Our bodies have a way of letting us know when they’re feeling uncomfortable. Stiff shoulders, sore neck, back pain, and eyestrain are all messages telling us that we’re are not working right.

Technology can be the culprit, forcing us into unhealthy postures. Laptops are wonderful; we’re untethered and free to work from anywhere. But that laptop screen is likely too low for everyday use. Before you know it, your neck is craning and your shoulders are hunched; you’ve become what Cynthia Roe Purvis, Ergonomics R&D Director at HP, calls the “Turtle.” You might even be sitting like a turtle right now and not even know it.

The key to comfort is listening to our bodies. Don’t stay in one posture for too long: sit, stand, and stretch, move around throughout the day. Combined with an ergonomic support tool like a Lapjack to lift your laptop’s screen to the proper height and an external keyboard, and in no time you’ll be feeling better. Your body will thank you for it.

Visit our Thrive Portfolio of ergonomic solutions to learn more.

Both trends—miniaturization and dematerialization—are likely to continue and speed up. As Ryan Anderson, our director of furniture technology, notes in the article, designers used to have time to anticipate where technology was headed and plan for it. But with the speed of technology change today, the furniture, and the space it occupies, have to adapt almost instantly.

What do a high-speed train and a nanotechnology textile finish have in common? They were inspired by Mother Nature’s 3.8 billion years of research and development. Increasingly, designers and engineers are looking to the systems, process, and models evolved by nature to fuel innovative problem-solving.

The aerodynamic shape of the kingfisher’s beak, for example, lets it catch fish with barely a splash. The same shape allows a Japanese bullet train to move at 200 mph with just a whisper, and 15 percent less energy.

For us, nature inspired Greenshield, a sustainable nanotechnology textile finish that naturally repels oil and water. By mimicking the “micro-roughness” of the lotus leaf—undetectable to the human touch—liquids roll off the surface, never having an opportunity to penetrate. The result is a Herman Miller fabric that is naturally antimicrobial, stain repellent, and easy to clean.

Flo is one of several technology support products designed by our U.K.-based subsidiary Colebrook Bosson Saunders (CBS). In fact, CBS manufactured the market’s first monitor arm back in the 1980s. The company is committed to providing adjustable workspaces that promote a healthy and productive working environment, which makes it exciting to spread the news about products like Flo.

For the past five years, Herman Miller has been working in partnership with Fulton Innovation, the creators of this marvelous technology that transmits charges to devices using inductive coupling, eliminating the need for device-specific power adaptors.

eCoupled transmitters can be built into practically anything from desktops to kitchen countertops to car consoles, so you don’t even see it. You just lay your enabled device on the surface, and viola, it charges automatically.

Last month, a global interoperability standard, Qi 1.0 (pronounced “chee”), was launched for smaller “low power” devices. That means electronics manufacturers can now make their products compatible with eCoupled wireless charging transmitters. And that paves the way to putting those transmitters in things like work surfaces, shelving, and desk tops for charging small devices such as cell phones and iPods.

Standards for “medium power” devices, such as laptops, have not been issued yet, but hopefully that will happen within the next year.

Enter Herman Miller’s Space Utilization Service. Space Utilization Service makes it a lot simpler to gather accurate occupancy data and create the workplace you visualize.

Before Space Utilization Service, the typical method of gathering data was to walk around with a clipboard and count heads. Then you multiply the number of heads by some standard allocation of square feet per person, and voila, you get an estimate of space needs. But that’s exactly the problem. You only get estimates.

With Space Utilization Service, you get accuracy. A small, wireless motion sensor is attached to your work chairs to detect occupancy. The sensors transmit data continuously for six weeks so you can measure, track, and study occupancy and get a precise picture of your space usage. You can analyze on any level you want—entire buildings, conference rooms, common areas, individual workstations.

Using this information, Herman Miller can help you rationalize your real estate and tailor it to fit your people and how they actually work. These days, for example, that often means more support for collaboration and touchdown work, smaller workstations, and less floor space allocated to individual work.

Whatever the case, your real estate will work harder and your people will be more productive. Even better: use Herman Miller’s Energy Manager, too, and reduce your energy costs.

