A Payphone Experiment Is Bridging Political Divides Across America

In an era of deep political polarization, an unlikely tool is bringing Americans together: the public payphone. The project connects strangers from opposite sides of the political spectrum for spontaneous conversations.

Participants report being surprised by how much they have in common with people they assumed were their ideological opposites. "We talked for an hour about our kids, our worries about the future, our hopes," said one participant. "Politics barely came up."

“The project connects strangers from opposite sides of the political spectrum for spontaneous conversations.”

The project demonstrates that when we move past labels and talk human-to-human, we often find more that unites us than divides us.