We’re talking less than ever. It’s damaging our health—and how we work

A quiet but meaningful shift is happening in how people communicate—and most organizations don’t yet recognize its health and business implications. Over the past 15 years, research shows that people are speaking hundreds of fewer words per day, resulting in a sizable decline in regular conversation. What feels incremental at the individual level adds up to something much larger: millions of words, and thousands of interactions, disappearing from daily life. This is not just a linguistic trend. It’s a human health issue. Spoken conversation is one of the primary ways people build relationships, process emotion, align understanding, flag concerns, and deepen connection. When we speak less, we connect less, learn less about each other, and weaken the social fabric that supports well-being and performance. Today, advances in artificial intelligence are making communication faster and more efficient but also, in some cases, thinner and more uniform. Further, AI can short-circuit communications altogether. For companies, this trend has important implications. Fewer spoken interactions lead to weaker team cohesion, lower psychological safety and trust, reduced well-being, and less organ…