A new study published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science has found that people are speaking significantly less than they did a decade ago, with the average person using 338 fewer spoken words per day — roughly 120,000 fewer words per year. The research, led by German psychologist Valeria Pfeifer at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, tracked more than 2,000 participants aged 10 to 94 across the United States, Europe, and Australia over 14 years, finding a 28 percent decline in verbal output between 2005 and 2019, with the sharpest drop among those under 25. Experts attribute the trend to the replacement of face-to-face and phone interactions with digital messaging, automated services, and streaming, and warn that the decline carries neurological and social consequences, as spoken conversation is known to support cognitive fitness, emotional wellbeing, and social cohesion.