Those Gen X, Y, and Z whippersnappers may be all about mobility and working-wherever-you-are, but we boomers can be adaptable, too, as Robin noted in a previous Discover blog post.

Darn right.

I recently traded my Aeron chair for a campground bench and my home office for a 14-foot trailer and am about to test the limits of all this mobile technology ballyhoo. I’ve only gotten as far as northern Michigan, but so far I’ve learned:

1. I can’t work outside. All that natural light that office workers covet overpowers even the brightest computer monitor and strains my aging eyes. So I’m forced into my cubicle-sized and non-ergonomic office that also is my living space.

2. Wi-Fi is ubiquitous wherever there are people. However, no people; no Wi-Fi. There is, apparently, technology that brings Wi-Fi to your computer via satellite signals, so theoretically I could get it even where cell phones fail. My friend says the device works “like magic,” but I’m testing the limits of my budget before I bite on the added monthly charge.

3. So far, cell phone coverage isn’t bad. Even in the middle of the forest, I can often pick up two bars, which is enough for a semi-dependable conversation—or a call to 911.

4. I can recharge my computer with an inverter attached to my truck battery, but the adapter gets really, really hot.

I haven’t crossed national boundaries yet, or tried, like my Gen-Y daughter, to send photos from Peru, nor have I sampled the smart phone gadgetry beloved by my kids, but so far technology has been reasonably mobile. The biggest adjustment has been losing instant and continuous Internet access, but I’d say the view is worth it.

You might think that my idea of an office is different than my parents’ idea. Not so. It turns out that they, like a lot of Baby Boomers, are really good at adapting to what’s becoming more common for all of us—working anywhere. That can mean working from home, a coffee shop, or a “campsite” at headquarters. Mobile work is becoming a reality for many people and businesses.

Here I am working in the coffee bar at Herman Miller. (Got my portable mouse and separate keyboard, got my laptop support so I can elevate the display and get it to a good viewing angle.) Studies show that the simple addition of a portable mouse and separate keyboard dramatically increases comfort for mobile workers.

Ask anyone—like me—who’s really into mobile working, and she’ll tell you that portable technology is a must, and the fewer things to carry, the better. While mobile working may be the preferred work style for many now and most of us in the future, it doesn’t mean we can ignore our health while we do it. If I’ve learned anything from working anywhere it’s that being on the move feels better when I bring some good ergonomic support along with me.

This week Herman Miller company Geiger International unveiled a new website, which better reflects the Geiger brand and includes an improved user experience. The goal for the website is to better connect with visitors by serving as a resource that provides more information about the company, its enduring designs, and environmental initiatives. It also includes new tools such as an enhanced search capability and image library that allows visitors to view product details and options—all in one place.

A manufacturer of high quality wood furnishings, Geiger carries a reputation for outstanding craftsmanship and has worked with notable designers such as Ward Bennett, Eric Chan, and Mark Goetz. The company was founded as Interiors International Limited in 1964 by John Geiger, a master cabinet maker, and in 1986 became Geiger International. In 1996 the company formed an alliance with Herman Miller and three years later Herman Miller acquired Geiger to better accommodate customer requests for high end, private office furnishings.

Geiger’s premium wood selections make its casegoods, freestanding furniture, and seating products a popular choice for those who prefer a mix of beauty and functionality.  Capturing the exquisite finish details was a priority for the website design team. As a result, the website carefully utilizes white space and larger, representative images that highlight the company’s dedication to the care and treatment of wood.

A first impression only takes seconds to form and in this case it can impact future business. The new Geiger website addresses the importance of a purposeful brand presence and the needs of a design savvy audience. It will evolve and adapt as needs change and technology advances, but it’s off to a good start. That’s my impression.

A research summary published by Herman Miller ranks the option to position a computer in a suitable location as one of the most important attributes of a comfortable workspace.

I saw this need addressed during a recent visit to a trading floor located in New York’s World Financial Center. The Herman Miller company Colebrook Bosson Saunders supplied this particular floor with Wishbone monitor arms and posts that can support up to four monitors. Most people on a trading floor work with at least two screens, although many work from four and sometimes six.

