I talk to myself all the time and I am only in my thirties. I think it's partly because I work from home and therefore spend around 8-10 hours talking to myself or the dog at home, or sit in total silence. It's hard to break that habit when I'm at the shop or other public space. Many elderly people also live quite lonely lives, so maybe that's why?

Two reasons I can think of it being age related, though I think it's pretty common at any age:

1. Cognition and short term memory isn't what it used to be, and saying things out loud helps
2. With age you stop giving a fuck what people around you think (source: self)

Define "old people".

I've doing that since my late 20s at least.

I'm in my 60s. I've only been living alone for about a year and a half, but I do find that talking to myself (or the cat) is preferable to going ages without saying a word. I don't do it when I'm out in public, but I could easily see it becoming a habit after enough years of it.

I'm honestly more concerned about farting loudly becoming a habit, since I don't have to worry about farting quietly 90% of the time.

The older you get, the more you realize the people that make fun of useful behaviour are the ones that are wrong. If something makes your life better, but other people make fun of you for it, they are just jerks and you can ignore them.

To make sure the normal people keep their distance.

Because I have a screw loose and no one else will talk to me. Now stop asking.

you will get there. they don't give a fuck anymore :) also it's more thinking out loud

For me, it's because I was born with a defective give-a-shitter and that thing died completely about a decade ago.

That's not even a joke.

But you run into it a lot. It isn't just older folks, but it amounts to people being prone to it gradually losing their filter for it. When you're younger, you tend to care more about perceptions. At some point, that starts going away because you realize it isn't worth the energy it takes, and you have less energy anyway.

You know how the technicians at NASA keep finding new and creative ways of using the Voyager hardware well beyond it's operation lifespan, presumed hardware limits and original intent? As you get older you realise you have a few bytes of very short-term storage in the air between your mouth and ears and you might as well use it.

ADHD...spend most of my time silent. When I speak a thought aloud, it puts some emphasis on that thought. Helps me remember important things.

I'm middle aged or early middle aged, I talk to things all the time, other day train stopped but the doors weren't opening because driver must be slow or something, so I jut said "come now door, open up". Woman next to me just looked at me like with concern like i need psychological help.

What's the big deal, I know door is not going to respond. Life is just fun pretending that it can. I've talked to things since my 20s.

I'm 31 and I've been doing this (soliloquy) since my early childhood.

!nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

Most of mine are "What the fuck am I supposed to be buying again?" or "What did I come here for?" and just variations of those situations

Are they having a conversation or just thinking out loud?

The legend goes that Einstein thought out loud all the time. If it's good enough for Albert, it's good enough for me.

I talk to myself when I need expert advice. Just kidding, I talk to myself to slow my thought process way down.

Who else is gonna listen?

Sometimes saying things out loud helps people make sense of them, I don't know all the science behind it but I'm sure there is a good reason.

Talking to the only interesting person in the room

It’s almost certainly a mixture of things you’re seeing - some mental health issues occasionally, some is lifelong and normal, some is just when aging you don’t care as much who sees you doing what in your younger days might have seemed embarrassing, in your old age you also have stored a lot more information and context and talking through them helps organize thoughts a little better.

There’s more reasons, but you can see there’s a mixture of reasons why it’s occurring, and each time you see it it’s probably a differently weighted mixture of all these things. My wife has always talked to herself to work things out as she’s planning, also announcing what she’s doing in the next few moments or hours to herself, she also complains about whatever is wrong out loud no matter what it is, but most notably she does this FAR more often when she’s stressed.

I'm autistic and that's why I do it

Like narrating actions ("I'm buying these cookies") or carrying on conversations with themselves, or 'thinking out loud' ("I wonder if it will rain today?") kind of stuff?

Why? Because I get good answers.

Younger people are so full of sh1t, I prefer to talk to the most sensible individual present.

People have smartphone mic inplanted