Problem
In modern society, relationships with others are inseparable. Therefore, it is desirable to build good relationships with others. Many people may feel that it is important to have conversations (chat) during “informal communication (Kraut, 1990)” with others in order to build such relationships. For example, Mori (2017) states that good chatting builds trust with others. Furthermore, Ogawa et. al. (2009) state that in order to build a close relationship with others, the impressions created through the act of conversation in the early stages of the relationship are important. However, there are many people who are not good at conversing with others, even though they believe it is important to do so in order to build relationships. In JTB's comprehensive communication survey of adults who are college students or older, about half of the respondents indicated that they are not good at making small talk (JTB, 2018). Such people often experience awkward silences in conversations. This situation is especially likely to occur when talking to someone they have not talked to before, because they do not know the other person well.
The causes of awkward silence in conversation are the inability to respond to what the other person says and the inability to continue one's own conversation. First of all, the inability to respond to the other person's suggestion may be solved by preparing several types of patterns of responses to the other person in advance. However, since it is difficult to predict the flow of a conversation, it is advisable to practice by actually having a conversation. In addition, it is possible to fill in the gaps by paraphrasing or repeating what the other person has said, or in some cases, by responding in ways such as agreeing with the other person or using a mallet. These are especially effective in the early stages of conversation, but too much use of them may give the impression that you are not interested in the conversation. If the conversation does not continue, it is possible to shift the topic a little and start a new topic, but this may cause new problems such as not being able to remember the topic well or not being able to find the topic itself. This study aims to solve this problem.