We’re losing 338 spoken words every day
The spoken word is in decline, according to new research from the universities of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) and Arizona.
Psychologists discovered that, since 2005, the average person has spoken less each year than the year before, by approximately 338 fewer words per day.
That’s equivalent to a yearly loss of around 120,000 words per person, representing thousands of lost human interactions. BBC Science Focus, by Hatty Willmoth.
Central Focus
Students will read a current science news article about declining spoken communication, compare it with other relevant articles, evaluate how evidence is presented in popular science journalism, and consider what may be gained or lost when spoken interaction declines.
Essential Questions
- Are people really talking less, or are they just communicating differently?
- What is lost when spoken conversation declines?
- How do journalists translate scientific findings into public claims?
- What is the relationship between language, identity, memory, and social connection?
- How should we respond as individuals, schools, and communities if face-to-face speech is declining?
Learning Objectives
Students will:
- summarize the central claim of a science news article accurately
- distinguish between a headline, a study finding, and an interpretation
- compare multiple texts on a shared theme
- evaluate the strength of evidence in journalism and research-based reporting
- discuss how technology changes communication habits
- develop a written or spoken argument using textual evidence
Core Text
Main article
- Science Focus: “We’re losing 338 spoken words every day”. The article reports on a study suggesting that average daily spoken word counts have steadily declined since 2005.
Additional Relevant Articles
These work well as companion texts because they widen the discussion beyond one headline.
1. University of Arizona: “Are we talking less? A Q&A with psychologist Matthias Mehl”
In a society increasingly shaped by self-checkouts, GPS navigation and touchscreen ordering kiosks, new research shows face-to-face conversation may be quietly fading. A new study published in Perspectives on Psychological Science suggests that people are losing 338 spoken words every year and have been for at least a decade and a half.. University of Arizona
2. Yale News: “New database offers insight into consequences of language loss”
Languages, like animal species, can go extinct. More than half of the world’s approximately 7,000 signed and spoken languages are currently endangered. And without intervention they are likely to become extinct, meaning nobody will speak or sign them any longer. YaleNews
3. Scientific American: “How Our Thoughts Shape the Way Spoken Words Evolve”
In an experiment much like a game of telephone, thousands of participants read English-language stories and rewrote them to be read by other participants, who then rewrote them for others. Only certain words from the first stories survived in the final versions. Researchers analyzed the word types speakers consistently favored, theorizing that such preferences drive language change over time. The scientists also separately analyzed two large collections of English historical texts from the past two centuries, containing more than 40 billion words—again seeing only certain types survive. Scientific American
Vocabulary
- spoken language
- social connection
- isolation
- language loss
- linguistic diversity
- evidence
- correlation
- interpretation
- media framing
- communication ecology
Lesson Sequence
1. Opening Prompt
Write this on the board:
How much of your communication in a typical day is spoken, and how much is typed? What difference does that make?
Students write a brief response in notebooks. Then ask for quick voluntary shares.
2. Headline Challenge
Display the headline from the Science Focus article:
“We’re losing 338 spoken words every day.”
Ask:
- What does this headline make you think is happening?
- What would count as evidence for this claim?
- Is the headline precise, misleading, or both?
Then have students read the article and identify:
- the main claim
- the evidence cited
- what the study actually measured
- what the journalist adds as interpretation
This is an important media literacy moment because the headline is catchy, but the underlying finding is more specific: the estimated average number of words spoken per day dropped over time in the data set.
3. First Read: Main Article
Students annotate for:
- surprising information
- emotionally charged wording
- data or statistics
- assumptions about technology and society
- places where they want more evidence
Ask students to paraphrase the article in two sentences without using the headline language. BBC
4. Second Read: Companion Articles in Groups
Divide students into groups. Each group reads one companion article and reports back on this question:
How does this article complicate, deepen, or challenge the idea that “we are talking less”?
- University of Arizona Q&A on the study
- Yale article on language loss and cultural consequences
- Scientific American article on how spoken words survive and evolve
5. Whole-Class Discussion
Bring students together and build a comparison chart with these columns:
- Main claim
- Evidence used
- What is at stake
- Tone
- What the article leaves out
Guide students toward these distinctions:
- declining spoken interaction is not the same thing as declining language ability
- communication shifting platforms is not identical to communication disappearing
- language loss in communities is a different but related issue from individuals speaking less in daily life
- not all forms of communication provide the same social, emotional, and cognitive benefits
6. Analytical Writing
Have students respond to one of the following:
Option A:
Is the claim that “we are talking less” convincing? Use evidence from at least two texts.
Option B:
What is lost when spoken language is replaced by digital communication?
Option C:
How do headlines shape the way readers interpret scientific research?
Option D:
Should schools do more to protect and promote spoken language? Why or why not?
Discussion Questions
- Why might people be speaking fewer words today than in 2005?
- Does speaking less necessarily mean connecting less?
- Are some kinds of spoken conversation more valuable than others?
- How does face-to-face speech differ from texting or posting?
- What are the weaknesses of turning one study into a broad cultural narrative?
- How might this issue affect teenagers differently from adults?
- What is the difference between a language changing and a language disappearing?
- Why might schools need to treat oral language as something worth teaching deliberately?
Essay Questions
Since essay questions are often more useful than broad essay assignments, here are several you could use directly:
- To what extent does a decline in spoken conversation threaten human connection?
- Is digital communication replacing speech, or simply transforming it?
- Why should schools care about preserving spoken language in an age of screens?
