. For people who like the aesthetics and atmosphere of an | office for some reason, I think a coworking space would as | productive or moreso than the company office. (Is this Body | Doubling website coworking industry guerrilla marketing?) | | I was dragged back into the office for a couple months in 2021. | I was stupefied by how pointless it all was. From the time and | resources wasted driving to and fro to the office every day to | the meetings which were still largely done online (since we | were a distributed team.) | | I had to go 5 days a week. The company bled people. Most the | people who were sticking around as I was leaving confided to me | that they weren't happy about it. The company struggled to hire | new workers. That's probably all abated to some extent since | then. With a flexible hybrid schedule, I think they could have | found a sweet spot. | 2devnull wrote: | Seems like a pretty coarse level of analysis asking if "in- | person" is better. What's more productive for a manager will be | different, maybe the exact opposite of what's productive for a | programmer. Some people get paid to talk, but many of us do | not. The talking is paid for by our sacrifice of personal time, | time spent with kids, or exercising or whatever. Managers, | being decision makers, will push us back to offices because | they benefit from it, because they are paid to talk. Something | to be sensitive to, if you're not already. | marshmallowmad wrote: | I agree with you that productivity for managers versus | programmers is different, but my view is that the majority of | workers do more work in person and people actually really | enjoy being productive! The "body doubling" that goes on in | offices is IMHO an underestimated phenomenon, especially for | new employees coming into the workforce. For remote work to | be a permanent choice, I think we need to be a bit more | honest about the benefits of being in-office. Giving | employees the choice is very important to me, just trying to | give my perspective. | nec4b wrote: | In my view majority of workers are as productive at home as | they are in the office or more. The "body doubling" also | happens at home, when more family members work from home. | There is also much less interruptions and noise polution at | home. We should also not pretend office work is without | serious down sides compared to work from home. E.g. so much | time wasted in traffic. | marshmallowmad wrote: | And I respect your view that generally workers are more | productive at home. We can agree to disagree there. Also, | work commutes in traffic are indeed silly. | | This post is about body doubling, which happens far more | in offices. That is a fact. Your reply makes it seem like | that's not the case. But, I agree with your gripes about | in office work, which is why I work from home :) | | Edit: my point is that what's best for you, me, and other | individuals may not be best for organizations. Do I care | about organizations more than myself? No, but it's at | least something to recognize because I still care for | some of them. | JoeAltmaier wrote: | I'm pretty sure ADHD people have known about this all their | lives. | Mordisquitos wrote: | What makes you think people with ADHD already know about it? I | can't see any reason why they could be expected to, let alone | for all their lives. | JoeAltmaier wrote: | My family is nearly 100% ADHD. We all know it. And we're not | special. | Mordisquitos wrote: | The reason that you "all know it" is not that knowing it is | a characteristic feature of ADHD. Rather, it is because you | are all related and in contact with each other. 100% of | your family having ADHD does not make your family | representative of the general ADHD population. | nr2x wrote: | Yeah, still not giving up WFH. | cabirum wrote: | A rubber duck. $1.99, no subscription, no monthly payments. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging | andybak wrote: | My problem is I'd have an overpowering urge to interrupt the | other person whenever I was stuck. That and my other mutterings, | pacings etc would probably be intolerable. | CSSer wrote: | Everyone on my team, including myself, mutters to themselves | like this. I've asked some of my team members about it to | determine if it bothers them and was surprised to find they | feel the same way I do. It's actually somewhat endearing. | Granted, we could be drawing the line at different places here. | I just curse under my breath at things that have me stumped, | sulk for a moment to collect my thoughts, and then get back to | it. | grepLeigh wrote: | Muttering under your breath, cursing, etc is a form of | emotional regulation. That's why it helps you focus, which is | very cool. | | If you were hooked up to an MRI and asked to do a coding | challenge, but were prohibited from talking/regulating, I'd | bet your amygdala would be more engaged compared to your | control. | varjag wrote: | I found that am super productive when travel by air, just sitting | and working at the gate or mid flight. Now I wonder if that's the | effect of all the people