Photo credit: Antonio Guillem
Talking remains the most popular form of communication, although the competition from texting and email is fierce.
The question is: What do we most like to talk about? As you might expect, social scientists have inquired within. Do we use conversation primarily to gather information, understand other points of view, learn new ideas and facts? None of the above.
Far and away, we mostly enjoy talking about ourselves. A Harvard study shows, on average, each of us spends 60% of our “airtime” speaking about the happenings in our lives, our opinions on matters great and small and who we are as a person. This is an average, of course, so there are many who do nothing but talk about themselves and, inversely, lots who listen much more than speak. Nonetheless, if you put two 60%-ers together, there must be a fierce battle of tongues.
As a side note, the researchers found that electronic communication on social platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, was focused on the sender more than 80% of the time. Apparently, being connected in real time rather than online does a bit better at tempering the propensity to talk about ourselves.
So, why do we so relish self-disclosure? Are we simply egotists who believe ourselves at the center of the universe? Does the term “narcissist” apply? In some instances, clearly yes. However, neuroscientists offer an alternative explanation. When they examine the brains of folks while they are talking about themselves, they see certain pleasure centers light up. In fact, these are the same reward centers that activate when stimulated by sex, certain psychoactive drugs and good food. So, the simple explanation is that talking about ourselves feels good.
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Therapeutic Benefit
This explains, in part, the therapeutic benefit of talk therapy. Few other venues offer so much freedom and encouragement to verbalize about one’s self, which proves inherently rewarding. Also, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find good listeners in our “I share, therefore I am” world. Having someone’s undivided attention and genuine interest is a healing combination.
Curiously, talking about one’s self proves rewarding even if no one is listening. In the research, the absence of a listener made this activity somewhat less pleasurable than when one was present, but not substantially. When we talk about ourselves out loud to an empty room or the proverbial fence post, this, too, activates those pleasure centers in the brain. This finding refutes the tired old myth that associates talking to one’s self out loud with being mentally unbalanced. In fact, self-disclosing speech in the absence of a listener turns out to be a bona fide self-care approach.
On a less positive note, this phenomenon may exacerbate emotional dysfunction in persons who have learned, through painful experience, not to self-disclose to others. If, as a child, one was punished or ridiculed for talking openly about one’s emotions and thoughts, doing so as an adult may feel dangerous. Often, such folks avoid talking about themselves for fear of rejection, depriving themselves of the pleasurable feelings that come with self-disclosure in an emotionally safe environment. These persons can still benefit by talking out loud in the absence of a listener, but those sufficiently traumatized may find even that to be difficult.
However, the impetus to make one’s self the topic in a conversation is driven by more than brain chemistry. The other catalyst is story. Our lives are narratives, stories woven in space and time, populated with personal history, memorable experiences and lessons. So, talking about ourselves is storytelling, and that mode of communication is what the psyche prefers. The brain is not so much an information processor as a story processor. Whether interesting to others or not, one’s stories still constitute a life narrative, a unique accounting of “what it’s like to be me.”
So, provided we don’t overdo it, talking about ourselves is just fine. As the actress Ruth Gordon once put it, “Everyone has to have someone to tell it to.”
