It starts the moment I step out of the front door and pull the door shut behind me.

• ‘Long time since we met. Have you been away?’ I ask the lady next door who is waiting for the lift.
• At the gate, the security guard greets me. ‘How is your mother now?’ I ask him. He had gone to his village some time back to attend to her.
• Down the road, a smart, well-dressed maid is rushing off on her evening round of work. It lifts my spirits just to see her. On an impulse, I compliment her, and her thank you and smile put one on my lips too.

Small talk or chitchat, as it is commonly known, is energising in a positive way. We hardly notice all the bits of small talk we indulge in through the day, including with our family members. According to psychological studies, it makes up nearly one-third of all our speech, and that is saying something!

The Oxford English Dictionary defines small talk as “Polite conversation about unimportant or uncontroversial matters, especially as engaged in on social occasions.”

The definition sounds prosaic and not illustrative of its importance to our emotional and mental well-being. Often too, it is argued that only an interesting and productive conversation makes people happy, thus trivialising small talk. Not so. To use a food analogy, an interesting and productive conversation is like a well-balanced and nutritious meal and small talk is akin to the tasty snacks we munch between meals. But can we eat a meal every time we feel peckish or have that craving just because it is nutritious? Don’t we end up reaching for a tasty tidbit for that purpose? How can we then say that only a nutritious meal can satisfy us?

According to a study conducted by the psychologist Mathias Mehl in 2018, small talk is vital for those who live alone or are lonely. As per his findings, it is better to engage in small talk than to engage in no talk at all.

The pandemic brought out the importance of casual interaction, provided by small talk in our lives most forcefully, when the whole world was confined indoors, quarantined, and isolated. In addition to the fear of the virus, possibly even death, people grappled with financial insecurity, and the pressures of remote work among other things. Those living alone suffered the most from the lack of personal interaction with another human being, despite a surfeit of virtual interactions.

Study after study conducted during and after the pandemic confirmed how not being able to ‘snack’ on the soul-satisfying 30-second-bites of small talk was playing havoc with the mental and emotional condition of people across the social spectrum. Small talk is not about the duration, but about the topic or tone of the conversation and can sometimes be a lively chat of some length, where, for instance, one might find shared interests and experiences.

……the more people mingled with acquaintances or strangers in a day, the better their mood and sense of connection.

–says this article published during the pandemic. Do read it for a comprehensive picture on small talk. 

Surprisingly, a vast majority of people missed going to work, despite the traffic chaos and hectic work schedule, about which they used to crib endlessly before the pandemic. Needless to say, it was the chitchat with their colleagues that they were missing more than anything else. No wonder employees went back happily when companies made offline work mandatory.This is perhaps why someone living alone, especially an elderly person, might chat up the delivery boy or the housekeeping staff, sometimes even picking up an argument – all for that vital connection with another human being, and to be seen and heard. It is not for nothing that solitary confinement is considered the most severe of prison sentences.

If I were to analyse the snippets of my conversations given at the outset, they could be listed as: Catching up (my neighbour), concern (on my part) and feeling being noticed (security guard), genuine appreciation (the unknown maid) — all positive feelings, all designed to uplift both parties’ mood and sense of connection.

Among its other benefits, small talk is also one of the best icebreakers, be it at the workplace, an official meeting, social function or while waiting in a long and slow-moving queue. Imagine going to a function where you don’t know anyone other than maybe the host. You have two options: sit alone and pretend to enjoy the proceedings or strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to you. Of course, it might not strictly be a ‘conversation’, but just small talk about superficial things. The best and universal favourite topic for small talk is the ubiquitous weather. That is one thing the British got right, I guess! Some contentious topics, however, need to be avoided, including politics, finances including salaries, illness, death, and such.

From there however, it can progress — to the places where each stays, which opens other topics like homes, the rental scene, housing societies….During the course of talking, the name of a common friend or acquaintance might pop up, and that opens up more topics. And before you know, who knows, you might have even made a new friend?

Though all small talk need not lead on to a proper conversation, it has the potential to do so, especially at workplaces, meetings, and conferences. It can often lead up to better work relationships, better networking, and more productivity. New ideas, solutions to problems and more, can emerge out of intelligent and amicable small talk at workplaces. ‘Office-chat’ has been found to foster a sense of belonging and team spirit in the employees. In the era of remote work, this advantage seems to have been lost, as small talk before and between meetings, at the coffee machine or water cooler, during lunch breaks, etc., has almost vanished. Efforts to set aside a time for scheduled small talk in remote working has been found to be counterproductive.

Technology has come to our aid with conference and zoom calls, especially during the pandemic. Paradoxically, it seems to have displaced personal interaction almost entirely today, especially in the personal spaces, as we feel closer to the mobile screen than to the person sitting next to us, whether at a gathering or during a commute. Not long back, people chatted up each other on train journeys, in a long queue at the cafeteria or bank, or even in the lift.

When and how did things change so much?

While reading up material for this post, I came across an interesting study conducted on train commuters in New York to find their reaction to making small talk with their co-commuters. The study found that pluralistic ignorance — asocial psychology term, also known as collective illusion — played a part in how commuters behaved. It means that each one presumed that all the others would want to be left alone. The result? A silent train car!

During the study, a section of the commuters were given ‘assignments’ to talk to their neighbour and others told not to make small talk, and report if it made them feel happy or not. The commuters who were asked to make small talk surprisingly reported that they felt good! Do read this interesting article. I particularly liked the methodology employed here, which proves the theory of collective illusion.

Before the post gets way too lengthy, let me wind up with the observation that with so many ‘big’ benefits to its name, I would definitely not dismiss small talk as anything ‘small’, would you?

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