...is it a thing of the past?

I don't think I've had one conversation today that went further than "Hello How are you..." "...good thanks".

Seriously.

It's shocking.

Well generally on MSN you say hi to somebody because you have something to say or ask them, not just for the hell of it

I didn't nessesarily mean MSN though....just talking to people through whatever medium.

Age and native language is possibly the biggest drawback, followed by a minimal interest
in whatever the topic at hand is.
Then of course there's the experience, or lack of.

Okay, here's the scene:

Two directors of a small company

3 techy guys

1 techy coordinator (moi!)

3 saleschaps.

Silence. Apart from the rustle of crisp packets.

No one was doing anything as we had no power for a while. Is it so difficult to make conversation?

Well, sometimes is pretty hard to talk to coworkers, specially if there's a huge gap in the age spectrum or if they are above you in the hierarchy. Last year, when I was doing my Social Service (a requisite for all students that want to get a school title in Mexico) my coworkers were older, and since I was just a lowly temporal employee, most of the times they didn't notice me. But on those strange times they didn't have anything to do (while I did most of their work) they tried to pick up a conversation with me, but most of the things they talked about didn't matter to me in any possible way. Since I couldn't state that -most of the workers were quite revengeful, specially the "boss" whom all the other temps warned me about- I would just listen, never venturing more than a fews "yeas" and other mumbles, so they wouldn't have anything against me when the final evaluation of my work came.

-Commanderraf

DO NOT TALK TO SALESCHAPS THEY WILL EXPLOIT EVERY WORD YOU GIVE THEM

^ i agree, i have been in sales for about 10 years or more....never trust sales people!!!! EVER!!

but yeah sometimes having meaningful discussion with people can be a huge issue, i agree with age and native language, hell even having a meaningful convo with another canadian can be hard...lol not to mention, we live in a pretty fast paced society, most people would rather not waste their time to stop and talk, thankfully we are a bunch of chatty-cathy's at my work, we talk about everything and anything

most people care more about their iphone/blackberry/textdevice for convo then anything else.....soon we wont even know how to have a partially normal convo with each other....

prepare yourselves....its coming!

Within 10 years English will be like that race on Star Trek TNG who spoke entirely in references to past events, except it will be based on internet memes.

"goatse, his anus wide" etc.

Also this:

So true!

Being a shy person it hasn't been exactly easy conversing with people that I dont know/feel comfortable with - I think this has just aided in killing the art of conversation

I just signed up with a 2 year contract with a hiptop/sidekick + unlimited text/data. That isn't exactly helping either :/

^ yeah the phones not going to help for sure....i think most people are fairly immature with their phones as well...

i have seen people standing at a cash regiter paying for things talking on their phones, driving cars on the highway talking on phones, sitting in restuarants with "loved ones" talking on phones...there was this chick i used to hang out with (friends GF) and all she used to do was talk on her phone, didnt care where she was or who she was with...

she drove me to the mall once, and the whole time i was in the car...she talked on her phone...there was no music, or chitchat...i listened to her go on and on about her weekend and blah blah blah....i had this guy come to my place once to do some recording, we started to lay out vocals and stuff...and of course his phones rings and he spends the next 30 minutes talking to his girlfriend on the phone....Grrrr!

i havent owned a cell phone yet....and dont plan on it for a long time...i can also see the "good" in having a cell phone, but people usually buy things like cellphones to be more of a socialite/scenester amongst a tun of other hugely irresponsible things...

maybe when i have kids i'll see true benefit, but until then no cell phones for me!

peas
cityboy

As for MSN, I don't think anyone truly means "how are you" when they say "how are you", I for sure don't normally. I more or less wanna know what you've been up to (always seems too forward to say that to someone though).

I have found since I got to uni however it is insanely easy for me to make small talk with people (which, I will admit right out here now. I hate making small talk), which can normally end up with some pretty interesting conversation. Even if one of those ended in the question "what if men could have periods, would we just throw "them" at each other?"

The ability to converse our every thought though with people over instant messaging and well, as ironic as it is me posting it here, message boards and chat rooms has meant that perhaps it has left us with less to say really. We immediatly vocalise our thoughts rather than save them up. Or I could be talking out my arse.

LMAO that's what makes talking to people great! You can start talking about how high gas is and end up on waffles and have no idea how it happened.

Oh, and I hate it when you im someone and say:
waz up and they reply--waz up....I'm like: I just asked you that!