“Hi! How are you? Great! How’s your family? How’s your job? Did you see what the weather is going to do? (Awkward pause…) Ok see ya later!”
Ah isn’t small talk just the greatest…said no one EVER! Small talk is the worst. Have you ever went home and said, “Wow, I had some great small talk today!”?
Urban Dictionary* (yes I know not the most reputable source) defines small talk as, “Useless and unnecessary conversation attempted to fill the silence in an awkward situation.”
Google** defines it as, “polite conversation about unimportant or uncontroversial matters.”
We don’t like small talk because we feel like it is a waste of time and we have better things to do. Yes, I agree with this and it’s why I avoid small talk but what if we are missing something when we avoid small talk? What if we turned small talk into big talk or real talk? Small talk is dying in today’s world but is that a bad thing? I mean, is there anybody that actually likes it? Why not just get rid of it? But by eliminating small talk we have unconsciously done away with face to face conversations.
Now you can go a whole day and completely ignore conversation or interaction with people, if you choose so. Thanks to our little pocket computers it is pretty simple. You can fake a phone call to avoid conversation. Or you can fake check the weather. Or you can leave you headphones in all day so no one talks to you. Or you can just stare at the screen all day and blatantly avoid people. Be honest. We all have done one or all of these things before. This is not some new phenomenon that we can blame on the current youth culture because adults are some of the most guilty when it comes to avoiding people by being on a phone.
The “older” adults (No I am not just calling out boomers but I am blaming us Millennials as well) want to blame cell phones for all of our problems but just think back to your childhood to a thing called MSN Messenger. Remember using this with dial-up internet? I remember talking for hours online with a girl I liked but I would avoid her at school because conversation was awkward. Then we all just moved over to Facebook Messenger and did the same thing. Now you can pick one of hundreds messaging apps/social media platforms and you will find people doing the same thing.
Or what about when texting was created and you could use T9 (look at this video of college-aged kids trying to use T9 again) to text “faster.” Then having to pay to receive a certain number of texts per month and thinking “Why don’t you just call me?” Now today texting is my go to method of communicating and calling is only if I really need something. I would say I prefer to text because I don’t want to bother anyone with a call and when I do call I hope I get voicemail so I can just leave a message. I know judge me.
I think the death of small talk has been a slow one as technology has evolved over the years. At first it seems like a great thing because I mean who likes small talk? Now we can just jump on our favorite social media app or game and escape the pain of small talk. But we all now complain when people pull out their phones to stare at them when there is any kind of pause in conversation. Hmm…
I think Small talk is actually very important social skill that we all need to develop in order to thrive in today’s culture. I am not talking about boring small talk but rather small talk that leads to real talk. Small talk that is a spark that ignites something inside of someone that causes them to open up and talk to you for hours. You all have experienced this before when someone asks just the right question and before you know it you have been talking for an hour.
Here are 3 reasons I think small talk is important:
It shows people you are human. Have you ever tried to have small talk with another human and you might as well have been talking to the dog? At least the dog would make some noise while you talked. We all have left awkward interactions with someone you didn’t know how to small talk and it was just awkward. Now compare that with people who are engaging and friendly. You make a note to find that person again at a meeting to interact with them again because it was so pleasant. The ability to have a basic conversation, ask questions, and then interact with the answers to those questions are basic life skills that everyone needs. They are skills that set you up to succeed anywhere.
Small talk causes you to think about the other person. The fancy word is Empathy! You have to listen and be present. But very few people actually listen or care what your response is and this is why I think many of us hate small talk because it just feels like pleasantries. When people ask you how you are doing, very few people actually care what your answer is. Have you ever had someone ask how you are doing, you answer then they either just keep on walking by or they respond with a “Well that’s great” even if you just said your cat died…awkward. But if you do say something other than “good” there are those people who get upset with you because you thought they actually cared about what you had to say. You are left thinking, “Then why did you ask in the first place?”
A great book to read on this topic is called: It’s Personal. The authors use the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus found in Luke 19:1-10 as a case study for how we can show people we genuinely care. It’s a short read and I would highly recommend it. In the book the authors have this to say about the importance of small talk:
“Sometimes we all need to pause and engage in seemingly small conversations. That may be especially true when the conversation is about something that interests someone else. When you make it a habit to discover another person’s interests, they become more interesting to you. And when you pause to discover another person’s interest, you will actually become more interesting.”
Small talk forces us out of our perfectionism. Now that we can communicate digitally we can create the perfect message. We can type out a message, read it, reread it, erase it, type a new one and then finally send the “perfect” message. There is no real time interaction. You don’t see the person’s face as they react to what you say. You can’t hear the tone of their voice. We all have had someone get upset at us for a text or email we sent that someone read with the wrong tone.
Face to face conversations expose us. You can hide behind a screen. A screen allows you to mask your true feelings and convey only what you want the other person to read. Not so in face to face interactions. If someone upsets you in a conversation, you face turns red, anger builds up and you can hear the quiver in your voice. The other person will know immediately that they upset you and will have to deal with it.
Some people like digital communication because you can avoid these situations and everyone can react in a calm and timely fashion but that’s not how real life works. Real life is messy.
Stop and think about why cyber-bullying is such a problem? I believe it’s because anyone can say all sorts of mean things but never have to see how those words impact the other person. I think the problem now is that people have lived and interacted so much online that they don’t understand the impact their words have in real life. You have probably seen the videos of people screaming and yelling at each other and you can’t grasp what is going on. Why doesn’t someone step in and help? I think the issue is they have forgotten how to communicate and haven’t developed empathy. It goes back to the fact that online interactions allow us to say whatever we want with really no repercussions for the most part. You can attack someone that you may never meet in real life. And with some much time spent online, many people forgot this doesn’t work in real life. We have forgotten that social media accounts don’t have feelings but the people behind them do.
As always when I speak about something I challenge myself to do the same. This past week I have been conscience about situations where small talk can take place and have tried to embrace it. Just the other day at our local YMCA I had 3 conversations with people I didn’t know and they were actually enjoyable. Why? Because without realizing it, I asked questions about their interests then listened and they did the rest. Everyone wants to talk about themselves but no one takes them time to listen.
How to turn small talk into real talk
- Ask a question you actually care to hear the answer about.
- Quit asking general questions about their job and family. Be specific.
- Ask if they are working on any cool projects at work or home.
- Ask if they are planning any family vacations or trips.
- Ask a fun question.
- Ask what books they have read. Movies they have seen.
- Did they binge watch the latest Netflix series?
- What superpower would they want?
- Stop. Look at them. Listen. BE PRESENT!
- When’s the last time you stopped doing what you were doing to listen to someone’s response to, “How are you?”
- Make eye contact. Not creepy eye contact but look at them while they are talking.
- Listen. Actually listen. Not nod your head as you think about how late you are or what you have to do next.
- Make them feel like they are the most important “task” you have at that moment, not just another task in a long list of to-dos.
You still need some help? Then check this webpage out! Vanessa Van Edwards, Lead Investigator, and her team at Science of People show you how to talk to anyone and even give you 57 conversation starters. Try some out this week.
*https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Small%20Talk **https://www.google.com/search?q=reputable&oq=reputable&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.2551j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8