{"id":1606,"date":"2026-07-27T11:13:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T11:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1606"},"modified":"2026-07-27T11:13:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T11:13:31","slug":"people-around-the-world-are-talking-less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1606","title":{"rendered":"People Around the World Are Talking Less"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In Europe in the 1700s, coffeehouses were sources of coffee, but also conversation. As the MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle points out in her 2016 book, Reclaiming Conversation<\/em>, many people went to coffeehouses specifically to have rich, deep, sometimes even confrontational discussions: She quotes the British essayist and politician Joseph Addison, who wrote in 1714, \u201cI have taken a particular Care never to be of the same Opinion with the Man I conversed with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Would You Go Back to a Time Before Smartphones If You Could?<\/a><\/p>\n

Contrast this with how, some 300 years later, I engage with my<\/em> local coffeehouse, Starbucks. I open the app at home and order a latte, then whirl my Honda through the drive-through and collect my drink from an employee, who says, \u201cHave a nice day.\u201d No conversation\u2014just caffeine.<\/p>\n

This new way of obtaining java is part of why, according to a recent study published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science<\/em>, people now are talking less and less. For the study, the psychologists Valeria Pfeifer, of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and Matthias Mehl, of the University of Arizona, analyzed data from thousands of participants in the United States, Mexico, Australia, and Europe. The subjects carried around a device that randomly recorded sound bites of their speech throughout the day. In 2005, when the studies began, the average number of words that each participant spoke in a day was 16,632; in 2019, when the research concluded, the average was 11,900. Each year, the participants spoke about 338 fewer words a day than they did in the previous year, amounting to a decline of about 28 percent over the entire time period.<\/p>\n

From what I can tell, two main reasons seem to be driving this gradual silencing. The first is that conversation requires, at the very least, the presence of another person. But during the study period, people almost everywhere spent more and more time alone\u2014a trend that only accelerated after the study ended, as the pandemic drove millions of people into further isolation. One major paper found that from 2003 to 2019, the portion of free time that Americans spent alone grew from about 44 to about 49 percent\u2014which may sound like a small increase until you consider that the study excludes time spent working, sleeping, and grooming. In 2006, 21 percent of respondents to a survey in 21 European countries said they got together daily with friends; by 2022, the number was just 12 percent.<\/p>\n

The other big factor is the rise of digital communication, such as texting and social media, as well as online shopping, ordering, and many, many other -ing<\/em>s. A generation ago, many of the tasks of daily life required conversations: with the grocery-store cashier, the receptionist at the doctor\u2019s office, the host at the neighborhood restaurant. But today, Pfeifer told me, \u201cyou can reserve a table using an app as opposed to calling the restaurant.\u201d She added, \u201cThe conversations you have with strangers or maybe people that you don\u2019t know as well\u2014the opportunities for those just seem to have declined a lot in recent years.\u201d Opportunities for speaking with people one does <\/em>know have also declined, as people tend to send a text or DM instead of calling a friend on the phone. (Indeed, when Pfeifer and Mehl analyzed their data by age group, they found that people under the age of 25, who presumably text more because of their well-known aversion to phone calls, had lost even more<\/em> words a year than those over 25.)<\/p>\n

Whatever the reasons for the decline of talking, it could have negative consequences for mental health. Turkle said that, unlike texting or emailing, face-to-face conversation builds empathy: \u201cWe experience the emotion of conversation from within our bodies.\u201d In her book, she points to a study in which researchers compared college friends who communicated face-to-face, and by videochat, audio chat, and online instant messaging. \u201cIn-person conversation led to the most emotional connection,\u201d she writes, \u201cand online messaging led to the least.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The MAGA Movement\u2019s New British Crush<\/a><\/p>\n

Even the loss of relatively shallow conversations can be harmful. Gillian Sandstrom, a psychologist at the University of Sussex and the author of Once Upon a Stranger<\/em>, studies \u201cweak ties,\u201d or the people we talk with casually throughout the day. She has found that although these interactions might seem meaningless, they boost our sense of well-being, making us feel part of something bigger, even if we\u2019re just buying milk or chatting with a colleague at the office coffee maker. And when we have fewer of these exchanges, we miss them: A recent study published in the journal Science<\/em>, for example, found that remote workers spent more time alone each workday and also experienced more mental distress than in-person workers. The effects were especially pronounced if the remote worker also lived solo. Talking less can also create a self-reinforcing cycle. When we don\u2019t practice having small interactions, Sandstrom told me, \u201cthen we feel more anxious, and then we don\u2019t want to do it.\u201d But these casual interactions sometimes lead to big, important relationships: \u201cHow will I find my best friend that I don\u2019t know that I have if I\u2019m too nervous to talk to people?\u201d<\/p>\n

Declines in speech are also a problem, Pfeifer said, because talking exercises the brain differently than texting does. When you have a conversation, your working memory has to retain both what the other person is telling you and what you\u2019re planning to say in response. An in-person discussion is even more complicated: You also have to monitor your body posture and facial expressions so that you react appropriately to what the other person says. When you\u2019re talking face-to-face, you can\u2019t mutter \u201cwhat the hell\u201d while you type out \u201csounds great!\u201d Plus, Pfeifer said, in a verbal conversation, you can\u2019t edit or read back what was said, which means you organize your thoughts differently or perhaps try out some ideas you\u2019re not willing to chisel in stone quite yet.<\/p>\n

When conversation skills get rusty, other cognitive processes might erode, too, Pfeifer told me. Many people struggle with their attention span, she said, and that could be partly because we don\u2019t have as many chances as we once did to try to follow along as someone tells a lengthy, complicated story. When so much communication happens digitally, she said, \u201cwe\u2019re essentially outsourcing a lot of the way our brain works into a device.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I use the Starbucks app and similar shortcuts, it\u2019s typically because I don\u2019t want to face the uncomfortable spontaneity of other humans. What if they say something weird\u2014or I do? <\/em>But, considering this research, I might let more of my own clumsy comments fly and be more receptive to the ones that come my way. I\u2019d rather say something weird, I think, than not say anything at all.<\/p>\n

When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting <\/em>The Atlantic.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

Read more Christopher Nolan\u2019s God-Haunted Odyssey<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent study found that people spoke fewer words a day in 2019 than in 2005. 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