Words?

August 1st, 2026| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Apparently, people speak fewer words a day in 2019 than they did in 2005. So claimeth psychology researchers from Universities of Missouri–Kansas City and Arizona, in “Sliding Into Silence? We Are Speaking 300 Daily Words Fewer Every Year,” published recently in Perspectives on Psychological Science.

We aren’t just missing those long conversations; we are losing thousands of small, incidental daily interactions (like chatting with a cashier or neighbor), which can quietly impact long-term social connection and well-being. No sitting around in coffeehouses, no lounging in marketplaces, no hanging out around the copier at the office. Nope. We don’t have much to talk about, so we don’t.

Participants (2,000 of them, from the USA, Mexico, Australia, and Europe) wore a small, portable audio recorder tucked into a pocket or clipped on a belt throughout their day-to-day activities. None of them knew their daily word count was being measured, ruling out any tendency to talk more or less for the study. And, to protect privacy and yield a representative sample without recording a person’s entire day, the device automatically recorded short ambient audio snippets (about 30 seconds) every 12 to 12.5 minutes (participants could not predict or see when the device was recording).

The researchers then transcribed the spoken words captured within those 30-second audio intervals to mathematically project total daily spoken words. Analyzing this audio data, collected between 2005 and 2019, they discovered that people speak about 300 to 338 fewer words per day each year compared to the year before. Over the course of a year, that drop adds up to over 120,000 fewer spoken words annually.

While adults under 25 experienced a steeper decline, the trend showed up across all age groups (sampled from ages 10 to 94).

Speculated Olga Khazan in The Atlantic on the reasons for this phenomenon:

The first reason is that conversation requires, at the very least, the presence of another person. But during the study period, people almost everywhere spent more and more time alone—a trend that only accelerated after the study ended, as the pandemic drove millions of people into further isolation.”

Loners we have become.

Khazan:

The other big factor is the rise of digital communication, such as texting and social media, as well as online shopping, ordering, etc. A generation ago, many of the tasks of daily life required conversations: with the grocery-store cashier, the receptionist at the doctor’s office, the host at the neighborhood restaurant. But today, you can even reserve a table using an app as opposed to calling the restaurant.”

All that’s well and good. But the Bible says you can glorify God without words.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the work of His hands is announced by the sky.
Day after day it pours forth speech,
and night after night it proclaims knowledge.
There is no speech, and there are no words;
their voice is not heard;
[but] through all the earth their sound has gone out,
and to the end of the world their utterances.
Psalm 19:1–4

The obedience of the planets (especially of the sun in the following verses) to the ordained path set for them by God.

But that path of God’s word, we need to follow faithfully, too.

In what [manner] can a young [person] maintain his path pure? By keeping [it] according to Your word.
In Your statutes I will be delighted; I will not forget Your word.
A lamp to my feet is Your word, and a light to my pathway.
Psalm 119: 9, 16, 105

SOURCES (of ideas, numbers, and words): Study Finds; Talker Research