around. | pydry wrote: | I am like that too. I discovered one reason for this was that I | was super hydrated - drinking up all my water before going | through security had a noticeable effect on my ability to | concentrate. | junon wrote: | Is there a term for this phenomenon? Always been curious why this | is the case for me. | faeriechangling wrote: | I like the concept but I really wish they would lay it on a | little less thick about this being for neurodivergent people. | ilaksh wrote: | The name seems like ridiculous marketing to me. Kind of like | clickbait. | | I think more accurate would just be something like "silent work | partners". | | It's also bizarre that people seem to think that having trouble | concentrating for a significant period of time on something | tedious means you have ADHD. It's not at all abnormal to struggle | with this at times. It's really more extreme cases that should be | considered ADHD. | montecarl wrote: | It may sound like it, but the term is in common use. Google | "body doubling" and you will see many articles on the topic in | connection to ADD. | atemerev wrote: | ADHD is not just "having trouble concentrating". It is a | completely broken prioritizer, executive function deficit, and | nearly non-existing ability to linearize tasks into | intermediate-scale command sequences. And tons of other things, | some of them good (like immediate recall of association trees, | whether we like it or not; this helps if you want some original | ideas), but most of them bad. | | About 3% of population have ADHD. And it is quite easily | recognizable and distinct from just "troubles of | concentration". | manmal wrote: | Fully agree, and 3% might actually be a very conservative | number. | ilaksh wrote: | That's my point. The article is written as if trouble | concentrating = ADHD. | zach_garwood wrote: | It's weird to me to call this "doubling" instead of "mirroring" | but anyway, I'm not neurodivergent, but I've always found it nice | to sit with someone else in silence, reading or studying. Its a | very calming experience. | peacharonies wrote: | Mirroring has you copying the other's actions, thus performing | the same task. Doubling allows each to work on their own | separate tasks, from what I've understood. | ReactiveJelly wrote: | It's still a confusing choice of words. | | With my spouse I just call it like, "Could you be there for | moral support while I rake the leaves / open bills / do | whatever I don't wanna do" | Ilasky wrote: | Body doubling (or doing something with others around) is an | awesome technique to overcome a motivational hurdle for | activities. While the term originated in ADHD circles, it is | definitely applicable to those outside of the ADHD community as | well. | | We're actually building something just for this ( | https://doubleapp.xyz ) and it can be for any sort of activity - | cooking, running, working, studying, etc. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | Very cool. I wish there was a "join now" group rather than | scheduling? | Ilasky wrote: | Thanks! And for sure - on the top of the Double page we have | Double communities you're able to join right now instead of | scheduling a Double for the future. | duncan-donuts wrote: | Is that the "Let's get going" button? It's also not clear | to me where I can start doing this right now. | | If it is that button I'd suggest some sort of soft sign up | flow. It'd be really nice if I could join a double | immediately, give an email or some identifying info, and | that's it. After my first session make me finish the sign | up. | Ilasky wrote: | Thanks for the feedback! We'll keep working to make it | clearer for sure. | | To answer your question: yes, once you hit "let's get | going" you should be brought to a soft sign-up. After | that, you'll be redirected to a page that let's you join | a Double community immediately via the "start now" | button. | Overtonwindow wrote: | There is a similar app where you are on Skype. My only concern is | some ppl might try to use this as a dating service, or something | else off topic. | photochemsyn wrote: | Historically, this could be the underlying reason for the | existence of various professions: adjutant, batman, valet, | secretary, personal assitant - perhaps the main function they | provided was just providing a presence? | CSSer wrote: | Perhaps a function but I don't think I would go so far as to | say primary. They also lugged their stuff around and handled | all of the boring parts of life, like opening doors, writing | letters and so on, that they didn't want to deal with. | djbusby wrote: | Batman? | joombaga wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman | klyrs wrote: | No, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Pennyworth | Magi604 wrote: | Batman stands in your presence, menacingly. | playingalong wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(military) | mrighele wrote: | So Robin is Batman's batman? | munificent wrote: | There was a thread on Reddit recently asking what leisure time | was like for people before radio, TV, and the