Yes, women talk more than men do. A research team from the University of Arizona has found evidence of the generally accepted truth. But this does not apply to all women but only those aged 25 to 65. On average, they use 3,000 words more a day than their male peers.
The researchers have analyzed 630,000 recordings from 22 different studies from four countries. The material comprises 2,194 people aged ten to 94 years. The result has been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Talking to children
Why women during a 40-year period talk more than men, researchers have no really good answer-yet. One thesis is that it is about the years when the children grow up. Since women are more often those who have the main responsibility for the children, the explanation may be that they talk more to their children during that time.
Although women for a period are more talkative than men, there are also major individual differences. The most quiet person in the study – a man – used an average of 100 words a day, while the largest talk mill – also a man – spit out over 120,000 words every day.
Talking less
When you looked at the group as a whole, it also became clear that we are talking less and less. The number of spoken words per day fell between 2005 and 2018 from around 16,000 to around 13,000. On average, 300 words a year have disappeared.
What this is due to is not yet investigated, but there is a main suspect – increased digital communication.