How often do you talk to yourself?

[Kyle]

So I've had a lot of time alone during the pandemic- either in my home office or my satellite office. I'm going to guess that I talk to myself about a half-dozen times a day, maybe a little more. And it's always some kind "sit com" tag line. I'll belch and then say, "Well that wasn't very classy." Or I'll drop my pen and say, "You rascal! Come here!" Weird shit like that.

[Kyle]

As I think about it, it's most common with my computer. Something glitches and I'll say, "So that's how we're doing this?" or a search result will give me unexpected results and I'll say, "Oh ho! Well look at you!"

[Phoebe]

Not always. Occasionally when other people are in the room I feel compelled to stop, especially if they're also talking to me. Haven't really been going out in public much lately, but like, if somebody approaches you with the grocery cart usually you quiet down a little bit when they're really near, so they don't accidentally take you to be addressing them? Another way to look at this is just that I talk to my pets all day. Or plants. Or both. And especially to the food I'm cooking - I feel like you can't really cook unless you speak with the food.

[Stan]

Almost constantly. It's the only consistent way for me to have an intelligent conversation.

Just like writing something down helps with memory, I feel like talking and hearing yourself talk engages more areas of your brain and helps you remember. For working memory, auditory storage lasts longer than visual.

For me debugging or figuring things out is like an argument with the problem.

[Phoebe]

Kindred Spirit.

[Eliahad]

Lately, I've been reading a lot of emails out loud before I send them, does that count?

[DMDarcs]

The first hour I'm awake I talk to myself quite a bit to remind me of what I'm supposed to be doing. Occasionally if i'm trying to multitask in a short amount of time.

[Phoebe]

[Kyle]

[Eliahad]

I'll have to up my game.

[Stan]

Well, at least you're reading out loud to your self. If you switch to fiction, it would be telling yourself a story.

[Kyle]

[Eliahad]

[Mike]

I talk to myself A LOT. If I'm alone it's often just polite commentary, "What the heck is that then?" Or, "Aha! That makes a lot more sense." Or just narration of what I'm doing.

I do the narration thing a lot in front of others too. Usually when they are hovering nearby to watch me work on their computer. It gives them a sense of what im doing, but since im talking to myself, they don't feel pressured to participate or demonstrate understanding if they don't want to.

If I'm stuck on a problem or I'm trying to work out a story or a podcast segment or something, I will often discuss it out loud with myself, usually while driving. Having to form the words makes me put things in coherent sentences and often gets to underlying assumptions or issues that I would otherwise take for granted and just gloss over in my head.

[Tahlvin]

I hardly ever talk to myself. If I goof up while working on something, I'll occasionally give a "WTF were you thinking" comment. But besides those occasional asides, I generally keep to myself. I'm quite comfortable being alone with my thoughts. It's from years of having to be.

[Mike]

[Tahlvin]

It's not all my fault. I was the only son with four sisters, so I was the only one in the family that had a bedroom to myself, and didn't have an automatic playmate and confidante sharing a room with me. After we got married, my wife and I moved thousands of miles from our hometown, so we didn't have any family or friends around, just each other. I worked at a mom-and-pop office that was run from a room above their garage, so I didn't really have co-workers to talk to all that often. For the first year or so, I commuted several hours a day, so I was by myself in a car or on a ferry. After that, we moved to a house in a resort community that didn't really have many young couples around our age, so we were again somewhat isolated. All of that just sort of took two introverted people who were married to each other and turned them into extremely introverted people who were fine not having to interact with anyone at all unless necessary. Years later, I worked in software implementation and doing software sales demos, so I learned to be talkative and interact, but that's not my nature, so after doing that sort of work for a big part of a day, I need down time in my hotel room to relax and return to my true nature.

[Kyle]

I have a weird question. Do deaf people sometimes sign to themselves? I need an answer to this.