Internet. Someone | mentioned a memoir they'd read from the early 1900s and the part | that stuck with them was how _social_ everyone was. | | After work, people would go to friends houses, putter around town | and catch up with neighbors, visit shops where they knew | everyone, etc. | | I can't but think that _so many_ of the malaises that people | suffer today, which we ascribe as individual psychological | problems, are really just a result of how profoundly lonely and | isolating media consumption is. (The irony of posting this on the | Internet is not lost on me.) | | We are a tribal species. We need the company of others in our | physical environment in order to feel safe and at home. | Obviously, some amount of solitude is important too, but for a | communal species like Homo sapiens, being alone or around | strangers most of the day is the environmental equivalent of | being in a desert with no shade. | ddingus wrote: | Very interesting observation! | | And yes, I strongly agree! Just hanging out was the thing | people did. | | Kind of miss that. Time to maybe fix it some. | vjk800 wrote: | This is also how I remember my childhood and even early teenage | years. My friends would just pop over unannounced and ask me | out to play or play sports or something. Also relatives and | grandparents would do this occasionally since basically my | whole extended family lived in the same village. I also feel | like things would have continued the same way if it wasn't for | everyone (including me) moving away to study, work, etc. As an | adult, it's very difficult to reconstruct the same kind of | social network once it has been broken. | | I think it helps to think of our social environment as some | kind of ecosystem that has evolved to fulfill various needs and | shouldn't be messed with. The results will be similar to if you | take a few species from biological ecosystems and just randomly | put them together - the result is not going to look very | pretty. | Enginerrrd wrote: | >I think it helps to think of our social environment as some | kind of ecosystem that has evolved to fulfill various needs | and shouldn't be messed with. The results will be similar to | if you take a few species from biological ecosystems and just | randomly put them together - the result is not going to look | very pretty. | | This is just a real gem of an analogy. | elcritch wrote: | My teenage years were similar. Cells phones were a thing but | relatively rare and texting was limited. Friends in HS would | often enough just drop by. Nowadays, if you just stop by a | friends house, it feels borderline rude or intruding. | | My hypothesis is that given the rise of everyone having | always connected cell phones, texting, etc, that | subconsciously we've all shifted to viewing our physical | homes as our form of privacy. Essentially dropping in takes | away the last place we feel we can control our interactions | with others. | ajmurmann wrote: | I wonder how much of the changed behavior comes from the | less intrusive communication options having gotten much | lower effort. Even calling someone unannounced is almost | unthinkable except if it's an emergency. I think that's | because it's so easy to just send a text message first to | ask if it's convenient. In the past text messages weren't | as common. Before that, I could have called for example | before stopping by a friend's house. However, I would have | had to call the landline which nobody might have answered | because maybe they were outside. It would also have been | disruptive because anyone in their household would have | felt like they needed to answer. So why not just stop by if | I am passing by anyways? Now though, I better first send a | text, then it's not ideal right now because they are | cooking or something, so we postpone, even though I could | have just helped with the cooking. But nobody wants to | propose cooking together. It feels like you are imposing | from both sides, but probably both sides would enjoy it. We | are just overthinking it. | | Anecdotal data for another factor: Too much effort is made! | I've recently tried to make an effort to build up more of a | friend network and turn some acquaintances into friends. | I've noticed that we try to make everything so "nice" that | it becomes inconvenient. The hosts always spend at least an | hour getting their place ready and prepping food. This | leads to a "barrier entry" for getting together that makes | these events less. I even brought that up one time, but | hosts seem unable to reduce the effort they make. Guests | commonly bring gifts. Nobody needs the gifts or the super | tidy home to visit. Just ring the doorbell, grab a beer and | let's just hang! I say that, but I'd never do this either | because it would feel like a transgression. The only | exception I've noticed is that sometimes we'll end up | chatting with neighbors for a prolonged time when we | randomly run into each other while going for a walk or | something. However, nobody would ever say "let's take this | party inside". It seems to have become cultural and I