Think about the last time you had a long, rambling conversation with someone. Not a quick text exchange or a voice note, but an actual back-and-forth that stretched on for a while. If you're struggling to remember, you might not be alone.
Researchers at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Arizona have found that the number of words we speak out loud to other people dropped by nearly 28 percent between 2005 and 2019. That's before the pandemic, which almost certainly made things worse.
The numbers behind the silence
What makes this study particularly interesting is the methodology. The researchers didn't just ask people how much they talk - they actually counted. By analysing data from 22 separate studies involving more than 2,000 participants who wore audio recorders in their daily lives, the team was able to track real spoken word counts over time.
Their baseline? In 2005, people were averaging around 16,632 spoken words per day. By 2019, that figure had fallen dramatically. And given everything that happened after 2020 - remote work, reduced social gatherings, the explosion of text-based communication - there's little reason to think the trend has reversed.
Why this matters more than you might think
It's easy to shrug this off as just a sign of the times. We text, we DM, we communicate in ways that simply didn't exist in 2005. But spoken conversation does things that written communication can't easily replicate. It's spontaneous, emotionally rich, and deeply connected to how we build and maintain relationships. There's a reason phone calls and face-to-face chats feel more intimate than even the most heartfelt text.
Researchers have long linked social connection and meaningful conversation to better mental health outcomes and even physical wellbeing. A steady decline in how much we actually talk to each other is worth paying attention to, even if the cause feels mundane - busier schedules, more screens, fewer shared spaces.
Something worth sitting with
Nobody is suggesting you start narrating your day or calling people instead of texting just for the sake of it. But the next time you catch yourself defaulting to a quick message when a call or a coffee might do more good, it's worth remembering that genuine conversation - the kind where someone can actually hear your voice - is becoming genuinely rarer. As reported by The Verge, the researchers' findings suggest a quiet but significant shift in how we relate to each other. And quiet, it turns out, is the operative word.
