Conversation

Human beings are social animals - we are more healthy, live longer and feel happier if we spend much of our time in the company of others. And we've seen that language and talking to one another is obviously a 'social thing' - but that doesn't necessarily mean that we're any good at it.

Wherever there's a problem, you can be sure that there will be no shortage of people trying to fix it:

• American psychologist Eric Berne sold over a million copies of a book called What Do You say After You say Hello?
• There are literally thousands of books, articles and websites designed to help shy people, people going on a date, people wanting to make friends and influence others, people wanting to be better managers, and so on.

But there's no sign that this particular problem is about to go away any time soon. At Christmas and at family gatherings, teenagers and their parents and grandparents still often gaze at each other in mutual incomprehension - a situation exacerbated by the Wii, the PlayStation, Twitter and Facebook. And people still regularly leave drinks and dinner parties complaining that the person they were talking to didn't once ask them an interesting question all evening.

In any case, it's an old problem. Conversation between the generations was held to be problematic by several writers in the time of the Roman Empire. And there are is no shortage of stilted and unrevealing conversations in Jane Austen, Dickens and Thackeray.

So, while On Q might, at first sight, seem artificial - 'Why should I use these cards to have a conversation?' - its structure can be very helpful:

• People have to take turns, so that the conversation isn't dominated by a few.
• Time for each answer can be limited - again to stop anyone taking over the conversation.
• The carefully-tested questions will draw out even the shyest participant
• The questions will help to avoid 'uninteresting' discussions about the weather, the traffic or what route people used to get there.
• The questions are designed to get round the barriers that typically prevent conversations between people from different backgrounds, cultures or generations.