The Wishbone monitor arm fits well in this environment because anyone can reconfigure it to support a variety of needs. In fact, the monitor arms on this trading floor are reconfigured up to three times a week.

Monitor arms also carry ergonomic benefits. They allow the technology to move with the user, while contributing to an ergonomic posture and reducing eyestrain.

Unfortunately, from 2008-2009, an estimated 9.3 million working days were lost to work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Having proper ergonomic support, however, creates safer, healthier environments that help to prevent these disorders.

Whether you work on a trading floor or in an office like mine, the appropriate technology support, such as a monitor arm, is a smart investment.

Here are some of my primary takeaways from the conference:

There are no rules, nor a tried-and true road map. So we need to be willing to try new things and not be afraid of mistakes.

Honesty and transparency are key components of social media and CSR. Whether it’s by making information available or offering CSR reports to the public, we can all gain from transparency.

Social media can help drive innovation (product and services). Dell shared its Idea Storm site to crowd-source product suggestions from which it brought more than 400 to market. And Reuters uses tools like SMS text to deliver information to an entirely new customer base.

There is no difference between internal and external audiences. Communicating to them like they’re people—instead of a particular type of audience—is key.

The press release should adapt to social media. “Social media press releases” provide information in more “bite-size” and “shareable” forms so that they can be easily distributed and shared by bloggers and on social media networks. The same should happen with CSR reports.

Social media platforms can be a good way to engage a global workforce. Providing frameworks for conversation, without trying to control it, can be a good way to get employees to communicate with the corporation and each other. It’s important to use tools that are accessible to all to ensure open communications channels.

Overall, it was great to connect with global peers and to learn about what other companies are doing as we continue to use social media to communicate how Herman Miller is working for a better world.

Photo via: Harmon Enterprises

Holland, Michigan, where our Design Yard facility is located, is one of the communities vying to be chosen. From now until March 26, residents can nominate the city and make the case for why it should be chosen. All you need is a Gmail account. Here’s hoping that Holland will be chosen (and that you’ll help by nominating the city).

In helping designers like Bill Stumpf and Jeff Weber to develop Herman Miller products—from stacking chairs, such as Caper, to high-performance work chairs, such as Embody—I’ve learned that sitting, comfort, and health are not so cut-and-dried.

In the 1990s I began using pressure map technology, which visualizes what the seat and sitter interface looks like—and how it changes depending on seat construction and the posture of the sitter. These changes translate to comfort or discomfort for the user.

More recently, in the course of our Embody chair development, I commissioned researchers at both the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Milwaukee’s Marquette University, who measured the amount of oxygen in the blood flowing to and from subjects’ lower extremities and heart rate–key health measures. It turns out, both improved when users sat in the Embody chair, versus other chairs, doing the same seated tasks in both.

So, it’s not a simple question of sitting down or standing up—but where and how you’re sitting.

Once again, Herman Miller’s Education Solutions team was a sponsor for the event, offering attendees the opportunity to experience how our furniture can address the needs of today’s more collaborative and interactive learning environment.

A host of educational sessions focused on the benefits of utilizing popular social networking tools, such as Second Life and Google Wave, to connect students from around the world in a more real-time and personable way. Mobile learning sessions provided an in-depth look at how the wildly popular iPod Touch has been used effectively on Abilene Christian University’s campus. It was exciting to engage with faculty and administrators on the cutting edge of what’s next in higher education.

As Herman Miller continues to be a resource to higher education professionals in the holistic design of learning spaces, our Education Solutions team will always value the unique insights we gain from participating in the ELI annual conference.

Me: You can’t possibly do all three well. Him: Practice makes perfect. Me: Riiiiight. Him: <shrug>

New research is on his side (darn it). René Marois, a psychology professor at Vanderbilt University is co-author of a study on multitasking. Marois says there are two major ways tasks can interfere with one another: If they both require concentration (we’re bad at splitting our attention effectively) or if they make demands on the same neural resources, e.g., trying to carry on two conversations at the same time. His study focused on the former and showed how people can become efficient multitaskers when tasks require less attention.

