I came across an interesting study that demonstrates that, within a population of people being tracked, they are speaking less and less each year. The study by Pfeifer, V. A., & Mehl, M. R. (2026) found that the population of people under the age of 25 was, in fact, having fewer conversations throughout the day. This trend seems to be consistent over time.
There are several reasons this matters.
First, conversation helps us think. Human thought is remarkably dependent on language. When you try to explain something to another person, vague intuitions have to become sentences. Contradictions become visible. Assumptions that felt obvious suddenly need justification. This is why saying, "Let me talk this through," genuinely works. The other person is partly functioning as an external cognitive system.
Second, conversation calibrates reality. Alone, you can construct an internally coherent interpretation of almost anything. Other people introduce friction. They say, "I don’t think that’s what happened," "Have you considered this?" or simply look confused. Conversation continuously tests our private models against other human beings’ models. In that sense, it is one of our most important defenses against self-deception.
Third, conversation regulates emotion. Humans are deeply social mammals. Describing something frightening, painful, exciting, or confusing to another person often changes the experience itself. The event has not changed, but the brain is no longer processing it entirely alone. Another person’s attention, facial expressions, tone, questions, and reassurance can help regulate stress and uncertainty.
Fourth, conversation creates relationships. Relationships are not maintained merely by exchanging useful information. Much human conversation is apparently "unnecessary": jokes, stories, gossip, observations about the weather, remembering something that happened twenty years ago. Yet these exchanges continually communicate something more fundamental:
"I see you. You see me. We still belong to one another."
That may be much of the actual purpose of everyday conversation.
Fifth, conversation creates identity. We partly discover who we are by explaining ourselves. Someone asks what you believe, what happened, why you made a decision, what you want next. In answering, you construct a narrative about yourself. Other people then accept, challenge, modify, or reinforce that narrative. The self is therefore not entirely something sitting privately inside the skull. Some portion of it is constructed socially.
And finally, conversation is how human intelligence became collective intelligence. One human brain is impressive. Thousands of brains capable of exchanging ideas are qualitatively different. Language allows knowledge to survive the individual. Conversation allows ideas to be corrected and recombined. Writing extends that conversation across centuries. Civilization itself is largely accumulated conversation.
This makes me think there is an interesting danger in the modern world. We have become extraordinarily good at receiving language without participating in conversation. Podcasts, videos, social media, television, articles, and now AI can fill virtually every silent moment with words.
But consuming language is not the same thing as talking with another human being.
Conversation requires you to formulate your own thoughts, notice another person’s reactions, tolerate disagreement, repair misunderstandings, wait your turn, read emotion, change your mind, and expose some portion of your internal world to another person.
Those may not be incidental features of conversation.
They may be what conversation is for.
Pfeifer, V. A., & Mehl, M. R. (2026). Sliding Into Silence? We Are Speaking 300 Daily Words Fewer Every Year. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 21(4), 447-449. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916261425131.
