Do You Talk Too Much? Get A Talk-O-Meter

One Comment by Alexander Phillips on7th Jun 2011

Source: http://crookedminds.com

Do you talk too much? Do you selfishly gear conversation towards yourself, and the things your interested in? Are you long-winded with you own pronouncements but ungenerous as a listener? Are you a conversational scrooge?

Everyone knows that guy. The chatterbox. He overwhelms the conversation, and your ear in a constant barrage of talk. It’s not always an unpleasant experience. The chatterbox can be interesting, endearing, charismatic and even hilarious. But in regular doses he becomes grating. And most of the time… he is none of those things.

I am a self-confessed chatterbox. I’ve always been that way. I find talking pleasurable and necessary as a means to clarify my thought-processes. I’ve been called self-absorbed, egotistical, selfish, overwhelming. This is somewhat hurtful, but equally justifiable; the pure number of personal pronouns used in this paragraph is probably proof enough. Of course such honest assessments are usually made by my closest family members and friends (better judges of me there are none), who aren’t bound by social convention and probably know me far too well to find me interesting much of the time. I believe I have interesting things to say, and I do get positive feedback – nods of approval, laughter even bouts of applause – from certain friends, dates and other people who’ve entered my world. That’s the problem right there, isn’t it: “my world“.

I can be long-winded. I do not always pick the right moment to express myself. Sometimes I struggle to find what the other person is saying interesting. Sometimes I am very interested in the conversation, but my mind is speeding ahead at a rampant rate and I assume I know what they’re going to say before they say it (in actuality I often do), and I cut them off before they’ve finished, putting their back up. I forget to ask myself things like; “Is the person opposite me interested in what I have to say?”, “Have I been talking for too long?”, “Have you given the other person time to respond?”, “Have you listened to what they have to say?”

So, what’s the cure?

An iPhone application has recently been developed called Talk-O-Meter, which – you guessed it – “…shows, how much everybody is talking”. About this wonderful little app:

There are friends, colleagues or even partners who do not notice it, when they dominate others in a conversation. They just talk too much. A little iPhone app helps.

The iPhone is placed between two people having a conversation and learns to separate the two voices. At intervals of 1, 2 or 5 minutes you see different lengths of red and blue bars that show what percentage of time each speaker was talking. Nobody has to be unpleasantly exhorted – from time to time everyone will have a cursory glance at the Talk-o-Meter and adapt if he is talking too much. Gentle biofeedback works.

Notes: Talk-o-meter only works with 2 people who do not have similar voices and talk in a quiet environment. A version for more than 2 people is to follow shortly.

If my conversation was assessed in the same way that possession is assessed in football, I’d probably put it at an average 60:40 split in my favour. But when I put the question to the people who know me best, here’s how they saw it:

Wayne (Dad) 65:35
Gillian (Mum) 65:35
Sister (Charlotte) 70:30
Charlie (Business Partner) 65:35
Robin (Flatmate) 70:30
Sam (Friend) 65:35
Natalie (Friend) 60:40

It seems I under-estimated my tendency to dominate conversation. Whether or not I agree with each of these individual assessments, this is certainly valuable information into how these people perceive our conversations, and by extension our relationships. I think I’ll get the Talk-O-Meter.