Few people admit to liking small talk. A banal conversation about the weather or repeating tales about your weekend to your colleagues may be fine in the office kitchen, but it's not how we'd want the ...

Everybody hates small talk. There’s no denying it. Google defines “small talk” as, “polite conversation about unimportant or uncontroversial matters, especially as engaged in on social occasions.” Now ...

It's easy to say, "I'm not good at small talk" and simply try to ignore it, Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit argues that small talk isn't an innate skill, but rather a learned behavior.

Most people try to avoid small talk—the often obligatory chitter chatter that tends to be the accompanying bane of awkward introductions, boring social gatherings and inescapable airline travel. But ...

Do you dread trading niceties with retail clerks and assorted other strangers when you are out in public? Do you go out of your way to avoid neighbors and co-workers so that you do not have to engage ...

Small talk has been a pain point for me for years, but it sank to new lows at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was at the playground one day, sweating in a K-95 while pushing my maskless ...

Do you dread trading niceties with retail clerks and assorted other strangers when you are out in public? Do you go out of your way to avoid neighbors and co-workers so that you do not have to engage ...

Some professionals shudder at the idea of “small talk,” but it can be a powerful tool for building rapport with people you’re meeting for the first time—and for opening doors at networking events. A ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. ‘If you think small talk is boring, that may be a skill issue.’Illustration: Guardian Design/Panther Media Global/Alamy ...

Many of us have a longing inside us to get to know others on a deep level. So, it's a shame we spend so many of our interactions engaging in small talk. But having deep conversations from the get-go ...

Need help navigating the always on, always remote life? Ask OOO at mail@wired.com. The very first installment of this column opened with a reminiscence about the magic of conference calls, followed by ...