am | not sure how to fix this as an individual. I think part of | it is that we are always busy now or feel like we should | be. Gotta run those errands, work on my side project, etc. | vorpalhex wrote: | As a reminder, you can still do those things. Have a weekly | hangout day with friends with no firm plans. Spend time at | hobbyist shops on the regular. Play board games with strangers. | 411111111111111 wrote: | It's theoretically possible, but not really if you're honest. | | People have gotten used to the isolation, so they're not | gonna enjoy it if you randomly invite yourself literally | every day of the week. You'll need like-minded friends and | that's not something you can really "just decided" to change. | kingkawn wrote: | you'll make new friends if you stick to it | afarrell wrote: | The trick is to have a living room and a regular habit of | hosting something like "Monday night in" where people come | over and just hang out. | MiddleEndian wrote: | I'm seconding what the others say. I see a few close | friends 1-3 times a week in relatively unstructured or | impulsive situations, and I also go to martial arts and | latin dance clubs at no regular interval (although I should | work on getting that back on a regular schedule), and play | dungeons and dragons once a month. You can absolutely meet | people with mutual interests in person, and it is worth | pursuing regardless of whether you consider yourself an | introvert or not. | vorpalhex wrote: | I didn't pick random examples, I just used my regular | practices. | uoaei wrote: | The great thing about joining a club is that you know | everyone there is already interested enough in the subject | of the club to participate with you whenever they've | availed their time to be at the clubhouse. | | You don't have to drag your old friends out so much as make | a couple new (low stakes, with boundaries at first, if you | are anxious about it) friends. | imsaw wrote: | Is this why people like working in a cafe? | salty_biscuits wrote: | I don't know, plenty of alienation in 19th century literature | where everyone was living in everyone else's pocket. A lot has | changed in that time, including our openness to expression of | our internal suffering. I grew up in a similar way, my | overwhelming memory was that it felt utterly stifling! I | couldn't wait to move away and be anonymous. | unity1001 wrote: | > many of the malaises that people suffer today, which we | ascribe as individual psychological problems, are really just a | result of how profoundly lonely and isolating media consumption | is | | Media consumption is just a replacement for social interaction. | And it exists only because people dont have time and energy | left for socialization and other activities after work. Our | society is geared towards extracting maximum profits from | people. It does not permit them to have any excess energy left | at the end of the workday. | pixl97 wrote: | >And it exists only because people dont have time and energy | left for socialization and other activities after work. | | Did people not socialize in the days before worker | protections demanded worker protections? I just don't think | your reasoning covers the causes well, especially in the | suburbanite 40 hour week type that travel by car for an hour+ | a day to a single family home. | | Media consumption exists because technology has allowed media | to show up everywhere at all times very rapidly and we have | not had a society wide inoculation to its negative effects. | watwut wrote: | They were actually exhausted. Fairly often, they just got | drunk quickly after work and went to sleep. | | Both parents were working 12 hours a day so many kids were | unsupervised from age of 4 whole day. Before that, | supervised by one older kid. | klenwell wrote: | On this topic, I find this article fascinating: | | https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23758087 | | _But life in New Jersey was not working out for Yarima. It | wasn 't the weather, food or modern technology but the absence | of close human relations. The Yanomami day begins and ends in | the shapono, open to relatives, friends, neighbours and | enemies. But Yarima's day in the US began and ended in a closed | box, cut off from society._ | squokko wrote: | Not even just the neighbors and friends - people used to live | in large family units with 10+ people per household. This meant | a much broader support network if, for example, you got ill and | couldn't take care of your kid for awhile. | celtain wrote: | 3 more family members are about to move into my house. No | matter how much I tell myself that having a larger household | and more social time will be "good for me", and of course | having help with childcare will be hugely convenient, I'm | really starting to dread the loss of privacy. | mjcohen wrote: | Put a lock on your door. | squokko wrote: | I'd feel the same way, and that's because I was raised in | the Western environment of single-family nuclear | households. | kelnos wrote: | That's just a function of how you (and I) grew up. In many | cultures, the norm is that offspring live with their | parents until marriage, and in some, even the married | couple lives with one set of parents. | | This is just a reminder that a lot of the things we find | comfortable aren't inherent; they're just a reflection of | what the norms where during our formative childhood and | early adult years. | watwut wrote: | It also means you need to help others and sometime take time | off work from it. People in age range 16-55 were actually | people doing more help then receiving it. | | On HN it always sounds like you are only receiving, but | actual deal ia you provide until you are really old or sick. | watwut wrote: | All of that os possible only if you work 8 or less hours a day | and then go home close to work. It is not possible with current | "if you work less then 60 hours a week you are not passionate" | frequent ideology. Nor with long commute actually. | | What you praise here is called being lazy. And also it relied | on kids being unsupervised which was ok at the time. | geuis wrote: | That's a really interesting anecdote about that memoir. It | immediately reminds me of a lot of fantasy type novels I've | read. | | For example, I'm a big fan of the Wandering Inn series. | Essentially, one of the main characters is a young woman | transported to a fantasy-style world who takes over an | abandoned inn outside a major city. A large part of her story | is about interacting with the locals, just wandering around | shops and visiting friends she makes along the way, etc. Very | reminiscent of the book you mention. | | When I look at a lot of other similar books, they often rely on | the same style of small community interactions among the | characters. | | Makes me wonder if part of the reason such stories are so | popular is because we're missing so much of that in our | everyday lives. | | One thing I like about living in SF is that despite its | problems, a lot of the city is based around neighborhoods and | being walkable. I see the same folks at the local restaurants | and hang out with friends and associates at the local pub each | week. So I still get some amount of that traditional daily | interaction, and unfortunately some of the drama that comes | with it. | klysm wrote: | This is one of the reasons living in a college dorm can be | incredibly fun. | uoaei wrote: | I have noticed in social circles that skew heavily Western that | a large majority of small talk revolves around media | consumption, whether it's recounting TV episodes, quoting | movies, meme-ing Spongebob, etc. | | There's a lot of factors to blame for our feelings of | isolation. I tend to look toward the fortress-ing of private | homes and the sprawl of suburban developments, which encourage | seeking enjoyment through pseudo-socialization with the | characters on your screen. | | Parasocial relationships were a thing long before Twitch and | OnlyFans, only people were attaching to fictional characters so | the effect wasn't quite as pronounced until actual humans | became the objects of consumption (see: Disney adults, MCU | ultrafans, etc.). This probably has to do with isolation from | social groups as you describe, particularly as people in | general lost community centers such as churches due to the | sprawl and pace of modern life. | MiddleEndian wrote: | Seeing parasocial relationships infect the internet like | regular celebrities in the past is really a bummer and not | what I had hoped for the technology. Real life interactions | are the way to go more often than not. | rospaya wrote: | I don't get it. Do people not do that anymore? | pixl97 wrote: | I grew up in the midwest and I remember a lot of non- | commercial social events like potlucks that were commonplace. | Some based around churches, others family groups, and others | friend/community based. Talking to my family that still lives | there, the number of these events over the decades has | dropped dramatically. In general these types of events were | low cost and had high socialization. It is thought by some | that the commercialization of leisure [1] in advertising | culture gives too much time and importance to high expense | low socialization gatherings and focuses on convincing the | consumer to consume more media thereby increasing | advertising. Many social media outlets are thought to worsen | this situation by optimizing to keep clicking an app (anger | clicking, parasocial relationships, etc) rather than focusing | on closer in person relationships. | | So I would say yes, a lot less people meet in person [2] | | [1] https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias- | almana... | | [2] https://theconversation.com/teens-have-less-face-time- | with-t... | jvm___ wrote: | profoundly lonely and isolating media consumption is | | This is the main problem in my marriage, we don't consume the | same media - we've tried to find something in common to watch, | but mostly spend it on our phones watching our own media | streams, edu-tainment YouTubers for me and | Netflix/Disney/Facebook watch for her. | | You can't make cultural