 “Our results imply the fundamental reason we are lousy multitaskers is because our brains process each task slowly, creating a bottleneck at the central stage of decision making,” he says. With practice, we can learn to process more quickly.

Researchers on another project asked a different question: Does multitasking affect your ability to concentrate when you aren’t multitasking? They tested the concentration of students who multitask frequently and other students who multitask but not all the time. The three tests measured students’ ability to ignore irrelevant information, organize items, and switch tasks. Each test required the students to do only one thing at a time. Students who spent less time multitasking did better on every test than students who multitask frequently.

Finally, experts agree that no one truly multitasks. Instead, the brain toggles between, say, history paper, Battlefield II, and girlfriend so quickly that it gives the illusion of multitasking. And oh, how we love that illusion.

Only 21 percent of Emerson’s stuff was made in the United States. His apartment at the University of Michigan contains items that were made in 37 other countries. Paper is the most common material used to manufacture the things he owns (30 percent), followed by plastic (22 percent). The value of his possessions averages out to $24 per item or approximately 3 hours of Emerson’s time as determined by the pay rate of his summer job. As far as he was able to determine, 706 items–60 percent of the stuff he owns–are destined for a landfill.

Bottom line? “I have a lot of stuff,” Emerson writes in his final report. “The most important thing I can do is buy less stuff and to make sure that I know where the stuff I do buy comes from, what it’s made out of, and what implications it has for the environment and for human rights.”

Professor Trumpey gave him an “A.”

The course: Art and Design Perspectives. The assignment: Inventory, categorize, analyze and research everything you own.

My son Emerson, a sophomore in Trumpey’s class, had 438 items on his My Stuff spreadsheet (above) when I spoke with him last. (And this is only the stuff he has with him at school–you should see his bedroom at home.) For each object, he has to list country of origin, primary material, life expectancy, end of life cycle, and monetary value–and rank its personal importance in his life.

Once their inventories are complete, students will experiment with sorting them by various categories and analyze the patterns they find. “Ultimately, students see the complexities of global markets and design,” says Trumpey, who has given the assignment four years running. “Many see the excess of cheap, disposable goods versus the more meaningful or longer lasting goods.”

I’ll report on Emerson’s findings in an upcoming blog post.

Postcards didn’t exist in the U.S. before1898. That year, the government made it legal to print and send “private mailing cards.” Stamps were a penny. Messages were permitted only on the front of the card. The back was reserved for the address. The limited space required messages to be brief, telegraphic, “tweet-like.”

In 1907, the “divided back” was approved. Half of the back was for the message, half for the address. With this expanded format, postcards boomed. New printing technologies made postcards cheap and widely available. Many were beautiful hand-colored photographs of local buildings, street scenes, landscapes, and recreational areas. Over 800 million postcards were mailed in the U.S. in 1908. This was ten times the population of the entire country. Postcards were the e-mail, the text messaging of the era.

A 1908 postcard from my collection in the above slide show was sent by Aunt Susie K. of Presque Isle, Maine. She writes to Dora, her niece, in Nebraska. To personalize the card, Aunt Susie pastes a picture of herself next to the image of a nearby lighthouse. (Early Facebook?)

Postcards ushered in direct mail. In 1907, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company sent customers a postcard showing a state-of-the-art workplace.

Researchers at Rutgers describe Twitter as a “social awareness stream (SAS).” Eighty percent of “tweeters” use the medium to communicate what they are doing, how they are feeling, what they are thinking. The intent of early postcards, to “only connect,” was the same.

Is a library building even needed? Or, will digital collections make them obsolete? The answer to both questions is yes. Alumni report their most enduring memory of their campus experience is the library reading room, so the building is likely to remain a strong symbol. Yet, as digitization and networks become ubiquitous, the library will be as much virtual as physical.

What work will be like in the library is as much a question as what form the library will take. Will librarians raised on card catalogs and reference desks be able to jump to roaming the library and responding to students’ text messages asking for help? Will a growing need for techies to make things run mean good old customer service gets lost in the transition?

These and other questions are due to be wrestled with in an upcoming report on the roundtable. Reading it should be quite an education.

