People Around the World Are Talking Less
A study published in Perspectives on Psychological Science indicates that daily word counts for individuals have declined by approximately 28% between 2005 and 2019. The author suggests that the rise of digital interactions and automated service models has reduced the frequency of spontaneous human conversation.
Why it matters
This decline in verbal communication may signal a broader shift in social cohesion and the quality of human connection in an increasingly digitized society.
A recent study found that people spoke fewer words a day in 2019 than in 2005. Why?
Matteo Giuseppe Pani / The Atlantic July 27, 2026, 7 AM ET Share Save In Europe in the 1700s, coffeehouses were sources of coffee, but also conversation. As the MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle points out in her 2016 book, Reclaiming Conversation , many people went to coffeehouses specifically to have rich, deep, sometimes even confrontational discussions: She quotes the British essayist and politician Joseph Addison, who wrote in 1714, “I have taken a particular Care never to be of the same Opinion with the Man I conversed with.”
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