Science, Kind Words, and the Science of Kind Words
2020, by objective and scientific definitions, sucked. But here we are. My computer clock, when I wrote this, blessedly showed me 1/1/2021, not 13/1/2020, or 12/32/2020. In all honesty, I’m not sure I would have made it nearly as emotionally intact if I didn’t invest in Kind Words [lo-fit beats to write to] by Popcannibal. In a year brimming with the worst that our neighbors, our leaders, and humanity as a whole could conjure up, Kind Words helped remind me that there is still goodness in people, willing to do good for the mere sake of doing good. And furthermore, I’ve recently been informed that Kind Words’s design is, perhaps indirectly, proven by research to maximize the good vibes it puts into the world. Hell yeah, science.
Kind Words’s core design is split into four main aspects: writing letters to strangers, requesting letters from strangers, gifting stickers to strangers, and a soundtrack filled with lo-fi beats. We’ll look at why each one has the impact that it does, and how it all comes together for a truly kind experience.
First, writing letters. Users are presented with a series of about ten different letters from one-letter-named strangers, generally ranging from looking for advice, needing to vent, or seeking comfort. Research has helped establish that our own egos are given a boost when we’re asked to give advice; it causes a chain reaction which results in our thinking more highly of the one who asked for help, since they recognized that they needed help to begin with. This carries over into Kind Words; even if a requester isn’t seeking out you and your advice specifically, their letter can still be a part of your pile, and you can still get that ego-boost before responding, resulting in a more thoughtful (and helpful) response.
The anonymous design of Kind Words is also intentional: users are only identified by a single letter in the letters they write, whether requesting or responding. Simply put, I go by Mike, so I am identified as “M” in Kind Words, along with a sea of other “M”s. Researchers speculate the following: 1.) “helping should be most common among people who are able to maximize compassion while minimizing distress,” and 2.) that “[focusing on the present moment] and non-judgmental acceptance [of others’ experiences] both predicted more helping behavior.”
The anonymity, while initially distancing, removes the intimacy and specifics of the requester’s issues, while leaving the general information that responders can address. This maximizes our ability, as responders, to try and alleviate others’ distress while simultaneously keeping us removed from the true scope of their difficulties. We are able to respond and help as best we can, and then we move on to someone else to try and help.
Additionally, the anonymity puts us in a position of inherent trust with the requesters; they gain nothing by deceiving us, so we are led to believe they are telling the truth, especially that this issue or problem is occurring in the present. The separation and anonymity also helps to permit the aforementioned non-judgmental acceptance; we don’t have a chance to learn everything about each other in Kind Words, so we accept people and their plights at face-value. Responders have only the requester’s present moment, how they are feeling right now, to respond to. The inherent trust in anonymous, one-lettered personas, along with the emotional distance between requester and responder, maximizes the responder’s ability to help on a letter-by-letter basis.
When I began using Kind Words, I was in a rut, feeling less and less meaning to what I did in my work, even if it was a form of helping people. But I kept returning to Kind Words. The act of corresponding with strangers is, for better or for worse, ideal during the COVID-based precautions people have been asked to follow; we need not leave our homes the same way we would to volunteer in-person. In the midst of such nebulous uncertainty, Kind Words helped me create new meaning in my changing life. Helping others can actually create a sense of meaning for people, no matter what form that help takes. Writing these letters is still a form of support that people may not be able to get from their family or friend circles, and it can mean a great deal to them.
Kind Words also recognizes that the act of helping, at least in regards to writing letters to strangers, is also a process. In research that mirrors a number of Kind Words’s own mechanics, the following (emphasis mine) is suggested:
“…in helping other people regulate their emotions and inhabiting their perspective, we can hone our own regulatory skills and ultimately enhance our well-being. […] These results are consistent with the idea that in helping others manage their emotional reactions to stressful situations, even in an online (not face-to-face) way, we can practice and hone our regulation skills, which we can then apply to improve our own emotional lives.”
The simple translation is that by helping people, we grow emotionally. To help others with their problems, we put ourselves in their position, think “What would we do?” We grow by playing hypotheticals in our head and sharing our thoughts and advice with those who have sought it. Subsequently, we can bank those thoughts and ideas for the event if we ever encounter what a requester needed help with. This extends to situations we are mutually in, like the COVID safety precautions. Dr. Emily Greenfield notes that “When we remind a friend that social distancing measures are temporary, and this too shall pass, we are also, in effect, reminding ourselves and serving to regulate our own emotions.” By helping others in this sense, we, even in a small way, help ourselves, whether directly in our shared experiences, or indirectly as a hypothetical precaution.
