How many strangers have you chatted with recently? Probably not a lot. And while your immediate reaction to that might be, "Great, I hate talking to strangers about nothing"—the research doesn't back you up.

Casual small talk plays a larger role in our well-being than we assume it does, and most of us are doing much, much less of it these days. What does that mean for our happiness? And for our pathetic attempts at chit-chat once we emerge back into a world full of random social interactions?

GUEST: Hannah Seo (You can read Hannah's piece in The Walrus)

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How are you? I am fine: What we lose without small talk