[jtms]

Not sure why others are downvoting, this is really great advice for people who have social anxiety - low risk, real enough to be meaningful, usually narrowly focused on a shared interest, prepares you for the real thing. Downvote me as well if you like, but I’d be curious why people don’t agree

[Smaug123]

It's not at all clear to me that it does prepare you for the real thing. I think one could very plausibly argue the opposite: it's so massively easy-mode that it gets you used to social interactions being easy and low-friction, and through habit it raises the barrier to practising the real thing.

[collegeburner]

Agree, I think a simpler example of how this happens is remembering names. Everybody had zoom names on screen so had "easy mode" doing this for over a year, and most people I've talked to had some difficulty remembering names since.