I was lying here (just got off Facebook) thinking, "How many people actually take time to speak to total strangers face to face on a daily basis?" I don't know if it is just a Southern thing or not but I had heard it was not as common for folks, up north, to talk to strangers, so while visiting a few years ago, I made people talk to me by asking questions. Surprisingly enough people are will ing to talk if approached in the right way. On the other hard every time I go into a anywhere down here, I find myself in a conversation with a total stranger.
The technological world we live in today makes it really easy for folks to hide behind their electronic devices or ear phones and never say a word to the person sitting across the room from them. There was a time not so long ago when people actually talked to one another instead of sending texts, e-mails, or walked around listening to music in their headphones. For a person, who spent almost 22 years in sales, those forms of communication are a distraction to me. I would much rather sit across the table or next to a person and hear the sound of their voice. You can learn so much more about a person from listening to their voice inflections and the sound of their breathing as they speak rather than reading words on a screen. On the other hand, while electronic devices may make it easier to communication for some folks, digitally generated letters and images are impersonal which makes the use of emoticons and other forms of internet slang necessary as a way for people to express what they believe to be the correct emotion for a given situation.
I grabbed a few links off the web which may help.
http://www.wikihow.com/Talk-to-Strangers
http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Conversation-with-a-Stranger
http://socialanxietydisorder.about.com/od/copingwithsad/qt/conversetips.htm
http://community.sparknotes.com/2011/02/22/how-to-talk-to-strangers
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