Cynthia, 30, doesn’t like small talk or, as they have known each other all their lives, inconsequential elevator conversations. This summer, the star issue has been heat waves. Every time she took her dogs for a walk and ran into a neighbor, chatting was inevitable, much to her chagrin. “From time to time I meet another neighbor who is also walking her pets and since the dogs come to greet each other, there is no choice but to do the same,” she laments.
Being banal conversations, they may seem simple. However, there are people who find it difficult. Social networks are full of videos on this topic, there are even those who dare to give tutorials, like Broncano. The comedian and television presenter tries to explain in a YouTube tutorial how to get out of an uncomfortable situation in an elevator, although he doesn’t come up with anything concrete:
(A man) -It’s cold
(A woman) -It’s very cold
H -And the rain, it rains a lot
M -And it snows. And the worst is the wind.
The conversation will continue like this until everyone reaches their floor. “I hate those kinds of conversations,” Cynthia emphasizes. For her, it’s more of a generational issue. She believes that the refusal to interact physically with strangers and, especially, to talk about banalities, is quite widespread among younger people.
Gemma González, 20, says that when she sees that she is about to cross paths with a neighbor, she cringes. That is, shame. She explains that it bothers her when she is looking at her cell phone and someone unknown interrupts her to talk to her. González also believes that it is a question of age, because when she goes out for a walk with her grandmother, she knows the lives of all the neighbors. Her partner, Stiven Ojeda, believes that the situation is even worse for the little ones: she assures that they should be told to stop looking at their cell phones to even have a family chat.
So, people don’t communicate like they used to? For Juan Manuel Aguado, professor of Communication and specialist in digital media, it is not that these types of conversations are disappearing, but that they have moved to other digital spaces, such as Twitch. Thus, small talks occur online and not in a physical place.
“This is complemented by the fact that the cell phone is a magnificent shield to create a bubble of privacy in public spaces,” explains Aguado. The simple gesture of lowering the head makes it easier for people who do it to isolate themselves from the physical context in which they operate and to socialize in an online context, points out the professor.
Alejandro Martínez is not yet thirty and believes that younger people need an explicit agreement to approach strangers or flirt. “It’s like talking to a person without their consent is frowned upon because you think you are violating their privacy,” he says.
If previously private behaviors were related to private spaces and public behaviors to public spaces, studies from 2009 began to indicate a paradigm shift, explains Aguado. “It was not the space that determined the type of behavior but whether or not you were known. So one could have private behaviors in public spaces as long as anonymity was guaranteed and if there was no anonymity, then there were public behaviors,” he says.
In addition, the network allows you actions that are not so simple in the physical world, such as disappearing, disguising yourself, being another way… All this gives a security that does not occur in the “real” environment. Aguado defends that the argument that there used to be magazines or books in which people were engrossed is not valid. “You don’t get into an elevator and pick up the newspaper,” he points out ironically.
“I say hello in the park, although I don’t know anyone, who throws out the trash at the same time as me…. but I think it’s a way of being. I talk to anyone even if I don’t know them. The friends I made when I was young waiting for the bus or in line at the bakery…,” says Marta Barja, belonging to the baby boom generation.
However, Lola, the same age as Marta, says that at work, if no one talks to her, she starts looking at her cell phone. “In the hospital we use our cell phones a lot when there is not much work. But we also socialize a lot with each other. Also with the rest of the people, patients, etc. When we go out somewhere to expand we usually talk a lot and leave our cell phones aside,” she says.
Aguado explains that the use of the mobile phone as a shield has deepened a process that began decades ago in large cities. “It is about the formalization of social life. You no longer relate to a flesh and blood person, in quotes, but someone who is a formal entity. It can be a citizen, a bus driver, a subway security guard, etc.,” he points out. Therefore, we do not relate as people as such, but rather a functional link of user or client, among others, is established.
Ruth, a woman from Madrid who is over 30, has noticed this change. She points out that there are no longer small stores where you knew the clerks. Now you go to a large supermarket and every day the person who serves you is different. She believes it also depends on where you live. “In New York there are places where you directly deal with a screen. They give you food in a locker, you don’t ask anyone, you don’t talk to anyone,” she says.
“Look it up on Maps” or “Why don’t you look it up on Google?” Surely they are phrases that some have said or thought after being asked about something. Even obvious questions that have a function of courtesy or showing interest in the person rather than logic can bother you, such as the typical “How are you?” “Well, how am I going to be?”, some are indignant.
In a 2021 study, the American Psychological Association explained that people benefit from deep, meaningful conversations that help us forge connections with each other. However, many times, these conversations are limited to small talks for fear of being intrusive into other people’s lives. On the other hand, the University of Wellington defends in a study that elevator conversations are important because “they help grease communication” in spaces such as the workplace, for example.
In a modern society where even the last word seems to have to be useful, a movement against small talks has been born. Especially in the English-speaking world, there are meetings where you can only talk about interesting topics. An example of this is the Meet Up website, a community of more than 7,000 members based in London.
At Meet Up there are events on various topics: Fun, Self-exploration, Self-help and personal improvement, Social, Conversation, Social networks, Intellectual discussions, Social anxiety, Confidence and self-esteem, Making new friends and so on. No talk about time.
Meet Up events can be in person or online. Some of the debates they have scheduled in the coming days are: ‘A philosophical analysis of freedom of expression and the first amendment’ in New York or ‘Case of the sins of the father that haunt families: what happens to the children of the murderers?’
In the United Arab Emirates they started a movement called ‘End Small Talk’. Since the pandemic began, they have been inactive, but they held regular meetings in which they discussed “intellectual” or “meaningful” topics. At each meeting there was a list of topics to discuss. One of them, for example, was “does free will exist?” Talking about the weather could be offensive.
Aguado believes that there is no need to be apocalyptic, since both sides have their advantages and disadvantages. Back when community was more important, there were very close ties between people, but also little intimacy. Now there is more freedom of choice, but the feeling of loneliness is also growing. “Other spaces for socialization are emerging,” he says. Thus, “we already meet that social need that we have, but in a different way,” he concludes.