This from someone whose bedroom floor has not been seen since 2005.

It’s true that my desktop was wall-to-wall document files, PDFs, web links, JPGs, etc. I tend to work with digital information the way I do with paper-based stuff. I want it out there where I can see it. I’m afraid that if I put it in a file I will never find it again.

Lots of people share this fear of filing. Researchers observing the ways office workers interact with paper documents have found healthy populations of “pilers”–people whose main organizational method involves surrounding themselves with apparently haphazard but personally meaningful piles of information.

Net-Geners, however, have grown up in a world where information can be found and lost and found again in two clicks or less, using a name or a number or a meta-tag or a string of words typed into Google. My son can be fearless about filing away his music, photos, and homework assignments because he’s got tools like iTunes and Flickr and Spotlight to locate exactly what he wants, precisely when he wants it.

In his latest book, Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, author David Weinberger extols the benefits of this brave new world where people can organize content any way they want, and never have to learn the Dewey Decimal system. Freed from its physical constraints, information can float happily, the way my desktop files now do, in that cute little cloud.

You can also join over 2,000 people who are already following Herman Miller on Twitter. We’re tweeting company news updates and events, as well as responding to questions you have.

Interested in stories about design, products, or the Herman Miller community? Check out our videos on the Herman Miller YouTube channel. Or peruse the stories in this blog, where we welcome your comments in the conversation that interests you—on topics from design to our products to what makes the world a better place for all of us.

According to Always Building, Herman Miller’s book about PE, “To achieve programmable environments, we think about a digital as well as physical dimension of space.” Integrating the digital dimension can make a building smarter, more efficient, and responsive to the people who use it.

With digital technology, you can easily manipulate the physical features of a space. And that changes the rules of the game because design is no longer about delivering a perfect finished product. It’s about marrying the digital and physical so that users can change in seconds what used to take weeks of planning and construction.

Instead of walls, there can be intelligent space division that is movable and adjusts acoustic performance as needed. Digital wallpaper morphs to suit your taste. Light sensors communicate with blinds and lights so they can automatically adjust according to users and conditions. A workspace adapts to the user’s preferences in music, air flow, temperature, and even chair adjustment.

So many possibilities. And the story is just beginning. Herman Miller knows it doesn’t have all the answers, so as they go forward with PE, they are consulting with the design profession, users, facility managers, and engineers. Together, they are transforming how buildings are designed, built, managed, and used.

Be part of the discussion. Let Herman Miller know your thoughts on PE. They love the input.

What if someone invented a simple, affordable device you quickly attach to your car to save you gas? Genius, right?

Well then, check this out. It’s Herman Miller’s new Energy Manager—a simple, affordable device you quickly attach to your Herman Miller systems furniture (new or retrofit) to save you electrical energy, 24/7.

Energy Manager is an easy solution to a major problem: A lot of energy and money is being wasted in facilities today. Chances are if you look around your facility, you’ll see too many workstations unoccupied for hours at a time with task lights, printers, computers, and chargers turned on, needlessly consuming energy, day and night.

That’s why Herman Miller developed Energy Manager. Part of the company’s Programmable Environments initiative, it makes your systems furniture smarter and it gives you more control over your environment.

Here’s how. Energy Manager controls two of the four circuits of power in a cluster of workstations. When a person sits down to work, an occupancy sensor detects their presence and turns on the devices in the cluster plugged into those two circuits. After the person leaves, the devices automatically turn off.

The results can be dramatic—and valuable to you and the environment. For example, take battery chargers that are always left on. Small potatoes, right? But 5% of energy is wasted on battery chargers not in use.

Energy Manager can also be connected to a Convia programmable gateway so it can measure and monitor occupancy data from every workstation—which workstations are occupied, when, and for how long during a day. Energy Manager uses this data to generate detailed occupancy reports that help you optimize floor plans to reduce real estate costs.   

Genius, right? The folks at Herman Miller’s LA showroom think so, too.

The nutshell idea for Programmable Environments (PE) is to use technology to fill new or existing buildings with intelligence. The building becomes a digital network so that permanent fixtures become adaptable. You can make them do exactly what you need them to do at any moment, change them instantly, and gather real time information about how they are used.

