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The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

nytimes.com

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Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#71

Post by city41 »

djsumdog wrote: post #53

I talk to myself all the time, especially when hiking or out for a walk. This can get embarrassing when you run into another person around a turn. If you are with your friend and talking, well you're just talking to your friend. When it's just you .. that must be a crazy person (unless you've got a flashing bluetooth headset or a phone in your hand I guess). I usually get real silent and then slowly pick back up as I…

I talk to myself out loud all the time. It absolutely enables me to solve problems better. When I have a particularly tough problem at work, I'll work from home specifically so I can talk it out.

I also talk things out while driving alone. I used to get embarrassed that other drivers could see me. But now a days hands free phone systems are commonplace in cars so I just talk away :)

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#72

Post by shubhamjain »

But my kind of self-talk can't be easily bucketed in either "instructional" or "motivational". I usually have elaborate scenarios playing in mind that have nothing to do with the current context. I imagine myself being a motivational speaker, or giving a big interview, or cold approaching a woman, and blurt words that I would say—sort of like an idealistic scenario where people are responding just as I want.

Honestly, it's quite distracting and I would be surprised if there's any visible upside. Sadly, there's no (easy) way to shut the brain down.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#73

Post by tayo42 »

i336_ wrote: post #48
JasonSage wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me wonder what the bounce rate for Stack Overflow questions is and what percent of visitors actually make it through the submission process.

This would actually be an answerable question, because of SO's draft mechanism. Opens new tab Sound of typing https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/296990/what-are-the... I've been thinking along the same lines for a very long time. Thanks for the inspiration to finally ask!

They've responded to questions like that before.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/5y9l9n/showerthou...

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#76

Post by keerthiko »

shubhamjain wrote: post #72

But my kind of self-talk can't be easily bucketed in either "instructional" or "motivational". I usually have elaborate scenarios playing in mind that have nothing to do with the current context. I imagine myself being a motivational speaker, or giving a big interview, or cold approaching a woman, and blurt words that I would say—sort of like an idealistic scenario where people are responding just as I want. Honestly…

I had begun to develop this habit when I was a digital nomad in foreign countries with no offline friends for a few years -- mostly a lack of offline interaction resulted in my having those with myself. I can see how this happens easily to us introvert types who don't favor a lot of in-person contact.

I found engaging my brain more actively and feeding it more stimulus helps control this. Something that can actively engage any possible downtime cycles from your brain, such as playing video games. When working, I would either sit in a cafe where people spoke the local language (that I couldn't understand) without headphones, or listen to a foreign language radio/TV show.

Whenever I zoned out of work, I could absorb this strange input that I had to think really hard what to do with. When I wanted to focus on work I could tune out the stuff I couldn't understand anyway and work.

Or of course, you can try hang out with humans in person more, but I understand that's not always preferred :)

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#77

Post by moonforeshot »

bhrgunatha wrote: post #69
__jal wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it isn't even vocalizing - I discovered that forcing things into words helps me troubleshoot after noticing that I solved my own problems after giving up and composing an email to someone to ask for help. The act of describing the problem in written form allowed me to see what I was missing. Since noticing that, I started doing it fairly, and not just with programming. At some point, I realized I was keeping…

Writing things down - or sketching or using mind-maps (not software but actually drawing your own manually) - seems to have an amazing effect on the brain. We haven't been writing long (in evolutionary terms) so I wonder why that is?

maybe writing things down frees up some resource allocation? e.g. save on the memory/disk to save some precious cache resources

lol just saying

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#78

Post by piracyde25 »

chucksmash wrote: post #30
wjdp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When writing SO questions I tend to only press the submit button 5–10% of the time before realising my error (typically something mundane). The act of putting the problem into words, along with writing up a good background of the problem (as you should for a good question) often forces an objective viewpoint/reevaluation of the problem.

Very much this. The flow for me goes: 1) I don't understand that. Let me ask StackOverflow. 2) I'm having trouble phrasing my question properly. What do you call $X? Googling ensues 3) Oh nevermind, I get it now

Damn. I thought I was the only one who does this :'D

On a serious note, this effect can be applied to our everyday problem as well. Such as when you are feeling lethargic, you'd want to write down all of your thoughts in a list to see the bigger picture and figure out how simple it can be to finish a task at hand.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#79

Post by jboggan »

mowenz wrote: post #66
gregmac wrote: post #5

This made me think of rubber duck problem solving [1][2], though it didn't mention it specifically. Talking through a problem out loud forces you to structure your thoughts in a logical way, and sometimes doing that you'll realize an obvious connection or step you missed. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging [2] http://hwrnmnbsol.livejournal.com/148664.html

Anyone's workplace promote rubber duck debugging? It seems to have a lot of positive press, and it works for me--though I'm cautious of talking to myself at work before knowing if it would come across negatively.

I haven't been in such a workplace but I wish that I would have.

Would you use "rubber ducky debugging as a service" - like a chat service that stimulated you to find your own solutions?

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#80

Post by jboggan »

gregmac wrote: post #5

This made me think of rubber duck problem solving [1][2], though it didn't mention it specifically. Talking through a problem out loud forces you to structure your thoughts in a logical way, and sometimes doing that you'll realize an obvious connection or step you missed. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging [2] http://hwrnmnbsol.livejournal.com/148664.html

What percentage of your problems do you end up solving either with rubber ducky debugging or just in the process of explaining them to someone else? I feel like 80% of the things I can't figure out on my own are solved once I start to explain them.
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