The subway is an awkward environment. People are either super shy or super agressive, neither of which is fun to deal with. But the weirdest moments are when you make random eye contact with someone, usually followed by an immediate glance away to re-read that poster on laser surgery for the 20th time. But why don’t people make eye contact on the subway?
What’s the different between the subway and, say, a bar? Context. There is no context for a human connection on the subway. At a bar, everyone is there to socialize, and you know that people who are at bars are social people. On the subway, it’s a crapshoot of humanity, all awkwardly stuffed into a metal tube for different reasons and in different mindsets.
Context drives our experience with the world around us, especially the human world around us. For marketers, or anyone in business, the subway is an interesting case study of the power of context to confuse and disarm, which also makes it a case study of how to enlighten and encourage.
