Talk-o-Meter shows how much each person in a conversation talks

"Talk-o-Meter is a new chat-monitoring iPhone app that shows when someone is dominating a conversation. After brief calibration, the app can recognize who is speaking and keeps track of each person's talk time." Talk-o-Meter: Monitoring Flow and Balance In Conversation

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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ponkyo

I sometimes become aware that I haven’t said anything in a conversation for a while, aware almost to the point of paralysis, but I don’t think this thing would help – looking the puny stub of contribution would just add to the fright.
- jackie31337
  
  I have the exact opposite problem: I worry that I’m talking too much. We would either be perfect conversation partners for each other, or else we’d end up even more neurotic than we already are.
jonandmoni

I once had a flatmate who was famous for the imbalance between the time he spent talking and the time anyone else could talk while he was there. When he got married, I very nearly bought his wife a chess clock as a wedding present. It would add an interesting element to having a discussion…
knobtheunicorn

Would be cooler if it kept track of the word “like” as well. I suspect that, like, 1/3 of all conversation now is, like, “like”. Or is it that I live in Seattle?
Jake0748

Oh boy… THIS isn’t going to cause any fights, arguments, resentments or hurt feelings.

Anybody remember the Everybody Loves Raymond, where he is having trouble dealing with Deborah’s PMS? He hides a tape deck and actually records her while she’s ranting. Then plays it for her.

THAT didn’t work out so well.
- mellowknees
  
  wasn’t the entire premise of Everybody Loves Raymond that nothing EVER went well between Raymond and his wife?
  - Jake0748
    
    More or less. This was more. :)
Gilbert Wham

I am of the opinion that my phone can mind its own goddamn business about how much I talk through it. Also, you people are on my lawn.
von Bobo

nice! Now instead of me having the responsibility to carefully “suggest” to someone that they are dominating a convo, now I can just blame it on my app. “Hey hey.. don’t get mad at me, it’s the app!”
Anonymous

I think I’d prefer a Taco-meter.
Anonymous

Yeah, but what if I can talk really fast?
DeepNorth

I had been planning to do this manually to show, statistically, how much my mother-in-law talks, especially during big family events. THANK YOU!
Nash Rambler

Yeah, is there some kind of “Shut The Hell App,” for when one person reaches a conversation thresh-hold?
- David Pescovitz
  
  You could just play this.
Anonymous

Arthur C. Clarke had a story about this in “Tales From the White Hart”. An engineer created a device like this to win an argument with his wife over who talked more. I forget which one of them ended up dead.
Anonymous

I hate to break it to most of you but not everyone has an equal amount to contribute to a conversation.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I hate to break it to most of you but not everyone has an equal amount to contribute to a conversation.
  
  Yup. And they’re the ones who do most of the talking.
  - Jake0748
    
    Amen, brother.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Is there any aspect of life free from the shadow of Dunning-Kruger?
      - Tau’ma
        
        Uh… wait, I forgot what I was gonna say.
      - Jake0748
        
        “One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision”.
        -Bertrand Russell
  - Anonymous
    
    Or they know what they are talking about.
- von Bobo
  
  a one sided conversation, is not a conversation.
- Anonymous
  
  right…and, who’s making the decision on who’s contribution has the most value…that talker??! now, THAT’s funny…
- Moriarty
  
  Spoken like a true inane prattler.
jackie31337

I could actually use this. In social conversations, a lot of my brain power is going to making sure I let the other person talk enough, and determining when it’s my turn to talk. This is the main reason that I can only really have social conversations in my native language: too much brain power is going to monitoring the social stuff to be able to form sentences in another language. This would really help with that. Of course, since it’s a gadget with a screen, I would probably end up just staring at it and not talking at all.
Anonymous

Now if it could also register rising levels of irritation….
shadowfirebird

What — “This content is not available in your country”? How would that help? ;)
Joe The Wizard

Where does T-Mobile have the iPhone?
Bottlekid

The emptiest can makes the most noise.
Modano

So they decided against the original title, “The Divorce App?”
mneptok

“Don’t everybody talk at once. No, seriously, it’s messing with my iPhone app.”
T Nielsen Hayden

What a great idea! Seriously, I know people who can’t keep track of how much space they’re taking up in a conversation. They’re aware that it’s a problem.
- Anonymous
  
  T Nielsen Hayden@20: “… I know people who can’t keep track of how much space they’re taking up in a conversation. They’re aware that it’s a problem.”
  
  My wife is like this. Talks a lot, goes off on tangents, has to tell the “whole story” instead of sticking to the point. It can be entertaining but makes it hard to focus. She knows that she does this but doesn’t think that it is a “problem.”
  
  Interestingly we have another person (female but that isn’t very relevant, name of Susan) living with us for 3 weeks. My wife complains that Susan talks a lot but I swear that when it is the three of us together it is Susan: 30%, wife: 50% and self: 20% (and maybe less but I am considering what Susan Oliver@40 wrote).
  
  Any similar Android app?
Teller

It should also measure the amount of air mysteriously leaving the room.
Julie

You can talk on the iPhone?
Tau’ma

Talk Talk
Talk Talk
Quothz

“Anybody remember the Everybody Loves Raymond, where he is having trouble dealing with Deborah’s PMS?”

You. . . you do understand that show was fictional, right? I agree with your conclusion, but I’m seeing more and more people on the ‘net supporting arguments with fictional examples. And it’s frankly kind of disturbing.
- Jake0748
  
  Sorry, you’re right of course. It was just the first comparison that popped in to my silly head. Next time I’m supporting an argument with a fictional example, I’ll at least make some kind of disclaimer. ;)
chgoliz

Spent this past weekend with a well-known group of friends. Made a decision to *pay attention* to exactly this phenomenon for the entire time. Discovered my theory was correct: one person (out of 17) is responsible for virtually 100% of the conversation derailment, and thus single-handedly (mouthedly?) takes up well over 50% of the talk time in our group.

We all might start sentences equally, but we seldom get to finish them if this person is in the room.
- Anonymous
  
  I find that the most effective takedown of this behavior is to look at the person after they finish a long run-on sentence and pause to catch their breath, and, in the most ingenuously deadpan sense of innocent wonderment I can muster, say “Wow…do you ever think anything you _don’t_ say?”
  
  You may start a fistfight, but you will end the talking.
  - chgoliz
    
    For the times that is possible to say (not to a boss, for example), that would be brilliant!
Tau’ma

Talk Talk [Video Link] Talk Talk
Susan Oliver

Might be useful in couples counseling. Guys (typically) dominate conversations but think that their gf/wife is actually doing all the talking.
- IronEdithKidd
  
  Amen, sister. Psychologists call that phenomenon ‘projecting’.
  
  Knobtheunicorn@34: Is it, like, because, you’re all, like, under the age of 30? (sorry, I couldn’t resist)
  - knobtheunicorn
    
    It’s infectious, ain’t it? Sadly though, I’ve witnessed the elderly(those over the age of 30)fall victim to this, too. It’s a plague I tell you and because I suppose it’s not cool to slap friends in the face everytime they missuse the word I’m thinking of looking into a bear horn.
Tau’ma

Talk Talk performing Talk Talk (Version 2).