10 years ago, we talked a lot more. The reduction is approximately 28% in less than a decade and a half, and the pandemic probably made everything worse. What happened? And what are the consequences?
When was the last time you chatted casually with the waiter at the cafe or exchanged a few words with a neighbor for more than a few seconds?
Increasingly, the answer involves purely digital interactions. Several factors are effectively reducing the opportunities for conversation we have with family, friends and strangers. And there are consequences — social, cognitive and even in children’s development.
One of the results of technological evolution is a significant drop in the number of words we say per day. , conclude researchers from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Arizona, in a study in Sage Journals on March 20.
In 2005, according to research, a person spoke, on average, around 16,632 words daily. By 2019, that number had fallen to 11,900. The reduction is approximately 28% in less than a decade and a half. In annual terms, this means that at least 120 thousand words that would previously have been said by each person are now left unsaid.
The researchers, cited by , admit that the trend may have even worsened after the pandemic, although the data analyzed ends in 2019. isolation, the normalization of remote work, the increase in digital interactions and, more recently, the use of artificial intelligence generative such as ChatGPT may have contributed to an even greater reduction in face-to-face conversations.
The discovery came, of course, from a strong suspicion, but unexpectedly. Valeria Pfeifer, assistant professor of psychology and counseling at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and other researchers were initially studying gender differences in speaking tendency. When reviewing 22 studies, which involved more than 2 thousand participants, mainly in the United States, they realized that the most relevant phenomenon was another: people, in general, were talking less.
The participants, aged between 10 and 94, had recorded sounds from their everyday lives, allowing scientists to estimate the number of words spoken throughout the day. To see if the decline was primarily generational, the researchers divided the sample by age. The difference existed, but it did not explain everything. Among those under 25, the average reduction was 451 words per day each year. Among those over 25 years old, it was 314 words per day. Technology could help explain the bigger drop among younger people, but the fact that older adults also talk less suggests deeper changes in the way we live.
Among these changes are the decrease in multigenerational homesa breakdown of community and religious participation ea replacing face-to-face contacts with automatic solutionssuch as self-checkout boxes in supermarkets. Sending written messages is only part of the problem.
Smartphones may also be affecting the ability to concentrate, and making it more difficult to hold a long conversation — ZAP has written many times about phenomena associated with this, such as .
Pfeifer admits, however, that the relationship can work both ways: perhaps attention is decreasing because we talk less.
Experts fear that this retraction to digital spaces could worsen the loneliness. Talking to another person is not just exchanging information: it is an exercise that requires listening, interpreting, formulating a response and managing the physical and emotional reaction, all in fractions of a second. Talking helps develop skills such as knowing when to speak, when to wait and how to intervene without interrupting.
The consequences can be especially important in young children. Studies cited by researchers show that parents are talking less to babieslargely because they spend more time on their cell phones. Kaya de Barbaro, an associate professor of psychology at U. Texas, looked at families with babies, cross-referencing home audio recordings with mothers’ periods of smartphone use. When they were on their cell phones, mothers said 16% fewer words to their children. Scientific research has at the same time demonstrated that the more parents talk to their babies, the greater the children’s vocabulary tends to be and the better their school performance.
For parents, De Barbaro recommends simple gestures, such as narrating what they are doing or pointing out objects and events when they are with their babies. For adults in general, the solution can be equally simple: talk to one more person a day.
