Have you ever stopped and listened in on what people talk about these days? I will confess that I have recently and it seems that most of what people talk about has no greater purpose, no sense of knowledge being shared from one individual to the next. It is rare to find students divulging ideas concerning religious beliefs, different ideologies, or facts they have learned in school and want to express with other kids to spread their knowledge. All too often you hear kids talking only of their weekends and what they did, or who kissed who, and who did what, and so called "small talk," which I believe is mainly because of the fact that people do not enjoy silence in the midst of one another.

There is even a name for this: "awkward silences." By the name alone you can tell that silence is not a comfortable thing, unless you are alone. I wonder how many instances there have been where someone mentions the weather in a bathroom scenario, just because of the fact that it is an uncomfortable setting. They don’t really care about the person’s opinion of the weather; they just want to break the silence. I’ll own up to being guilty of this, but is pointless conversation such a bad thing? Is freedom of speech what gives us this ability to waste our time talking to strangers about the weather?

I can’t help but imagine a world somewhat like the book 1984, set in the distant future in which people are punished for "small talk" and are only allowed to talk about higher things or things relating to the importance of the human race. Imagine how much the human race would "leap" forward in new ideas and beliefs. If you could control human conversations you would essentially get everyone behind you focusing on one idea and advancing as a race.

If small talk was made illegal do you think people would have friendships in the way you think of friends today or does small talk help create the basis of friendships? David Weinberger says, "Small talk is part of the 'social grooming' that is required to create and maintain social bonds. Through small talk, people reveal contextual information that they couldn't otherwise share, particularly in a business setting. It's around the coffee machine that you're most likely to find out that your colleague was up all night with their sick child, which is why they looked like they were nodding off in a meeting."

I always liked to dabble in the thought of what life would be like if small talk was eliminated or maybe instead of eliminating it just forcing people to think about everything they said so if ever accused of thoughtless speech they could defend it. I think life would become like life in the movies, where every word or idea leads to the overall picture. Even small talk in the movies is important, allowing the person watching to get a sense of what that person is like.

Maybe without small talk people’s judgments of one another would always be skewed, because like David Weinberger said, "It's around the coffee machine that you're most likely to find out that your colleague was up all night with their sick child, which is why they looked like they were nodding off in a meeting." Small talk helps you understand a person and eliminates that awkwardness that may make people nervous. I think that if small talk became illegal people would lose their sense of identity. As much as it would help the human race to get rid of it I guess there is some value in pretending to be interested in another person by asking questions that you don’t really want to hear the answers to, but you ask them to avoid that "awkward silence."