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 human being declined by about 28 percent. And it’s likely gotten worse post-pandemic.
Researchers actually counted the average number of words we speak (16,632 in 2005). They looked at data from 22 studies in which more than 2,000 people recorded audio of their daily lives. Over time, as ordering through apps became the norm, texting increased, and our lives became increasingly online, they found the numbers dropped dramatically. By 2019, we were speaking only 11,900 words per day.
In form of wall street journal Note, there is concern about the psychological effects of less human contact. And it’s not just about the loneliness epidemic or the risks of falling into the conspiracy theory trap, according to the study’s authors, people are also losing basic conversation skills, like how not to interrupt people.
The researchers found that younger people were more sensitive, but only slightly. People under the age of 25 speak 451 fewer words a day per year, while people over the age of 25 speak 314 fewer words a day. On average, the number of words spoken by people per day has declined by 338 per year. If this trend continues in the coming years, we may now speak less than 10,000 words per day.
However, as Valerie Friedland, professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno, points out, it is worrying. wall street journal There is no need to panic right now. Small changes can help turn things around, like parents talking to their kids more, getting a landline, and maybe even turning off the smartphone for a while during the day.
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