Your awkwardness isn’t just hurting you. It’s hurting everyone around you.
A Dutch study showed that after people watched a conversation that included an uncomfortably long silence, they were more likely to feel “distressed, afraid, hurt and rejected,” according to a 2011 paper in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Take a guess at how many seconds can pass before a lull in conversation starts to feel really, really weird. But don’t take this quiz for our sake. Do it for you, and for your friends, too!
Guess How Many Seconds It Takes Before Silence Gets Awkward.
You guessed 0 seconds.
