I enjoy daily walks around my neighborhood. I live in a very small town that has grown in the several years we’ve lived here. More houses are being built, more cars are on the main residential road, and there’s a bit more foot traffic than there used to be. I make an effort to engage with folks on my walks, and I also pay attention to the communication behaviors of those walking.
Yesterday, I noticed a young man with wireless earbuds walking toward me on the same side of the street. As we got closer, he quite purposefully crossed to the other side of the street as I approached, before crossing back to the same side after passing me. Later on the same walk, another man walked by me on the same side of the street. He was also wearing wireless earbuds, but he acknowledged me and we exchanged a hello and smile as we passed each other.
Another day this week, a couple of teenage girls were walking on the other side of the street in my direction. As we got closer, one of them said “I like your dog!” and came closer to see our friendly black lab. “Looks like he likes you too!” I replied, smiling. She petted him briefly and then wished me a good night as she went on her way. I’ve also recently noticed an elderly gentleman taking a walk quite regularly. He and I have passed each other a handful of times now and acknowledged each other cordially. Yesterday, we exchanged waves from opposite sides of the street as we passed.
These days, I consider it a win to have any kind of social interaction with people I come across in my community. And my experience in this small town is miles better than when I used to take walks in the city where I worked some years back. There, almost no one looked at me or made attempt to communicate with me, despite me looking for the opportunity.
In recent years, the amount of face-to-face interaction we are having has been on a downward trend. Back in 2019, even before the pandemic hit, research out of Britain showed that the number of digital conversations Britons were having was beginning to outpace in-person communication. Isolation and loneliness, already issues in society, got a lot worse during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
A 2025 survey from the American Enterprise Institute revealed that only 40 percent of Americans report talking to their neighbors regularly (at least a few times a week), down from 59% in 2012. The drop is most pronounced among young adults (18-29): in 2012, half (51%) reported social interaction with their neighbors at least a few times a week. By 2025, that number had dropped to just 25%.
On top of that, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the average time spent socializing per day has fallen from 45 to 35 minutes in the last 20 years. And as Axios reports, the trend, though sharpest in young adults, cuts across every generation. Given these figures, it’s no surprise to learn we are speaking less words in our daily life. A 2026 study from a team of U.S.-based researchers demonstrated that between 2005 and 2019, the number of words the average person uttered fell by 28%. That’s a drop of about 330 words a day or 120,000 words over the course of a year.
So, why is this happening? There isn’t just one factor driving these communication trends. An increase in people working from home plays a part, as does the closure of traditional community spaces like coffee shops, libraries, and churches. But one of the biggest factors must certainly be our technology habits. We are getting satiated with digital interactions. All those texts, emails, social media posts, and online comments give us the illusion that we’re getting plenty of human connection. Even in 2012, just five years into the smartphone era, there was evidence emerging of this. A study published that year from researchers at the University of Maryland drew a connection between mobile phone use and prosocial behavior. The authors summarized their findings thus:
“Mobile phone use evokes feelings of connectedness to others, thereby fulfilling the basic human need to belong and subsequently reducing the need to connect with anyone else. This decreased desire for social connection negatively affects concern for other people, which will exhibit itself as reduced desire to help others.”
Obviously, all that virtual social engagement isn’t fulfilling our need for others like the real thing does. But in many cases, we can’t seem to help it. We’re hooked on these flashy screens that draw us in, day after day, while the real-world local relationships in our immediate vicinity go malnourished.
All of our digital interactions lead to another reason we’re not talking to each other as much any more. We’re more self-centered than we’ve ever been. In an age marked by the promotion of hyper-individualism, it’s easy to think it’s all about us: our preferences, our settings, our apps, our contacts and followers, our content. And artificial intelligence is only going to make this worse. AI chatbots are designed to flatter, affirm, validate, inflate, satiate, and satisfy us.
In his 1952 book How to Talk to People, speech expert Irving Lee wrote that “people can stand some coaching in the arts of talking together.” He goes on to spell out the necessary ingredients for a flourishing society:
“Without the means, the capacity, and the will to communicate, what we know as business, government, and community activities could not be.”
I think Lee hits it on the nail there: we need the means, the capacity, and the will in order to communicate. The means would be the skills needed, like knowing how to begin and end conversations, how to be a good listener, and how to seek to understand people and be understood by them. The capacity would be the desire it takes to even want to talk to others. We must have a heart and mind open and humble enough to seek out others. We must recognize our need for human beings to encourage us, inspire us, and support us. But to increase our capacity for communication with others, we’ll need to reduce how much of it we do virtually through digital means. And finally, we need the will to communicate face-to-face with other people. As Thomas Aquinas taught long ago, echoing Aristotle, the desire to choose and the will to choose are two different things. The will is making the rubber hit the road, turning a good thought into action. We must will ourselves to speak to our neighbors, encourage our co-workers, and show gratitude to those who serve us.
Human relations is not easy. Especially today, when we have so much technology offering to mediate our relationships for us. But nothing good comes easy. We’ve got to put in the hard work. A life lived in communion with others gives us a richness of existence we can’t find anywhere else. And it’s a two-way street. As you inspire and enrich others, you’ll receive those things yourself.
We’ll have a lot more to say about rediscovering and defending our relationships here at The Human Adventure. For now, share your smile, your intellect, and your beautiful, life-giving voice with someone who really needs it!
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