To understand the next point, we must understand the concept of “elevation,” described in a study as “a positive emotion experienced upon witnessing another person perform a virtuous act, principally one that improves the welfare of other people.” This research, put simply, believes that elevation, spurned on by another person’s good deeds, “leads to increased altruistic behavior [in the study’s participants].” So, let’s break it down with Kind Words. You write a request letter. Somebody, or somebodies (you can receive multiple responses), respond to your request. I don’t speak for the whole of the Kind Words community, but I can say with certainty that when I get a response after requesting letters from the collective, I may not be magically cured of whatever’s weighing on me, but I am boosted to go look at my own letters to respond to. I find myself elevated by the kindness and the effort of others.
You can think of this cycle in Kind Words as geese in their migratory V-formation: when the lead bird, which doesn’t benefit from the uplift-based physics of the cooperation, gets tired, it rotates to the back until it can lead again. The science of migration reminds geese that they are more efficient and go further when they work together and rely on one another. Similarly, Kind Words offers up a similar cycle: you starting as either a responder or a requester. As a responder, do what you can, and when you run into hardships, you fall to the back of formation and get help from those around you. As a requester, you rely on the help from others until your strength returns and, for however long, you are able to take the lead and respond to people. Or, putting it more simply from Kind Words’s store page, “Use your words to lift others and be lifted in return.”
In spite of the world, and reflected in overarching research, daily human life is not characterized by the destruction, exploitation, or indifference we may be led to believe. It shows that we care deeply for each other, and that, given the chance, be it in a small or large way, we would rather help one another out than not. When we see someone in need, we want to help them. Kind Words bridges that gap by showing you people who are asking for help, and letting you cross of your own accord.
Now, the other part of the Kind Words cycle is requesting letters: writing and sending out a seven-line letter into the ether. Some hope for advice, others for comfort, some to share their joy, others for a void in which to air their grievances. At the end, requesters are still, as the name suggests, requesting help from the Kind Words community. It’s important to consider why people might be seeking advice on an interactive experience like Kind Words, as opposed to the people they have in their life.
To consider why it’s so difficult for some people to ask for help in general, even to take the first step in something like Kind Words, you have to go back to those formative years. Whatever someone’s upbringing was, were they in a position to ask for help? Who was able to ask for help from? How were they treated when/if they asked for help? Some family units and settings value independence over collaboration, or reinforce how futile it is to ask for help, making it that much more difficult to reach out for help in those environments.
Further, even if someone is comfortable asking for help, there is an inherent power balance that people consider when they reach out for help. What will it cost me, now or later, to get help? No one likes to feel indebted, plain and simple, and that has an effect on if, when, or how we reach out.
Even emotionally, it can simply make us feel incompetent to ask for help. It’s arguably more difficult with people who know us, since they’re often in the situations where we would ask for the most help, be it at work or at home. In spite of research stating those who seek advice are viewed as competent by those they’re asking help from, I know I can attest that my Tiny Lizard Brain still thinks the worst-case scenario. I still think that my coworkers will think less of me. That my friends will shake their heads at me. That I can do this on my own, I just have to. Additionally, we largely project our own feelings about what we need help with onto those we ask help from. We often find ourselves locked into a mindset where, should we ask for help, those we ask will be focusing on the effort or unpleasantness of the request, rather than a more positive and altruistic perspective.
But you know where I don’t have that problem? I’ll give you a hint. It has a designated Mail Deer and we’ve been talking about it for a while now. Interacting with strangers on Kind Words, thanks to the degrees of separation (they don’t know my life) and anonymity (they don’t know me) help to make asking for help, whatever form that help takes, more accessible than in real life. And we don’t have to worry about someone taking a negative perspective on assisting us; that’s why people use Kind Words! It’s a safe place to ask for help, and that call goes to a community that is on the program in order to share and ease my burden.
Little by little, this form of requesting can help build a user’s confidence to change their own habits in the rest of the world, being more comfortable asking for help from others. But even before habits, before challenging and changing our preconceived notions of asking for help, Kind Words cultivates a community that ensures no one feels indebted past a sticker (more on that in a bit), no one judges you for being weak, no one is rejected, and no one is seen as a burden. You are simply there for help, and you need only ask for it.
Now, even though the main mechanics of Kind Words revolves around writing and receiving letters, you ask anyone in the community, myself included, and we all flip for the stickers. Stickers have two primary uses in Kind Words: as a gift in a letter from responder to requester, or as a thank you from requester to responder after they receive the letter. Every user in Kind Words starts off with a single sticker out of a possible thirty, and the only way to gain more stickers is to receive them from other users through the two uses mentioned. It’s also encouraged, right in the tutorial, to send stickers as often as you’re able! However, there’s no penalty for not sending stickers, nor any reward for sending lots of stickers. You are merely sending stickers to the void, hoping that they are welcome. But perhaps, amidst our many sheets of sticker-based-love-language, what we’re really flipping for is gift-giving and gratitude. Let’s science some stickers.
