Every year, humans speak less and less. That’s bad news, even if you hate mindless chit-chat

Silent retreats are all the rage; hotel guests are embracing ‘hushpitatility’.

But won’t this leave us more isolated? Are we becoming too quiet? As a joyless, intolerant shrew, my kneejerk answer is a predictable “if only” (writing this on a train full of happy holidaymakers isn’t helping).

But am I wrong? I find myself confronted with evidence that people are taking the expression “ say less ” literally.

A study recently reported in the Atlantic found that daily spoken word counts declined by around 300 every year between 2005 and 2019.

A sample group of 2,197 participants, aged between 10 and 94, wore devices that randomly recorded them as they went about their lives; each year, they spoke on average 338 fewer words than the year before.

For under-25s, the decline was even steeper: 451 fewer words.

Even I can see that’s worrying.

Spending time with other people is good for our brains, health and mood , while, as the US surgeon general put it so starkly in 2023 , “lacking social connection can increase the risk for premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day”.

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