In an age where we are seemingly attempting to make no voice go unheard, whilst pushing out our own voices on social media, one form of conversation appears to be suffering: small talk.
If you were on social media between 2016 and 2022, users were adamantly pushing against the normality of small talk, dismissing everything from questions about pet peeves to the typical, âHow are you?â Detesting small talk, and the minuscule, mundane interactions that seemed to come with it, was a trend. Young people were collectively agreeing to end small talk; they couldnât bear the nuisance of having to actively engage in conversation with a stranger in a way that wasnât useful to them.
Why am I talking about weather I can obviously see? What version of this career conversation am I going to have for the millionth time? How can I cut this conversation short so I can get out of here? These were the questions that fueled the decline of casual conversation.
While we began seeing the signs of this in the late 2010s alongside the rise of social media, the trend was exacerbated by isolation from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly, we were instructed to avoid unnecessary conversation and in-store interactions, ordering food delivery and using curbside pickup for our groceries and medications to contain the rapidly spreading virus. Though out of anyoneâs control, this shift had lasting effects greater than anyone could have anticipated.
As we reemerged into a semblance of normal life around mid-2022, masks began coming off, social distancing restrictions loosened and life started returning to what it once was, with one exception: most people didnât know how to interact with strangers anymore.
Gone were the days when you sat in your hairstylistâs chair for hours, detailing every part of your friendship breakup, crying about it all over again and asking, âBut I am totally in the right, right?â There was no more catching up with your mail carrier about his recent hip surgery or checking in to make sure he was doing all right and moving well. Most notably, gone were the days of running into high school acquaintances in public after graduation and catching up. The art of casual conversation, of interacting with people in your community who arenât in your inner circle, died.
Why Is Everyone So Awkward?
Why is it that nobody seems to know how to make conversation anymore? Recently, I saw a girl from my elementary school shopping in the same HomeGoods in my hometown. While the store has many sections, itâs difficult not to overlap with someone else when you are looking at the same items. I was looking at the wide array of colorful Hydro Flask water bottles from the storeâs newest shipment when I looked up and saw a former classmate that I have known since the fourth grade. Maybe itâs my glass-half-full perspective, but I think itâs a fun coincidence when you run into people you were never close with but always knew, especially during the middle of the Fall semester when nearly no one is home.
Anyway, once I recognized who she was (in all honesty, it initially took a minute of hard squinting because of my terrible nearsightedness), I waved and casually said, âHey, how are you? Itâs Tatiana from elementary school.â The girl looked me up and down like something straight out of a movie, I kid you not, before giving me a curt âHeyâ with an expressionless face and breaking eye contact. She didnât even walk away afterward; she just stopped looking in my general direction and stared down at her phone as if she could will my presence away.
 Maybe I am taking this to heart too muchâshe couldâve been having a bad day or had genuinely forgotten who I wasâbut I canât shake the feeling that she simply didnât want to engage in any unnecessary conversation. It felt like my âhelloâ was an inconvenience. And this seems to be a pattern for a lot of young people, especially in the latter half of Generation Z and Generation Alpha, who grew up with phones and tablets in their hands and have had access to the instant gratification of conversation on social media apps at speeds that in person human interaction could never match.
The Priority of âProtecting Your Peaceâ
Alongside the death of small talk and casual friendships, the idea of âprotecting your peaceâ has continued to trend. This notion promotes the idea that people have a right to be selective with their social (or other) obligations under the guise of guarding their overall mental well-being. In short, it has become an excuse for people to avoid showing up for others and evade prior commitments.
While the trend started positively, promoting the idea of protecting your overall health by cutting out toxic and draining friends and family members, like all social media trends, it was eventually co-opted by people who spun it into something it was not. Now, it has become the go-to excuse for someone to bail on their friends and family at the last minute and not feel guilty. This lack of responsibility and respect for important relationships has manifested in society in more ways than one, but more consequentially, it has also evolved to mean not engaging in unnecessary interactions or conversations in public. If someone feels that going to a friendâs birthday party is an inconvenience because theyâve had a long, rough day at work, then it is very likely that they feel the same about the woman at the supermarket who just asked them, âHow was your day?â
People everywhere complain about the rise of AI, the nonstop exponential development of technology and its detrimental effects on society, yet they actively participate in this culture. Furthermore, one of the main complaints by young people on social media is the âdeath of the third place,â the idea that most towns and cities no longer have open, free and accessible areas to gather in other than the public library. While this is a very valid complaint that should be looked at more thoroughly, a major driver of this decline is that young people often evade the social responsibilities that come with third places.
Think of every third place youâve seen on television (and imagine they are free for the purpose of my point, please): Central Perk on Friends, MacLarenâs Pub on How I Met Your Mother, Lukeâs Diner on Gilmore Girls, and many more. What is the one thing all these TV shows and their âhangout spotsâ have in common? The characters have ongoing, consistent relationships with the owners and workers of these establishments, and they actively engage in their community. You canât wish for a third place, or an engaged, connected society, if you are not willing to build that community yourself.
And how exactly do you start building that? Well, it starts with small talk.