references or have inside jokes if you | don't consume the same media. | comprev wrote: | Put the phones away and find activities which you both enjoy? | 1-6 wrote: | I oftentimes want something like this as well. I'm not looking | for a taskmaster or someone who could report my work but simply a | nonjudgmental human who is just busy themself. | SevenNation wrote: | > In simple terms, it's merely being in the same room with | another person who is having trouble getting things done on their | own. As a body double, you don't need to help or even say | anything. All you need to do is just be there in the room, and | through some invisible power, the other person is able to focus | and finish their work. ... | | I had to do a double take there to make sure this wasn't parody. | Being _more_ productive with another person in the room? But they | don 't actually do the work? And they help through an "invisible | power"? | | That's unexpected. | curiousgal wrote: | Why not just have the tv palying in the background? Works for me. | tsumnia wrote: | Whenever I visit for my parents for holidays, they have the TV | playing something. However, I've always found the ads | incredibly distracting, like they're intentionally designed to | get my attention. | curiousgal wrote: | Netflix with a show you've seen multiple times? | andybak wrote: | I can't code with anything else going on - except very limited | forms of music. | pxmpxm wrote: | Same - for music specially, absolutely no vocal lyrics. | CSSer wrote: | Does distant/muffled coffee shop music fall under limited | forms? I'm like you but I've found lately that this works for | me. I'm beginning to suspect the fidelity of modern consumer | speakers and headphones are just too good for focus because | they seize my attention. It makes me wonder what would happen | if I tried an EQ that cut bass/mids. | | My problem is that "focus" music is often pretty repetitive. | It can drive me nuts if I listen to it for 8 hours. | zach_garwood wrote: | I've heard others say that as well, but for me the presence of | another body and the explicit silence is really soothing. | curiousgal wrote: | Set the tv to mute? | pella wrote: | Is it like a https://www.focusmate.com/ ? | | _" Distraction-free productivity Focusmate virtual coworking | helps you get things done."_ | romeros wrote: | focusmate is 1:1 and only costs $5 a month.. its golden.. | caveday is 50:1 and is a tad expensive and that one works too.. | soci wrote: | Body doubling might help on not getting up from the chair while | working on a computer. However, not having someone watching over | my screen -which I'd rather not do for obvious reasons- allows me | for infinite procrastination. For other kind of tasks like | studying, writing on paper, or doing phone calls, I agree body | doubling does the trick. | iandanforth wrote: | Again pop-sci loves to invent terms and then sell those terms. | Psychology is regularly guilty of this. | | This is not a "phenomenon" with "invisible power" and it doesn't | need a litany of semi-awed, near mystical, and pseudoscientific | testimonials. That's just nonsense branding. | | This isn't new or magical and there are other services that do | just this with less BS. | kelnos wrote: | Yeah, I was pretty turned off by that. I clicked on the link | wondering if it was some sort of cloning technology, or perhaps | just some sort of video editing/generation technology, but was | disappointed to see it's just "co-working" or "physically- | present emotional support" if you want to capture the essence | of it. Sure, that latter term is a bit wordy, but "body | doubling" is IMO just a very strange thing to call this. | astura wrote: | I learned about this concept from this article - Why half a | million people watch me study on TikTok - | https://www.bbc.com/news/education-61305442 | | It makes sense. Really wish this sort of stuff was around when I | was in college. | Ocha wrote: | This is great. I like how I did not have to sign up for separate | account to use this. Instead it just Took me to discord channel | and I got started right away. | WallyFunk wrote: | I'm reminded of this meme[0]. For me, typing commands into my | terminal with someone looking at the screen gives me feelings of | power. They assume I'm an elite hacker, but really I'm clearing | my bash history. | | [0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/what-gives-people-feelings- | of... | klyrs wrote: | If you weren't an elite hacker, would you be erasing the record | of your activities? | pmarreck wrote: | this might explain my I miss being in the office to get work | done, and really loathe the switch to 100% remote | thallium205 wrote: | I read this while I lay next to my toddler so he can sleep more | soundly. | nearmuse wrote: | Sounds like the Japanese cuddling as a service. | carapace wrote: | Does the effect fall off with the square of the distance? Is it | linear? Is there a threshold? | | Does adding a third person (or more people) affect it? | | How is it different from, say, sitting in a cafe with another | person? Do you have to