In many cultures, there is a concept that women always say more than men. But research by a group of researchers from the University of Arizona published in 2007 has dismissed the thinking.
Researchers found that men and women say numbers almost every day - around 16,000 words.
Recently, a new, more scale-up study, following the above results, confirmed that women may be the speater, but only at certain stages of life.
Researchers say that women aged 25 to 64 speak about 3,000 times more than men per day. In other age groups of the study, the differences were insignificant, such as adolescents (from 10 to 17 years old), newborns (from 18 to 24 years old) and old people (from 65 years old and above).
Researchers also point to the trend of people talking less, partly due to their dependence on mobile devices and online chats.
In 2007, psychologist Matthias Mehl of the University of Alberta analyzed data collected from 500 participants, both male and female. They wore a handheld recording device called EAR, which recorded daily conversations.
Using those audio files, Mehl estimates the number of words a person speaks per day. He pointed out that there was no significant gender gap and published the information in Science magazine. At that time, the study attracted attention but was also criticized because participants were mostly college-age and living in the same city (Austin, Texas).
18 years later, Mehl and his colleagues - including tidwell; Valeria Pfeifer and Alexander Danvers - sought to continue the old research with more diverse approaches. They analyzed 630,000 EAR records from 22 separate studies conducted in 4 countries, with participants ranging in age from 10 to 94. The study conducted on 2,197 individuals - 4 times higher than the initial study.
A significant difference between the two sexes only appears in one age group, which is between 25 and 64. Women speak an average of 21,845 words per day, men speak 18,570 words per this age.
Researchers say that this is a possibility because of the years of raising children, and women often take on the main care role, so they can talk more than men to their children.
