The notion that women talk more than men is widespread. But how much more? In a recent book written by a noted neuropsychiatrist, the numbers are - "a woman uses about 20,000 words a day, while a man uses only about 7,000." My personal experience tells me the difference is not that dramatic; women talk about 10 - 40% more than men.
In a latest study on this suject, scientist recorded the conversations of nearly 400 U.S. and Mexican male and female university students, for periods ranging from two to 10 days. To catch all of this chit-chat, they developed an electronically-activated recorder (with the fortuitous acronym EAR) that digitally, and unobtrusively, logged the daily conversations of those who wore the device.
The results: women in the study spoke a daily average of 16,215 words during their waking hours, versus an average of 15,669 words for men. True, the women win, but not by a statistically significant margin at all.
4 comments:
This is very interesting, as the data from the study don't seem to match what most of us have observed day-to-day. Nevertheless, what's important isn't how much people talk, but how much they say that's worth listening to. Now THERE'S a statistic for you...particularly in an election season!
Life. . . . it sure did break the stereo type of women yacking all the time. Now there is scientific proof that men yack a lot too.
Ciao
Bilbo,
I will find some election statistic next week.
I think there are men that really skew the results for all men. When these guys are talking, nobody else gets to talk.
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