Australians spoke an average of 338 fewer words each day between 2005 and 2019. An oral historian who spent years inside the nation's biggest archive of voices now says the decline could point to something larger: Australians may be losing their ability to listen.
The historian calls the drop “a staggering loss of 120,000 spoken words per person, compared with the year before.” The warning comes as AI tools and chatbots promise faster responses and what the writer calls “empathetic” listening on demand.
The Case for the Human Voice
The writer’s credentials come from practice, not theory. Between 2018 and early 2024, the historian led a team at the National Library of Australia responsible for what the piece calls the largest oral history collection in the southern hemisphere. That’s about six years spent working with the recordings every day. The collection began in 1957, 69 years ago, and holds more than 58,000 hours of audio.
The historian argues that listening to different views and entering different worlds is integral to humanity. “Language is culture. It tells us who we are,” the writer said.
The archive shows what that means. Dame Mary Gilmore, born in 1865, 161 years ago, talks about tallow candles and life before electricity. An Australian prime minister recalls winning office after their party spent 23 years in opposition. A mother describes seeking refuge in Australia after crossing pirate-infested seas following the Vietnam war. A pioneer stationed in Antarctica reflects on distance.
Next, listeners might hear Dr Ella Stack, a Darwin doctor who survived Cyclone Tracy, stayed to help, recorded survivors’ memories and later ensured Darwin was rebuilt as mayor. It’s a story of one person choosing to stay and serve.
What the Archive Holds
Much of the collection sits online through Trove. It includes First Nations Australians speaking about deep history and first-person memories reaching back into the 19th century. It also holds memories of the 1891 Queensland shearers’ strikes, now 135 years ago, and of the conscription debates of the first world war. The collection includes testimonies from First Nations Australians who were part of the Stolen Generations.
The recordings preserve past Australian accents, words people no longer speak and accounts of professions that no longer exist. The writer says people’s humorous memories sometimes made them cry with laughter.
Patience Over Instant Answers
The historian says listening to people from diverse backgrounds can improve mental and physical wellbeing, foster information exchange, spark ideas and build empathy. Listening, the writer said, lets people engage with others’ experiences without demanding instant gratification or artificial agreement. It makes people more patient. It helps them appreciate difference and disagree “without being unnecessarily destructive.”
“Empathy is the richest gift listening offers,” the writer said. “That will be our greatest loss if we speak and hear less.”
People separated by a century or more can still connect through shared experiences of love, loss, change, challenge, joy and resilience, the writer said. “These voices from the past can resonate as powerfully as ever in our present.”
Why This Matters:
The figures cover 2005 to 2019, a span of 14 years, so speech declined before today’s chatbots arrived. Even so, the historian worries about what happens when a fast, frictionless substitute for human attention turns up. The piece describes listening as a habit that shapes patience, disagreement and trust between citizens, civic skills built through families, communities and voluntary institutions rather than supplied by a product. The archive’s stories carry a similar theme: people staying put, persevering through 23 years in opposition and rebuilding a city. From a perspective that prizes personal responsibility and durable institutions, the open question is whether Australians will keep choosing the slower, harder work of listening to one another when an easier option is a tap away.