This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Better Small Talk" by Patrick King. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Do you hate small talk? Does it seem shallow and like a waste of time?
Patrick King wrote an entire book about small talk. He sings its praises—and teaches the skill—because he recognizes the value of small talk as a stepping stone toward deeper connections.
Read more to learn about the importance of small talk and how it’s just the beginning of substantive conversations.
The Importance of Small Talk
King notes that many people claim to hate small talk and would rather dive into meaningful conversation right away. However, he says you cannot have deep, meaningful conversations with people without first getting to know them through small talk. People generally aren’t willing to share intimately with someone they’ve just met, so small talk is a way to establish familiarity and comfort before getting to more meaningful and personal topics. This illustrates the importance of small talk, showing how it’s an indispensable part of human communication.
| Is Technology Affecting Our Ability to Engage in Small Talk? Some sociologists warn that technology is disrupting how people engage in conversation, both meaningful and superficial, by offering a quick distraction that can pull them away from a conversation as soon as there’s a pause. Smartphones in particular offer people a way to be constantly entertained and a way to easily access new entertainment when they become bored with the old (refreshing your social media feed is a prime example of this). These sociologists argue that people have learned to expect human conversations to offer them the same excitement, and they become bored and distracted when that doesn’t happen. If this type of distraction prevents people from engaging in the early stages of conversation—small talk—it means they won’t progress to deeper, more meaningful conversation. |
King argues that small talk is even a key to our overall well-being because, without successful social interaction, our health and happiness suffer. You should aim, therefore, to be better at making small talk and using it to advance the conversation into more interesting territory.
(Shortform note: One specific way good conversations can improve our health and happiness is by reducing chronic pain. Studies have shown that people with chronic pain suffer less if they have strong social connections than if they feel isolated. You might thus view small talk as a way to defend yourself against current or possible future chronic pain.)
Conversational Stages
To better understand the role of small talk in conversation, let’s look at the conversational stages King outlines. These stages become increasingly meaningful. If you try to bypass the early stages and get right to “meaty” topics, you might end up pushing the other person away.
Stage 1: Small talk. This revolves around topics anyone can talk about—the weather, current events, and so on.
Stage 2: Sharing facts. In this stage, you share objective, background facts about yourself, like where you live, what you do for work, and so on.
Stage 3: Sharing opinions and finding common ground. Here you’re trying to find things you might have a shared opinion on, like a favorite coffee shop or TV show.
Stage 4: Sharing feelings. Now you finally get to talk about your feelings. As you become better acquainted with the other person, you can share increasingly vulnerable feelings.
| The Relevance of Conversational Stages King doesn’t reference these conversational stages any further after introducing them and doesn’t connect the subsequent content to them or use the stages to inform the structure of the book. It’s also unclear if the stages are contained in a single conversation or if you move through the stages across several conversations with someone. While King doesn’t make the stages relevant to the rest of the book and is rather vague on when they take place, they reinforce the importance of small talk by showing that many conversation topics require some form of prelude. For example, if you try to start a conversation by asking the other person for their opinion on something, you might be rebuffed if they feel that question is too intimate. Another reason we’ve included these steps is to provide a vague outline of how your friendship with someone might evolve through conversation. If during your third chat with someone, you find yourselves sharing opinions and feelings, it might be a sign that you and the other person will become good friends. Conversely, if you find that you and another person are stuck on fact-sharing, you might not be that compatible. |
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Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of Patrick King's "Better Small Talk" at Shortform.
Here's what you'll find in our full Better Small Talk summary:
- Why small talk is a critical part of any conversation
- How mastering small talk can help you have more meaningful conversations
- How to become a better conversationalist, storyteller, and listener
