Eleanor Roosevelt once said “small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas"

Small talk is meant to be light and fun. It flees from depth and meaning. Personal questions are considered inappropriate. Likewise, any emotion besides happy or neutral is discouraged. Consequently, authenticity dies on the vine. The truth is that small talk allows two people to have an entire conversation without really getting to know each other.
Instead of being light and fun, the conversation is flat and boring. It is like a game of chess where both players always know each other’s next move. It is a predictable exchange with predictable results. It serves many valuable social purposes. It’s the human equivalent of dogs sniffing butts. For the introvert, it’s particularly valuable as an efficient way to find out who’s worth talking to more. For everyone else, it’s just how we do sanity and maturity checks on new people while the stakes are low. It’s a low-key opportunity to demonstrate good judgement, so all the more reason why it makes you look bad if you can’t or won’t do it.

Don’t mistake me: I’m not saying that every conversation has to result in an extended philosophical dialogue; the occasional chit-chat is fine. But we all know there are those close to us with whom our conversation is ALWAYS limited to things such as where they’ve gone out to eat recently, what activities their children are involved in, or, of course, sports. There are trivial people and there are small-minded people.

There are many reasons why people have a tendency to only place value on shallow conversations and I will explore these further now. Most people assume it doesn't mean they are themselves shallow, it simply means they haven't had much opportunity to discuss "truth", be it of a psychological nature, spiritual, metaphysical, etc. In actuality though it is not that they haven’t had a chance, it is because they flat out reject it every time they come near it. Not that they are incapable of ever finding it interesting but probably because their interests in life never developed their minds to the capacity to be able to handle those topics without becoming utterly confused and/or depressed. There is a common phenomenon in the mind of humans that cause us to be preoccupied with the habitual thought patterns we learn most consistently through social interactions. We find it hard to break this thinking maze we have built while struggling and meandering through the development of the self.

There seem to be two main reasons why some people always resort to the superficial, and both have to do with shortcomings of their education. To play on Wittgenstein’s famous dictum, the limits of one’s education mean the limits of his world:
1) Some people have not learned to be able to calmly consider other points of view on topics such as politics or religion. They take everything “personally.” And so, they avoid such topics and make their conversation partners avoid them, too.
2) People have not been taught to effectively use critical thinking, to subject things to further analysis, to ask deeper questions about life and to seek answers in their reading. Their conversation is hollow because their thought is hollow; because they are hollow.

Fear is also a substantial component in people's tendency for vapid or lacklustre conversation. Some fears that are attributableinclude:
Fear of not being understood
Fear of being 'proven wrong'
Fear of asserting oneself too much
Fear of opening a can of worms
Fear of upsetting another
Fear of being seen as 'difficult'
Fear of being seen as a trouble maker
Fear of disturbing the peace
Fear of challenging the status quo
Fear of being lashed out at

Another important factor is peoples inability to stay focused for too long (beyond 4 minutes or even less for some). This weakness inevitably forces people to change topic or look dumb (and uninterested).

There are many that do like to get in to profound or important discussions, but far more that don't because it usually brings out emotions and heated arguments, especially in the untrained. They haven’t learnt how to be purely rational and not be offended by difference in opinion or retaliation to argumentation. Deep discussion is like that with a lot of people, though there are many that don't feel educated enough or are not educated enough and avoid these things out of insecurity, or their brain is something they only use when necessary. There are though, many I seldom find in the common public, that are intellectuals and enjoy learning about anything. These are people that enjoy deep conversation about most anything, as long as it does not get emotional, they learn from every word, and no matter the topic. They rationalize it and treat it as merely a discussion of knowledge and possibilities, no more.

“Man gazes; the animal grazes.” - Joseph Pearce

With Post-industrialization, people started to became less concerned about the moral dimensions of chit-chat. Instead, they began to fear it was conformist and shallow, a poor reflection of one’s personal depth. Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, who formulated the first academic theory of small talk, belittled what he termed “phatic communion” - conversation whose purpose is social, not informational - as “purposeless expressions of preference or aversions, accounts of irrelevant happenings, comments on what is perfectly obvious.”

A small psychology study a few years ago found that people who spent more time in “substantive” conversations were happier than those who wasted their time on lighter fare. When researchers recorded snippets of conversations over the course of several days, the happiest person in the study engaged in only a third of the amount of small talk as the unhappiest. But there’s other evidence that small talk is salubrious, since social interaction seems to decrease stress. As one recent paper’s subtitle has it, “Minimal social interactions lead to belonging and positive affects.”

Substantive conversation seemed to hold the key to happiness for two main reasons: both because human beings are driven to find and create meaning in their lives, and because we are social animals who want and need to connect with other people.
“By engaging in meaningful conversations, we manage to impose meaning on an otherwise pretty chaotic world,” Dr. Mehl said. “And interpersonally, as you find this meaning, you bond with your interactive partner, and we know that interpersonal connection and integration is a core fundamental foundation of happiness.”

Now that we have addressed what the contents effect is upon our minds it is important to address what psychological factors are responsible for the gregarious social types discussed above.