Gift-giving, for these purposes, can be summarized with three obligations from Marcel Mauss: the obligation to give, receive, and repay, historically visible in the oldest behaviors of humans. Mauss posits that, societally, we have largely been able to progress through our peacekeeping efforts, which began, and persevere, in the acts of gift-giving. The same cycle can still be seen in Kind Words, and without other sociological or societal barriers. As mentioned, responders can give a sticker to the requester, which the requester receives. The requester can then send, or repay, the responder a sticker as thanks for their letter. Assuming all parties send stickers whenever possible (and why wouldn’t you, they’re ADORABLE), the cycle of gift-giving is completed with every full exchange.
It’s a perpetuating cycle, too. When someone received kindness or generosity, like a gift, they are inspired to do likewise, if not more. While the process is limited to only a single person at a time in the letter-writing mechanic of Kind Words, that is still a cycle completed and easily perpetuated.
Aside from the cycle, our brain’s reward centers are triggered when we receive a gift, encouragement, or assistance from another. When our brains are riding that high, we’re that much more likely to reciprocate and help someone else, and others (generally the requesters in Kind Words) bear witness to that kindness and may be inspired to act kindly. Studies have also shown that “kindness to…weak [social] ties…have equally positive effects on happiness.”
It’s a simple conclusion, but the act of giving gifts is in line with our societal origins, and it doesn’t matter that we’re giving these gifts to, or receiving them from, complete strangers. We still get the warm fuzzies from receiving, and we are inclined to spread those warm fuzzies to others as a result. Results: stickers equal scientific happiness. Also, they’re cute as hell, there’s gotta be some science there, too. Someone else get on that.
All throughout Kind Words, as long as you don’t mute your system or the program itself, users are awash in low-fidelity (lo-fi) music. Lo-fi music, by definition, is defined by the audibly imperfect elements of the recording process, sometimes as a deliberate choice. Its popularized existence now can be attributed to 24/7 playlists on YouTube, primarily to chill, study, or sleep to. In the case of Kind Words, Clark Aboud’s lo-fi, chill score makes a perfect playlist to write letters to. Why? Because science, that’s why.
Lo-fi music falls into the “low-arousal” category of music, in that it has less going on that more intense, high-arousal music. There’s nothing wrong with high-arousal music, but it is proven to be more distracting, forcing listeners, unconsciously or otherwise, to focus on the music rather than their tasks at hand. There’s a sweet spot for low-arousal concentration music, posits Samuel Mehr, a Harvard researcher in the Department of Psychology who studies how the brain perceives music: “aesthetically pleasing enough that it’s fine to listen to them for long periods of time, but not so aesthetically pleasing that you want to stop everything and just listen.”
Generally speaking, what makes lo-fi, or other work-based playlists, so effective is their neutrality. According to Teresa Lesiuk, director and associate professor of music therapy at the University of Miami’s Frost School of music, ideal work music doesn’t inspire feelings that are too positive or negative. They lack lyrics, and they generally have a middling tempo: a tempo not so slow that it relaxes listeners completely, nor so fast that it amps its listeners up.
The imperfections that define lo-fi also contribute to one of its strongest elements: the blanket. Vinyl sizzle and tape grain, staples of lo-fi, provide a high-frequency hum that lays over the other sounds, muffling the auditory shock that instruments (think snare drum or guitar strum) would usually give. This allows listeners to hear the music without the punch of musical surprise, maximizing immersion into the music and, in the case of Kind Words and otherwise, the tasks it serves as background for.
Most music in games is designed to be in the background: to set the stage, set the mood, or compliment a character or conflict. The lo-fi music in Kind Words is intentionally composed to fade into the background and compliment the whole experience. The chill beats brush against your brain as you more fully concentrate on the main task at hand: helping others, or finding the words to ask for help yourself.
Kind Words is a thing of scientific beauty. It makes us feel great by doling out advice, helps us grow as people through our own advice, makes the act of asking for help more accessible than ever, presents an accessible, no-strings-attached avenue to fulfill our love of exchanging and receiving gifts, and with a curated playlist designed to maximize our concentration for the mission of Kind Words. Every piece of the experience is designed to be the most accessible, most wonderful, most scientifically-proven, most kind experiment in what people would do for a stranger, and what gain by being kind to strangers.
After such a tumultuous time as 2020, I am reminded of Patton Oswalt’s touching sign-off from his special, Annihilation: “It’s chaos. Be kind.” Even if it feels small, even if you don’t think you can help them, even if you think they already have that sticker…it may not feel like enough, but kindness is not measured by its widespread impact, but by its existence. Put some more out there. The Mail Deer is always ready to deliver.
