Revisionist History - Why We Need Small Talk from The Art of Small Talk

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

Here’s a clip from a Pushkin Industries audiobook that you may enjoy: The Art of Small Talk. Hilarious and practical advice for how to up your small talk game from comedians, actors and self-appointed experts on chit-chat, Casey Wilson and Jessica St. Clair. Casey and Jessica share six simple rules for how to engage in small talk and achieve the connectedness we all crave with any and everyone. Enjoy this clip from The Art of Small Talk, featuring Malcolm. And if you’re interested in hearing more small talk tips, get the complete audiobook at: Pushkin: https://www.pushkin.fm/audiobooks/the-art-of-small-talk Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/309by6YVsUZED5MhGlV0H8?si=TDPcSzeWQZKuggmkDRNh9g Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Art-of-Small-Talk-Audiobook/B0CPM98G3J Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/the-art-of-small-talk-go-shallow-to-go-deep/id1737294114  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, hello, Revisionist History listeners. Today we're diving into the world of human interaction, where the smallest of exchanges can have profound impacts on our lives. That's right, we're talking small talk. For the latest Pushkin audiobook, I was interviewed by comedians and actresses Casey Wilson and Jessica St. Clair. In The Art of Small Talk, they explore the joy of everyday conversations, helping listeners turn the mundane into magic through what some might call idle chit-chat. They have such great chemistry and say such insightful things that it makes for an incredibly entertaining audiobook. So I'm happy to share a clip of my contribution

to the project right now. And remember, you can purchase The Art of Small Talk at pushkin.fm slash audiobook. So let's sit back, relax, and learn from the masters of small talk, Casey Wilson and Jessica St. Clair. Take it away. Chapter 1. Why We Need Small Talk Much has been made of self-care in the last decade. Hydration here, yoga there, gratitude journaling everywhere. It can be exhausting. And when we don't follow the so-called rules, we often feel guilty, which has the reverse outcome for our overall well-being.

Jess and I believe that small talk is both the easiest and most important form of self-care because of its proven benefits on our mental and physical health. Here's psychologist, author, and social science columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Susan Pinker, giving her TED Talk, The Secret to Living Longer Could Be Your Social Life. Face-to-face contact releases a whole cascade of neurotransmitters.

And like a vaccine, they protect you now in the present and well into the future. So simply making eye contact with somebody, shaking hands, giving somebody a high five is enough to release oxytocin, which increases your level of trust and it lowers your cortisol levels. So it lowers your stress and dopamine is generated, which gives us a little high and it kills pain. It's like a naturally produced morphine. It kills pain. Okay, so this all makes sense to me because small talk is why I no longer fear the dentist. For my entire life, I have been absolutely terrified of the dentist because when I was

little, I got slapped for, shocker, talking too much in the chair. I used to go under anesthesia for root canals and I had to get laughing gas for cleanings I was so scared. What? For cleanings? Is that even allowed? For a price. So it's off-menu? I never claimed to be relatable. Anyway, that's all in the past, because this year, I finally found a dental hygienist—shout out to Darwin—who likes the same TV shows as I do. Once he and I get to chatting, I'm too distracted by the feel-good hormones

rushing through my body that I'm no longer scared. At all. Small talking with my new hygienist is my new laughing gas. If anyone could maintain a steady stream of combo while getting their teeth cleaned, it is you. It's hard with all those sharp tools in your mouth, but I make it work. What an odd and yet beautiful endorsement of small talk. It might be time for an intervention because Jessica and I are addicted to small talk, which is okay because as addictions go, and I have several,

small talk is a great one to have because it gets you high as hell and it's free. And we're in good company, Case. Comedic legend with hair like spun gold, Amy Poehler also takes advantage of every opportunity she gets to use small talk. I think any time you can say thank you. Thank you for helping. Thank you for coming. I see how hard you're working.

You're doing a great job. Any kind of version of that, the tiniest bit of that. I mean, you can say that and you can keep moving. You don't have to, but that little arm squeeze as it were can go a long way. And I know for me, when someone does it for me, it's like getting your tank filled. Small talk does a body good. You'll be happy to hear that small talk doesn't even have to be actual talk. We'll delve further into this later on, but a study co-authored by psychology professor Elizabeth Dunn

from the University of British Columbia discovered that even nonverbal interactions with strangers like smiling and making eye contact resulted in feelings of belonging and increased happiness. And do you know what increased feelings of belonging and happiness lead to? A longer life. Longevity is having a moment, hopefully a long moment, because as it turns out, the majority of us are searching for that magical formula to keep us on this rock a little longer.

