- I don't know about you, but I hate small talk.
I am terrible at it, I don't know why it exists.
So naturally I spent a day talking to strangers
Try and learn how to be a real person.
This is not helping my case.
Don't tell my mom.
Thank you to Trends by The Hustle for sponsoring this video.
So despite what it might seem like on camera,
I am terrible at talking to people.
Most of the time I'm talking to this.
But when I'm talking to people, it usually goes like this
(upbeat music)
I feel like a buffering in real life and I hate it.
Like, why do we, as a society put so much emphasis
on conversations that go nowhere.
So today in this video, we are going to figure out
why small talk exists and hopefully how to get better at it.
The side note, everybody is different.
There can be multiple medical reasons
and societal structures that stop people
from being able to communicate with each other effectively.
If whatever solution or answer I find in this video
doesn't work for you,
if it doesn't even sound appealing to you, that's okay.
We're different people.
Anyway, let's get reading.
It all started a quick search
that yielded me down a rabbit hole
of op-eds essays and self-help.
It was surprisingly difficult to find any proper research
on small talk between the wikiHow articles
and YouTube tutorials promising to cure my social anxiety.
However, I got what I needed and I'm kind of surprised
because I think that my stance on small talk has changed.
At least a little bit, I don't know.
Also, completely unrelated,
this is the Wikipedia image for small talk.
Just thought you should know.
Anyway, here is the science of smalltalk.
The study of the social value of smalltalk
traces back to the anthropologist, Dr. Bronislaw Malinowski.
In 1923, he wrote an essay called
"The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages"
where he reflected on his experiences
translating tribal languages to English.
He acknowledged that all language operates on two levels,
informational and social.
When you speak with others you're usually attempting
to inform, coordinate or express a unique thought
in a relevant social context.
It can be discussing plot lines after a movie
or informing a doctor of your symptoms.
Regardless, information in social context
are intimately intertwined
except for one outlier, phatic communication.
He described it as the case of language
used in free aimless, social intercourse.
In other words, small talk.
Small talk is special because it doesn't serve
any informational purpose.
It usually reveals something absurdly obvious
or performs a standard social script.
This is why it can feel so alien to some people
especially those whose primary focus in communication
is exchanging information
rather than participating in a social event.
However, smalltalk does serve a vital purpose
on the social level of language.
The act of engaging it is the whole point.
Malinowski believed that smalltalk originated
in opposition of silence.
It was an intentional act to seek a connection
and avoid conflict.
However, the purpose and power of smalltalk
has evolved since then.
Depending on the social context,
a different flavor of smalltalk may be expected.
How we perform in relation to that expectation
allows us to control our role in the social circumstance.
So as meaningless as small talk may seem on the surface
it can be used as a powerful tool
to define our social standing.
In other words small talk is big important, me love grammar.
And if I wanted to be dramatic, I'd say that small talk
is ingrained in humanity's DNA.
Unfortunately, not my DNA because I'm trash garbage at it.
But we do be living in a society.
So I feel inclined to get better at it.
And this is where all those self-help
and psychology articles became useful.
Now, there isn't one specific source for this list
because everybody was saying like the same thing
in different fonts.
However, I've compiled three easy ways to get better
at small talk.
First, empathetic listening.
It's a tool that can be used in crisis intervention
to better connect with people.
It boils down to making an active effort
so that your conversation partner feels heard.
There's a laundry list of ways to do this
but some easy steps are to physically engage
with the conversation and paraphrasing their words
with your understanding so you can stay on the same page.
But conversations need to feel like they're going somewhere
or else people tend to lose interest.
Asking questions are an important tool
to push a conversation forward.
A good question has more than a yes or no answer.
It should be open-ended on a topic
that the person cares about
and gives them the opportunity to express themselves.
Finally, being kind can get you a long way.
Conversation isn't a competition,
you don't need to flex or impress.
The person you're speaking with
is someone with their own complex experiences and interests.
Remembering that and letting that knowledge
drive the conversation, can get you a surprisingly long way.
So that's the theory.
Now, how can we see if it actually works?
How can we put it into practice?
Well, it's time for a garbage experiment
with sample size one.
So basically my goal is to get better
at talking to strangers, doing the small talk
with people I don't know very well.
My first thought was, why not use Omegle?
That's a website that connects you with strangers.
I did a trial run and it went about
as good as you could expect.
Hi, somebody just sent me a capital M, oh.
- I don't know what I expected.
So instead I'm going to be talking to friends of friends.
You know, just to filter out the demonetization.
And the quality of our conversations
are going to be measured on four axis.
And all of this is going to be recorded on a spreadsheet.
So I had outlined three different ways
to get better at small talk, but I wanna figure out
which one is worth focusing on first.
So I'm gonna treat them like treatments.
But now you might be wondering.
But you forgot to film any attempts
with conversing with strangers
prior to doing all of this research.
So it's not fair for you to be your own control.
Where is the science?
And that's totally correct.
Thank you for continuing to point out my flaws intranet.
So instead of like a control, I'm gonna set up
a target level of conversation based off
talking to my friends.
