Just skip to the good part

Health, family, heat, rain. Small talk is boring. Is it possibly outdated in today's tech-first world, too?

- Christalle Fernandes

So, how are you? So, when are you getting married? What did you have for lunch? How about this heat?

How about No?

Older folks have figured out how to use cellphones and the cloud. They've stopped with the Good Morning texts too. And yet, they haven't realised that small talk is agonisingly out of date. To them it's friendly chatter: How is your mother? To everyone else, it's intrusion. Mother is on Facebook and WhatsApp. You texted her, yesterday.

Small talk worked for the generation that wasn't as wired as we are now. Those skills came in handy on a long commute, to build a rapport with the grocer. Polite niceties matter less now, when everyone's on their phones, orders groceries online and has 15 tabs open in their mind at all times.