Get unlimited access to everything VICE has to offer.

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

4 Magazines Delivered to Your Door

Humans Are Using Significantly Fewer Words Than They Did 20 Years Ago, Study Finds

Researchers found that daily spoken word counts have dropped by thousands over the past two decades. Is technology to blame?

Share on X (Opens in new window)X

Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Facebook

Share using Native toolsShareCopied to clipboard

We’re dealing with a loneliness epidemic and a literacy epidemic at the same time, so there is a bit of unfortunate logic to the news that, according to a team of researchers who published their findings in Perspectives on Psychological Science, the human race has spent two decades slowly whittling down the number of words we are speaking every year.

As the BBC reported, researchers at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the University of Arizona analyzed audio data from 22 studies involving more than 2,000 participants. They weren’t even trying to find this. All of this began as they were attempting to replicate the findings of an old paper on gender differences in talkativeness, but lead........

© Vice