And it’s easy. Here’s the story:

In 2007, Herman Miller established a subsidiary called Convia, which serves as a platform for PE. Convia offers a modular electrical distribution system that can be programmed—a fundamental breakthrough in how power is distributed and managed in buildings. The Convia system enables the virtual “rewiring” of a room, floor, or building in just minutes.

With Convia, it’s simple to control energy consumption and ambient effects, including lighting, climate, acoustics, security, and data management. It’s like a digital nervous system that senses human presence, automatically generates appropriate responses, and provides reports that quantify performance, efficiency, and energy consumption and expenditure.

Those reports will show that you save energy and money. Convia controls typically cut electrical usage in half. As a result, Convia can help your project qualify for American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funds—in other words, stimulus money. Plus, Convia may contribute up to 23 points toward LEED Certification.

Convia is making buildings smarter all over the country, including the U.S. Green Buildings Council headquarters in Washington, DC—a showcase for resource-efficient, sustainable design.

Note: This is the first in a series of four posts on Programmable Environments.

You hear it all the time: “Technology has changed everything.” Well, duh. But it’s not totally accurate. There’s one part of our daily lives that’s largely untouched by the changes. It’s the buildings where we work and live—static, rigid, set in their ways.

While technology makes us faster, our buildings often hold us back. Unable to keep up with change—much less enable change—our buildings become out of sync with us.

So it’s no surprise that so many buildings stand empty and obsolete, destined for demolition. But even if a building is repurposed, it’s expensive to continually update the brick and mortar and the pipe and wire.

Herman Miller believes that by working together with architects, designers, and information technology leaders, they can design this problem away. So they started an initiative to help make it happen, called Programmable Environments (PE).

PE uses design and technology innovation to give people more control over their surroundings. With PE, we can program the features of a built environment to fit what we do and what we prefer. A space becomes as flexible as the Herman Miller furniture and seating in it. And we can save energy every day.

The promise of technology makes the potential of PE virtually unlimited. Herman Miller believes PE can fundamentally change how we design, build, and manage our places so they are more responsive, responsible, and sustainable.

To help you get to know PE, I’ll have more posts about it here on Discover over the next few weeks. For an overview, watch the video above. And you can get the complete story in a book by Herman Miller called Always Building: The Programmable Environment. It explains what PE is, what it can do for you, and the design potential it provides.

“So why is trying to get some actual work done at a meeting suddenly a bad thing?”

These comments, posted in response to an article on the technology blog “ReadWriteWeb,” highlight the real issue behind the latest generational gap at work: manners.

When LexisNexis released the results of a new study that examined technology use in the workplace, blogs across the internet lit up with cross-generational crossfire. Interestingly, most of the controversy about technology in the office wasn’t about how it should be used. It was all about when.

The Technology Gap Survey found that all levels and age groups in the white collar workforce use and appreciate new technology and software applications. One hundred percent of the professionals surveyed use a computer and email and calendar programs at work; 88 percent believe that devices like laptops, PDAs, and cellular phones help them and their colleagues to be more productive.

But while over two-thirds of Baby Boom respondents find the use of a laptop or PDA during face-to-face meetings “distracting,” less than half of Gen Y respondents agree. There is also a large gap between the two generations regarding the efficiency of using these devices during in-person meetings, with more Boomers looking askance at younger coworkers who insist they can check Twitter or Facebook during conferences without losing a beat.

Not surprisingly, then, while the majority of oldsters agree that iPhones and Blackberries are contributing to “a decline in proper workplace etiquette,” most Gen Y workers don’t think so. As one thoughtful commenter in the blog wars put it: “This gap is much bigger than a technological gap. This is a gap in how we interact with each other.”

By Deb Wierenga

Small talk gets no respect. Flip through the stacks and stacks (literal or virtual) of books and articles on the topic, and you’ll see that it’s cast as manipulative or mercenary: it’s what you do to get the girl, get the sale, or get the job. It’s called the “grease” or the “glue” of social interaction; neither of those metaphors is particularly appealing, unless you’re a counter cook or a collage artist.