(upbeat music)
Look at them.
And I'll see how conversations with strangers match up.
But what are we gonna talk about?
Well, I asked you guys on Twitter for conversation topics
and I recorded it all on a spreadsheet.
And the further I get into this video
the more I sound like a robot.
Anyway, let's go.
I'm about to hop on to my first call for this thing.
And the whole day I was trying to convince myself
that I wasn't nervous, but I'm nervous now.
Oh, why did I come up with this video idea?
All right.
(phone ringing)
(upbeat music)
- Hello?
- Oops, I was muted.
- Hello, just ate a sandwich.
Oh, hello.
- Oh, hi.
- What's your favorite animal?
- I don't have one.
- Do you think Kobbalah should exist?
- I think they should just 'cause I like the idea
of things existing versus them not existing.
- Have you touched a brain?
- Yeah, well not a human brain.
- Okay.
- Not a human brain, I think it was a sheep brain.
- I had like a flock of sheep for a bit.
(sheep bleating)
- Okay, so I just finished up the first batch of calls
and I'm excited to talk to more people, I think.
I can't believe I said that I'm excited
to talk to more people.
- [Participant 1] I would be an Italian urban chief.
- Used those like really terrifying
floor polishing machines?
- 100%, there's been this like whole drama thing
at the hospital with a few of the older ladies
been stealing the machine and trying to use it
on their floors.
- Do you have a side street?
- We used to have one before the house fires.
So the stove was on for some reason.
And a pot of oil had boiled down
and it just like became this huge oil fire.
The microwave was melting.
I ran back inside for my cats.
- Well, I'm glad that you emerged from the fire safely.
- I don't know it's like this qualifies move,
but like I made notes just in case
we had nothing to talk about.
- We are very similar people, I can sense it right now.
And so I spent the day just talking with these people
I heard of tangentially in my friends lives.
They were strangers,
but it felt intimately different from Omegle
with it's disconnected weirdness.
- It was like speed dating, you know?
- [Presenter] These one-on-one talks felt like
I was getting access to the highlight reel of their lives
- Right now, it's this one, it's a snake.
My dad is really scared of snakes,
but he's also born near a snake.
- [Presenter] I got to hear the wild stuff.
- The only reason I knew the house was on fire
is because hilariously I was up late watching "Sailor Moon."
- [Presenter] The weird stuff.
- It's very squishy.
- [Presenter] And this stuff I could never imagine doing.
- On our revised room right now
we're building like a Mars Rover.
- Sure there were a few technical difficulties.
Oh, I can't hear you.
- Can you see me?
- [Presenter] Yes.
- I can't see you.
- Oh no.
But they faded to the background behind good conversation.
And by the end of the day,
and that's it.
I spent the whole day talking to strangers and
it was a good day.
My whole day was full of these warm little moments
getting to know people a little bit better.
Not just strangers, friends too.
Take a look at this graph.
This is how the various treatments lined up
against the baseline I set with Melissa and Tahoe.
From a purely numeric perspective, it would seem to suggest
that talking with strangers was just better.
However, as the day went on I came to realize that
talking with strangers versus friends
serve different purposes.
With strangers you're learning about each other
for the first time and it's exciting.
Once you get over that initial fear and hesitation
which really doesn't go away like before every call
my heart was pounding
and I seriously considered canceling calls.
But if you push through that, if you lean in
and fake it till you make it or whatever,
it's exciting, it's fun.
And it only gets better the further out you go
from your comfort zone of relatively homogenous people.
I talked to people from small towns,
people who traveled the world,
people who don't hate dog animate
and people who made it through tremendous loss.
It was like being smacked over the head
with the reminder that I'm not the only person in the world.
And I think that revelation is the reason why the trials
or chats or whatever where I was focusing
on asking questions went the best.
They had high ratings, they went on for longer.
And I generally just felt better afterwards.
Because in order to ask good questions
you need to listen and you need to learn.
And the learning about somebody new is so much fun.
This video was hard to make.
It's the hardest video I've ever had to make.
I came up with the idea forgetting
that I have social anxiety
and it only got worse after the whole Omegle thing.
But I'm also really proud of what I've done in it.
I'm not sure if it'll translate well onto video.
This could just be very boring compared to soup
or illegal olive oil.
But I put aside all those fears for a second
because I knew what I wanted.
I wanted to learn why small talk exists
and if you can get better at it.
And I think I figured it out.
I've been fully converted into a fan of small talk.
But this video just kind of reminded me
that even though learning can be really
stupidly very difficult, it's worth it.
It's a shame that I came to this revelation
during a pandemic where I can't really
talk to people naturally.
Oh, well, it's fine, bye.
Hey there, I hope you liked that video.
If you did, please consider sharing it with a friend
because it goes a long way on YouTube.
You might also like these other videos
we've made about language.
But stick around for a second because we are thanking
Trends by The Hustle for sponsoring this video.
And we're gonna do it
while watering my plants because multitasking.
All right, so Trends is the ultimate knowledge hub
from the hustle.
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Not only do we get really valuable insights
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But either way, have a lovely day.
(upbeat music)