The Number of Words You Say in a Day Is Shrinking

People are talking less than they used to. A lot less.Between 2005 and 2019, the number of words the average person uttered in a day fell by 28%. That’s according to a recent study from a team of U.S.-based researchers.“We estimated the difference at about 330 fewer words spoken per day for each year during that time period,” says Matthias Mehl, a professor of social psychology at the University of Arizona. That adds up to roughly 120,000 fewer words spoken during the course of a year, and millions of fewer words spoken during the 15-year study period. “It’s a substantial loss,” he says. The finding came about when Mehl, working alongside Valeria Pfeifer of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, analyzed audio recordings collected from more than 2,000 people—mostly Americans.

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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at TIME.