WASHINGTON—Calling into question the usefulness of one of the most common human interactions, a new report released Monday by the Pew Research Center found that only 3 percent of conversations actually need to happen. “Frankly, almost all of the conversations you have with your spouse, coworkers, friends, doctor, or anyone else are completely superfluous,” said lead researcher Alan Monroe, adding that conversations that never need to happen under any circumstances include non-business-related chats with coworkers, casual discussions of politics, and any inquiries into weekend plans. “At most, it seems as if an individual only needs to have a handful of conversations per year—and even those could probably be trimmed to a single exchange of three- or four-word sentences.” The report further noted that the 3 percent was just an average and that some people could actually get by just fine without a single conversation in their entire lives.

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