When did we stop talking to each other — and what is it costing us? Dr. Maryellen MacDonald is a psycholinguist and professor emerita of psychology and language sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of More Than Words: How Talking Sharpens the Mind and Shapes Our World.

What she's found is startling: speaking is far more cognitively demanding than listening, reading, or scrolling — and that difficulty is exactly what makes it essential brain exercise. Yet, we're doing it less than ever.

In this episode, we talk about why Gen Z is lonelier and dating less, what helicopter parenting has to do with it, and why the person you've been meaning to call is probably hoping you will.

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