Blaming The Web For The Decline In Small Talk Ability

Too Much Free Time

from the huh? dept

In what is quite a stretch of logic, the NY Times (registration blah blah) has an article suggesting that because people use the internet for fact checking during regular conversations, it’s killing our ability to engage in small talk. No, I have no idea how they got from one point (the internet being use to fact check trivia) to the other (killing our ability at small talk). Just because people no longer get to argue over Julia Roberts’ age (34) or who wrote the theme song to Malcom in the Middle (They Might Be Giants), doesn’t seem (to me) to have anything to do with killing our ability to idly chit-chat. I’ve had plenty of conversations that were helped by someone’s ability to look up some small fact online. Besides, as the article does point out, half of what you find online will turn out to be wrong anyway. Also, if there’s one thing that’s certain, no matter what facts are presented, people will still find a way to argue about them.