What is a Social Biome?

Written by Sarah Kleiner

August 2, 2022

As we head into the post-pandemic era, people are finding themselves living very different lives. Social interactions have been heavily impacted and influenced by extended periods of isolation. Work-from-home trends, social distancing fears, and new anxieties mean that we’re further apart than we’ve ever been before. All these challenges have left many of us feeling lonely and “socially starved”. Thankfully, there’s a way to measure just how healthy our social interactions are – by looking at something called our Social biome.

What is a social biome? We’ve all heard of social networks, social circles, or social groups. These terms relate to whom we interact with and how frequently. But what about how we interact and how often we do it? What about the patterns, ratios, and methods we use to communicate with one another? How do all these affect our social wellness, and what can we do to keep things on the healthy side? Basically, what is a social biome?

In this blog, we explore the social biome concept by examining how social biome health can affect our interactions and how to determine if your social biome is well-nourished or in need of some attention.

The Social Biome Defined

But, what is a social biome exactly? The concept of social biomes was coined by a University of Kansas Communications Studies professor – Dr Jeffery Hall. He postulates that our social interactions form an ecosystem similar to the microbial one in our gut. Essentially, in order for us to feel healthy and well nourished, this internal ecosystem needs to be well-balanced. Too much of something and we feel queasy and unwell; too little and our bodies tell us to do something about it.

According to Dr Hall, the same goes for our social interactions. The social biome consists of the individual network or ecosystem of relationships and personal interactions that make up our social experiences. According to Dr Hall, this unique ecosystem contributes significantly to how our social lives shape our emotional, psychological, and even physical health.

According to the social biome concept, people only require a couple of meaningful daily interactions while also taking some alone time for themselves. Just like the balance needed in the gut, we also need to balance our social activities with the need for solitude in order to maintain a healthy balance in our lives.

But the social biome concept looks at more than how much time we spend engaging with others versus how much of our day we spend alone. It also considers the quality of those engagements and how we communicate with others.

Ultimately, a person’s social biome can be seen as the intricate web of interactions, relationships, and communications we share with others. Things get interesting, though, when we look at how healthy these complex ecosystems are and when we try to understand how these social biomes interact with our lives.

The CBB Theory

The social biome concept is rooted in Hall’s Communicate-Bond-Belong (CBB) Theory. This theory provides a hypothesis for why people feel such a primal need to forge relationships instead of just ‘meeting and greeting’ before continuing on with our lives, while also arguing that being permanently sociable is impossible due to our need to undertake other tasks (like eating and sleeping) in order to survive.

According to the CBB theory, the quality of our social interactions matters. Rather than engaging with our friends and family all day, the CBB theory argues that we should have a few high-quality engagements, from serious discussions to light conversation and even joking.

The CBB Theory goes on to explore the quality of alone time we have with ourselves and argues that this time is just as important as the time we spend engaging with others.

Too much time around others means we get overwhelmed and exhausted, expending all of our energy maintaining relationships and forging stronger social bonds. Too much time alone, and we start to feel lonely, craving interaction and engagement.

It’s all about striking the right balance.

Elements of the Social Biome

Many people see their relationships as a simple two-way street. They view their interactions with others individually by ignoring the roles that people outside, for example, their friends’ network or family groups, play.

A person’s social biome considers more than who you’re talking to; it examines the mix of methods and modes of communication as well as what you’re talking about, all within the context of the types of relationships in your social diet.

Social Interactions

What matters most is not how many people we engage with on a daily basis but the quality and diversity of those engagements and how much they mean to us. While light, quick chats are good to help us touch base with myriad people, having deep, meaningful conversations is crucial in allowing us to solidify important social bonds.

Spending time with friends – This is where most people spend most of their social interaction time and energy. From close friends with whom you’re able to share your secrets to general acquaintances, many people see their friends as one of their most important social connections.
Having interactions with family – Family is crucial to maintaining a healthy social biome. But family relationships can be complicated. While some people experience large family groups consisting of many different relationships and connections, others have very small families, and some, none at all.

Engaging in casual small-talk with strangers – This often-overlooked element of our social biome can play a critical role in how we view our own well-being. We encounter strangers almost every day, and small talk is a very human characteristic that shapes our interactions with others. How willing or able we are to make this small talk helps to determine the overall health of our social biome.

Intermittent heart-to-heart conversations – Another element of our social interactions include how often we have intense conversations, generally, with people we know and sometimes with people we don’t know well but feel we can trust. We can have these conversations with anyone, from work colleagues to spiritual leaders or even a pensioner on the bus.

Alone time

Equally important to our social biome is the time we spend in our own company. While too much alone time can lead to a sense of loneliness and isolation, this time is extremely important to how we balance our sense of self with our sense of others.

Periods of solitude – As discussed, time spent by yourself to reflect, rest, and think is equally important to the time spent around others. This does not include when you’re alone but still engaging on social media, via WhatsApp, or on the phone.

Meditating, exercising, or eating– performing your day-to-day routine forms an integral part of your social biome. From meditating and relaxing to exercising, taking care of chores, eating, and even watching TV, this time is part of how we self-regulate and should not be seen as “taking you away” from the time you could be spending with other people.

Time spent around people but not interacting with them – Sitting at a coffee shop watching others go about their daily lives may seem strange or awkward for some people. However, if you’re able to put your phone away and enjoy your solitude without the urge to engage with others, you’re probably enjoying the fruits of a healthy social biome.

Patterns & Methods of Communication

Finally, how we communicate and engage with people plays a huge role in the health of our social biome. In this connected age, a person’s social biome can spread globally, with digitally-connected relationships often as complete as traditional ones.

Patterns – This refers to how frequently we engage with others, when we choose to do so and when we feel the moment is right to take some time for ourselves. These patterns define the makeup and structure of our social biome and can determine whether we’re heading towards a healthy balance or not.
Methods – The manner in which we engage and reflect is crucial in determining the scope of our interactions and the quality of them as well. While face-to-face interactions are still the most meaningful and complete way to engage socially, technology has allowed us to take things a step further. While many people view telecommunications as “impersonal”, the evolution of digital communications means that things like video calling and social media are opening up an entirely new environment for us to share and engage in.

Why Social Biomes Are So Important

The results of Dr Hall’s study produced some interesting interpretations of how social biomes can influence our sense of well-being. The professor found that people with a healthy social biome spent most of their time engaging with their friends and family, accounting for 66% of their social interactions. For those perceived to have unhealthy biomes, this was closer to 50%.

Among people who display a higher sense of well-being, the study found that they held more meaningful conversations with others 2.5 times more frequently than those with a lower sense of well-being. Additionally, people who enjoyed the most social balance spent as much as 92% of their days expressing affection and concern for others at one point or another.

While these numbers do indicate that having longer, deeper, face-to-face conversations with friends and family more frequently while expressing concern for others can lead to a healthy social biome, it is important to remember that how we engage and with whom relies on a balance of finding alone time for ourselves too.

Conclusion

So, what is a social biome? It’s an intricate network that requires attention and balance. A healthy social biome can boost our sense of well-being and give us a feeling of balance and nourishment. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on our ability to engage and interact meaningfully with one another. Technology is also affecting our capacity to enjoy a balanced social experience, while finding the alone time we need to strike this balance can prove challenging.

Creating and maintaining a healthy social biome is an ongoing process and requires attention and nurturing. While understanding what a social biome is can mean looking at our current social connections and contrasting how much energy and time we spend on others against what we think about and do when alone, finding this balance can help us to feel satisfied, no matter where we are in life.