Researchers say we’re talking less than ever

Researchers at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Arizona say that between 2005 and 2019, the number of words we speak out loud to another person decreased. It decreased by about 28 percent. This is likely to have become worse after the pandemic.

In fact, researchers counted how many words we spoke on average (16,632 in 2005). They looked at data from 22 studies in which more than 2,000 people made audio recordings of their daily lives. Over time, as ordering through apps became the norm, texting increased, and our lives became increasingly online, they found that this number decreased dramatically. By 2019, we were only speaking 11,900 words a day.

as Wall Street Journal Notes that there is concern about Psychological effects Reduced human interaction. And it’s not just the loneliness epidemic, or the dangers of falling down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole: People are also losing basic conversation skills, according to the study’s authors, such as how not to interrupt people.

The researchers found that younger people were more susceptible, but only slightly. People under 25 speak 451 fewer words per day per year, while people over 25 lose 314 words per day. On average, the number of words people speak each day has decreased by 338 words per year. If this trend continues in the following years, we could now be speaking fewer than 10,000 words a day.

Although it’s troubling, Valerie Friedland, a linguistics professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, said Wall Street Journal There is no need to panic yet. Small changes can help turn things around, such as parents talking to their children more, or having a baby LandlineAnd maybe put Smartphone Down a little during the day.