Psychological research indicates that “Excessively polite” people were more likely to betray their peers than the less-polite.

Another 2014 study finds that those who are described as “agreeable, conscientious personalities” are more likely to follow orders and deliver electric shocks that they believe can harm innocent people, while “more contrarian, less agreeable personalities” are more likely to refuse to hurt others.” They found evidence that agreeable people will often choose to do destructive things because they don't want to upset anyone by disagreeing with direct orders. Which expands on the famous milgram experiments done in 1961.

Another important fact to consider is that psychopathy can closely be related with overt social behaviour. Their ability to mask an internal ascetic personality structure is uncanny. Externally, psychopaths create a façade of desirability and exemplify many positive character traits including being: Charming, Friendly, Intelligent, Sane, Sincere, Have Nerves of steel, Adventurous and Intrepid. The psychopathic person does not have the ability to experience genuine emotions, despite the seemingly sincere, intelligent, even charming external presentation. Indeed it is often observed in social persons that they exhibit genuine emotions when internally they are not present. This can be seen in the stereotyped teenage girl’s over-reaction about their girlfriend’s new haircut or item of clothing etc. (IE “Oh My Godddddd! That looks adorrrrrrrable!”)

From my own experiences I have found excessively social people to be less trustworthy, more prone to lying and deceiving as well as egocentric and manipulative behaviour, coupled with hedonistic/trivial sex lifes. Funnily enough, according to MD Helen Farrel, these traits are found in psychopaths as well.

It is also worth mentioning that people with overly-friendly, intense personalities have been correlated with brain abnormality. Individuals with these abnormalities lack visual-spatial skills and a tendency to be overly friendly with people, while generally being quite anxious people and have share irrational fears about non-social events, such as spiders or heights.


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Now, if I can argue completely to the contrary of what I have already spoken in favour of above... In many circumstances it may actually be so that the subtext of what a person says on a seemingly superficial level tells a deeper story about them if you listen closely enough. Some people absolutely require small talk because it allows them to scope out your approach to socialization and whether they'd benefit from going further with you on topics they actually find useful to discuss. Kind of like dipping your foot in the water before you dive and risk drowning in someone else's annoying/different interests.

Trivialities like bus routes and rain, can tell us quite a lot about “who the person really is,” as Boomer puts it. Not because it’s a snobby shorthand for sorting a person by her pedigree, but because it lets you evaluate how she talks about her experiences, how she tells the story of herself, and how she approaches trifles like bad weather. Is she whiny? Wry? Cheery? It’s all informative, and none of it requires badgering anyone to reveal the moment of their most soul-shattering humiliation over cocktails. Ice-breakers like “Tell me about your weightiest belief” ask that your interlocutor dredge the depths of her soul on demand; small talk lets self-revelation unspool with a more civilized subtlety.

I find this contradictory though as small talk forces you to water down your personality and therefore how is one to gauge more accurately if there is less information about one’s personality being transferred?
Nevertheless this brings up an important point of never to mistake people who choose not to speak of deeper things with you, for people who cannot speak of deeper things. Assuming the second, is actually judging people in a way that makes you look a little shallow.

If you act too good for small talk and pretentiously lunge for more “profound” conversations, or avoid any topic that isn’t important enough for your majesty, the only people who will be impressed are other socially inept critters with their own delusions of intellectual grandeur. People usually trash talk small talk because they suck at it. It’s evasion. “Oh, that social skill I don’t have? I hate that social skill. Who needs it.” This attitude isn’t characteristic of introverts: it’s characteristic of immaturity.


Furthermore, most people only have strong opinions about *some* deep philosophical topics, not every deep topic ever, and will be disinterested if not annoyed if asked to discuss a topic entirely of your choice. It sends the message that you're more interested in the other person's ideas than in their comfort, whereas small talk gives both parties a chance to feel out how interested the other is in talking and what they'd like to talk about. Some people react to the idea of discussing anything deep as if you had asked them to work on their day off. The purpose of small talk is not actually to talk about anything, but to talk in order to make each other feel more comfortable. And people who know each other well really enjoy making small talk. I suspect people often enjoy small talk for its own sake.

But how are we to know which relationship is more genuine?

A) If a relationship involves only deep philosophical discussions about existentialism, we can safely make a guess that it is doomed. Philosophical topics often indicate a superficial relationship. Small talk on the other hand is the core foundation of any healthy relationship.

B) If a relationship involves only small talk, we can safely make a guess that it is doomed. Small talk often indicate a superficial relationship. Discussions about philosophy and/or important life issues on the other hand is the core foundation of any healthy relationship.

It does leave me wondering though if we'd consider these sorts of people in a sense to be "lesser" than those who DO actively engage in supposedly deeper thoughts and concepts. Those that contribute to the advancement of society, rather than to just go with the flow; fulfilling the basic physiological needs, and then not really doing much else that's "important." On the other hand, are we ever really in the position to judge exactly how one should be contributing to society, as long as they're happy?

These are a lot of ideas I pulled from around the net on this topic hoping to inspire some insightful conversation on here about this ;)