Which I'm personally not as concerned with because I believe in past and future lives, so I know there's more where this came from. Casey, careful! And while diet, exercise, and environment have long been known factors towards longevity, Susan Pinker also says that social interaction, including small talk, is the number one secret to living a longer life. Number one. Number one. And yet, not to be a bummer, but as a society, we have never been more siloed off and isolated. And apparently, while our collective mental health has been fraying for a while, it got so much worse in 2020. Here's Docker Keltner, professor of psychology and the host of the podcast, The Science of Happiness. effects that it has had, in addition to like stunting academic growth in young kids, which is now well-documented, is it has stunted our emotional connections with others, right? And

this is just the very fabric of our social lives is to laugh with each other and cry with each other and touch each other, hug each other, high-five each other. Newsflash, screens are bad for you. Now, normally, Jess, I got to tell you something. I am terrified of teens. Oh, me too. I don't like them. Especially on Halloween. But in this case, I feel bad for them because the increase in screen time for everyone seems to have affected teens the worst.

Common Sense Media did a study with the University of Michigan in 2023, which found that on a typical day, half of U.S. teens receive almost 250 notifications on their phones, about a quarter of them during the school day. That's about as many texts as I send my husband a day. Sadly, many of them remain unread. Just text me, Jess. You know I'll hit you right back. Unless I'm disassociating in the bargain aisle of a TJ Maxx looking for oversized undies. You can never have too many.

But this is an incredibly serious problem for young people. According to the Wall Street Journal, some colleges are actually teaching classes on small talk because young adults coming out of the pandemic have literally forgotten how to strike up a conversation. Strange case. You and I haven't had any incoming requests to teach any of those courses. Maybe that's because I spent most of my time at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts

flopping around on the floor, sucking my thumb, and pretending to be a piece of seaweed. You paid $175,000 for that, didn't you? Talk about not getting a return on your investment. It's not just young people who are feeling the effects of this disconnection. Studies show that— You love saying studies show, don't you? I really do. And I notice you never really follow it up with what studies and where,

which I respect. Continue. Studies show that in 2023, one in three adults aged 50 to 80 reported feeling isolated from others, which contributed to them experiencing fair to poor health. The U.S. Surgeon General has warned against what he calls an epidemic of loneliness. But it's not just screens that are to blame. Our boss, if anyone can believe it, is Malcolm Gladwell,

journalist and author of many New York Times bestsellers, including a book called Talking to Strangers. He spoke to us about the hurdles society is up against because of our lack of connection and how as a culture, we've shifted from a front porch to a backyard culture where we frantically build hedges to ensure we will never come into contact with a neighbor as long as we both shall live.

I remember when I was little, Jess, people used to do something absolutely horrifying and pop by. Yes, just pop on over unannounced. And this felt welcome and fun. But today you'd be locked up for that. Growing up in New Jersey, my family used to eat dinner on our front porch and chat with every stranger who strolled by. We are still close friends with all of our neighbors, past and present. But these days, we build up these hedges and hope to never get even so much as a glimpse of another person. And God forbid someone should

knock on the door. Whenever my daughter and I hear a sudden knock, we both freeze and pray the offender will just go away. Unless, of course, it's an Amazon driver and then I want all the things I bought to fill the agonizing void of loneliness. This is a true story. My friend, the comedy writer Gary Gennetti, once moved after his husband said hello to a neighbor. One high and he was gone. That's how much he dreaded interacting with them. They moved. Our world seems to be moving at the speed of light. We're overwhelmed. We're overscheduled and overworked, which only makes my ADHD worse. Wait, what were we talking about?

I don't know. Oh, right. We're moving too quickly. The idea of stopping to chat with another person often feels inconceivable with all we have on our plates. People feel like they don't have time for the tiny pleasantries we all so desperately need. Malcolm also talked about another, more surprising culprit for the death of small talk. perfect for this. They're an opportunity to go up to someone. You can share a cigarette. You can light a cigarette. It's something you do with your hands, which you need to do. But more than that, it allows for pauses, right? If I want to pause, I stop and I take a puff of my cigarette, right? And your mouth is occupied. You can't talk, right? And the other person's not expecting

you to talk because no one talks when they're pulling they're pulling on a cigarette so it's perfect you get so you can build in you can build your conversation around this kind of prop and it kind of lowers anxiety a little too when you're pulling in and you can face outward and not have to be like staring at each other we lost the prop and it's sexy and it's sexy and it's sexy. And it's sexy. And it's sexy. The collateral damage from the ending of smoking is really quite considerable. I thought a lot about this, actually. Yeah. We gained something immeasurable, which was seven more years of life on average.

But we did lose a lot. Not as much as we gained, but still, like, it's no use pretending. This was a cost-free exercise in public health advancement. So Malcolm's saying the very thing that was killing us was also keeping us alive? Yep. And now I want a cigarette. You guys can't smoke in here. Nathan, we know! I was joking, Nathan!

So Jess, we now know that small talk may be the key to keeping us alive. So why aren't people doing it? The answer is simple. People hate it.