The purported collective disdain for small talk makes it all the more interesting to me that Facebook, which consists almost entirely of small talk, has gotten such traction, adding a million members a day. What size talk do we want, and why does it matter?

If you’ve ever answered “how are you” with “fine” when you had a migraine, kids home with the flu, a killer deadline, or a philandering spouse, you know the value of small talk. The truth is that we don’t want to explain everything to everyone all the time. There are people with whom we don’t want to share much, and people with whom we want to share later, or in our kitchen instead of in the office. Small talk is one of the many tools we have for regulating our relationships with others, and for modulating our own moods.

Choosing to chat
It’s small talk that lets us explore common interests and values and sensibilities with new people we meet. If you can’t make small talk, it’s hard to know with whom you want to make big talk. If you don’t chat, it’s hard for people to know that you’re open to a new relationship, that you’re curious about them. That’s likely behind the results of a study at the Stanford University School of Business, which tracked MBAs for 10 years after graduation. They found that students’ ability to hold conversations correlated strongly with later success, while grade point averages did not.

And a patchwork of studies show that physical health is influenced by feelings of happiness, and happiness is influenced by feeling safe, having a sense of control, and participation in community. An online social network can’t fill that whole need for community. But a study at Michigan State University actually connected students’ use of Facebook with their ability to function in real-world campus life. Facebook helped the students to make new connections, deepen relationships, and keep them over time. But most importantly, use of Facebook helped build those skills among people who started with low satisfaction and low self-esteem.

Somehow a barrage of lowly status updates–those one-line statements about what we’re doing or thinking–has that kind of uplifting effect. I’ve got a couple of theories as to why. The first is the curious effect of talking about oneself in third person (“Lois is baking death-by-chocolate brownies”): It introduces a certain distance that makes it easier to be objective about what’s going on–and much harder to whine.

The second is the ethos of the community. Everyone’s experience of Facebook is different, of course, depending on the members of each particular community. But in the Facebook place where I hang out, people are generally cheerful–or at least matter-of-fact–about what they’re up to or against. When I think about my own updates, being human, I’m likely to be influenced by that tone. If I were to post a crabby, angry, or dark status update, it would get real attention.

Talk happy to be happy
Does that mean we’re lying to each other? I don’t think so. Acting happy can put us into a happier frame of mind, according to David Myers, author of The Pursuit of Happiness. “Talk as if you feel positive self-esteem, are optimistic, and are outgoing. Going through the motions can trigger the emotions.” And happiness is contagious, so if you’re hanging out with people who at least talk as though they feel good about themselves, you’re likely to feel good about yourself, too.

It’s possible to be intimidated by the status update–either posting your own or reading others. I myself fall prey to the occasional bout of envy (Will Anne’s vacation never end? Does Nancy work out every day? Why does Carla have more time to cook than I seem to?) but I am equally often inspired by the tremendous variety of voices and lives among my friends. My favorite description of the opportunity offered by the status update is “spontaneous bursts of joy and being.” If that’s what we’re sharing with each other, how can our lives not be richer?

Finally, Facebook can help us stay connected over time, distance, and changing life circumstances. One of the findings from the study of MSU students was that for students who scored low in “well-being measures,” the ability to stay connected with friends from high school or hometowns helped them bridge into their new campus community; it “offset feelings of ‘friendsickness,’ the distress caused by the loss of old friends.” I experienced a similar thing when I left a fairly large company to work on my own. There was less grieving to do knowing that I could stay in touch with friends and former colleagues–without making it a full-time job. As one friend said, “It’s nice to reconnect with people from the past without thinking, ‘Oh, we should have them over for dinner!’”

I’ve got sympathy for the handwringing about how Facebook is changing relationships. Yes, I sometimes need to use a timer to avoid losing an hour when I mean to spend five minutes catching up. Yes, sometimes I click “hide” when I’ve just learned too much about someone I don’t know well. Yes, we still need to throw dinner parties, inviting the people we want to spend real time with and getting to bigger talk sooner. Or not. Because we’re still, ultimately, online or in person, in charge of the size of our talk.