know each other? If there is a difference | what criteria determine that difference? Can one "pretend" that | one is "body double"-ing with a unknowing stranger? Or does each | person have to know they're doing it? | | If you really want to investigate this IMO you're going to have | to look at everything from near-field EM to Ramana Maharshi (who | often taught in silence), you should study Cybernetics (by which | I basically mean read "Introduction to Cybernetics" by Ashby), | you should take high-speed video of people doing this and then | analyze it for e.g. unconscious synchronization, etc... | sfink wrote: | > Does the effect fall off with the square of the distance? Is | it linear? Is there a threshold? | | You seem to want to treat it as some sort of physical field or | force. IANAP (I am not a psychologist), but it seems fairly | self-evident that the effect arises from the awareness of being | observed, which leads to you observing and mediating your own | actions. Based on that, I would predict that physical distance | is only indirectly relevant. The strength of the effect is | going to depend on how many of your activities are | theoretically knowable by the other person. If they are | physically present but farther away, you can "get away with" | doing more things without them knowing, so you'll omit such | behaviors from the self-monitoring loop. If they are virtually | present, I would imagine that the strength of the effect | depends on how clearly _you_ can observe _them_ (because we can | 't see how they see us, but we'll assume that it's roughly the | same). | | Which would make for an interesting experiment: do body | doubling with very asymmetric visual quality, size, and latency | but without informing the participants that they are seeing | anything different. My guess is that the one who sees a better | quality signal will experience a much stronger effect. | | Like many things in psychology, though, there are tons of | confounding variables. Your relationship to the person matters | --specifically, how much you care about their opinion of you | and your actions. I would imagine body doubling with a dog | would work temporarily and then the effect would fade away as | you got comfortable with goofing off in front of them. | | Anybody you double with, you'll place on a scale from somewhere | between "dog" and "attractive person I am desperate to | impress". (And the latter end of the scale can be paralyzing, | so this isn't a small-large effect scale.) | carapace wrote: | > You seem to want to treat it as some sort of physical field | or force. | | Of course (I'm a rational materialist) it's "some sort of | physical field or force", there's nothing else it could be, | eh? | | How much of the effect is due to _power_ (in the physical | sense) and how much due to modulation (communication)? | | (Not to be coy, I'm a rational materialist _but I 'm also a | Reiki Level III Master_ and I would really really like | someone somewhere to _do science_ to that. If I can influence | these folks to take a more scientific materialist tack on | their investigation they might discover something relevant to | my own curiosities.) | autoexec wrote: | from the linked site https://psychcentral.com/adhd/adhd-body- | doubling: | | > "While there's not a lot of research on ADHD and body doubling, | anecdotal clinical reports seem to point to its utility," Roberts | says. | | Shame this stuff isn't backed by research. Hopefully it gets | looked into. I wouldn't be surprised if it's helpful for some | people though. | Spivak wrote: | What's the question you want the research to answer? | | Because you don't really need a study to figure out if it works | for you. Just try it! Because I can literally feel my | understimulation block fade when there's another person around | -- it stokes a little guilt and anxiety to get you started and | then they act like a pace runner providing some artificial | forward momentum. | | It's not one of those things where you won't be sure whether | it's working or not. | autoexec wrote: | > What's the question you want the research to answer? | | Is it actually effective at all? Who is it | effective/ineffective for? Why is it effective or ineffective | for them? How effective is it? How can its effectiveness be | optimized? In what other ways can its effectiveness be | achieved? What other types of problems can this be used to | help with? | | Maybe I try it and find that it works, but maybe that's | simply a placebo, the way someone might find that crystals or | charms help them. It's easy to say it shouldn't matter so | long as it works for someone, but I think we'd agree that its | better to have things properly researched and understood. | | Maybe I try it and it doesn't work but could have with some | modifications to accommodate my needs or situation. Maybe a | sort of digital avatar or AI works or can work just as well | for a body double as a real person! Maybe it even works | better than a real person in some cases! How great would it | be not to always have to coordinate schedules with another | person or impose on their time to get those same benefits! | Maybe employers could benefit from pairing people for work in | certain tasks! | | It's all idle speculation, theory, and guesswork until people | put in the time and effort to research it all properly. The | anecdotal evidence is encouraging, but only the start. | Ilasky wrote: | There are adjacent areas of research, such as "joint attention" | and "joint action" that touch upon similar phenomenon. However, | for body doubling research it seems that it is still in its | infancy. | | We're really looking to push this phenomenon into the limelight | and accelerate its research because there's definitely | something powerful here. Speaking from personal experience, | body doubling is almost like magic with how it works. | danboarder wrote: | This idea of body doubling is the same idea that makes a coffee | shop or co-working space productive, in my experience. | golemotron wrote: | Remote office workers reinvent the office. | Spivak wrote: | Not at all the same. At least not how offices are usually | structured. It doesn't work as well with groups which is why | "just go work at the library" isn't also a solution. | | An office set up for body doubling would be pairs or small | groups of people from completely different teams sharing an | semi-isolated space. | klyrs wrote: | Not me! My chosen field is what I naturally hyperfocus on, | which is the typical recipe for high functioning ADHD. The WFH | struggle for me is _stopping_ work. | | It's the rest of life that I struggle with, and I've had | friends literally come to my house to veg out in front of the | TV while I clean. And then, once the kitchen is clean, it's | suddenly easy to cook a meal. It's honestly quite embarrassing | to need that as an adult, but by making it win-win, I've | managed to convince myself to do it. Cool to see that other | folks do this. | apienx wrote: | There's probably some effect from the "commitment device" aspect | (implicit as it may be). | pj_mukh wrote: | Another option I've loved is https://www.flow.club/ | | Basically body doubling with 4-5 other people over 60-180 min | sessions. Works really great. | dsiroker wrote: | Agreed! It also incorporates goal setting and time boxing, | which are critical. | wardedVibe wrote: | As someone with mild social anxiety, doing this results in | greater distraction thinking about it than any gain from the | actual process. | munificent wrote: | As someone who also has social anxiety, I suspect that it would | be very difficult for us at first but if we pushed through | that, it would not just help us be more productive, but also | help with our social anxiety. | ck2 wrote: | I wonder if it's vaguely related to the evolutionary "fight or | flight" response? | | I run way faster with other people than by myself based on that | effect. | | It's definitely a mental/adrenal response. | kelseyfrog wrote: | I don't have ADHD as far as I know(which it seems is helpful to | those folks), but I still use body doubling. My use of body | doubling tends towards tasks that I have an negative emotional | response or apprehension towards. For example, paying an | unexpected bill, or making a difficult phone call, or writing | an email to someone I don't like. You could say these | situations are triggering in the sense that they trigger the | fight or flight response and arranging to have someone in the | same room during those tasks down regulates that response. | allisdust wrote: | I don't know how but personally, this actually works. | | Another thing that works is setting a not so exciting but also | not so boring tv series playing on your mobile next to you and do | work while it plays on. Again no clue how or why it works. My pet | theory is that adhd brains just like multi tasking and keeping a | portion of extra bandwidth zoned out is helpful in not getting | distracted. | [deleted] | thimkerbell wrote: | I wish they wouldn't call it that. | telesilla wrote: | I finished my thesis thanks to a group of people scattered over | the internet, all agreeing to do pomodoro. In the breaks we'd | chat about our day to day lives then get back to work when the | bell rang. I'll always be grateful for their presence, getting me | through hard times when I'd perhaps have given up if I felt | completely alone; or at least not worked so deeply and | thoroughly. | criddell wrote: | It might be a good way to run an office. Define pomodoro blocks | in which you cannot interrupt your coworkers. No slacks, texts, | phone calls, or conversations until the cycle ends. | hammock wrote: | The old shift whistle | carvink wrote: | It's common to find people on https://shutupwrite.com/ doing | the same. | Multicomp wrote: | I built my writer's habit using the London Writers Salon | Writer's Hour daily zoom meetings, this concept has merit as | well! | bnralt wrote: | Where did you find the group? | telesilla wrote: | It was an early (private invite) precursor to what others | have linked in this forum for focused study groups. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-06 23:00 UTC)