If you want to give people something to talk about in the New Year, make it your newly enhanced communication skills. Almost every aspect of your life will benefit.
“If there’s one thing we can do to improve our relationships and even our sense of wellness, it’s working on our communication,” says Meredith Harrigan, a professor in the department of communication at the State University of New York at Geneseo. “Yet people tend to think that communication is easier than it is, or that it’s just something we naturally do well, rather than something we can practice and develop and give intention and attention to.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]With that in mind, we asked experts which common habits need to be left in the past—and why.
Over-relying on AI
Throughout 2025, something strange happened to our messages: They all started sounding the same. LinkedIn posts, emails, and even opening lines on dating apps became polished but oddly interchangeable, says Audra Nuru, a professor of communication studies and family studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. “Messages lost their pulse—there’s no sense of who’s behind the words,” she says. “They read like templates instead of something written by an actual person.”
That doesn’t land well with the people on the receiving end. When a message feels automated instead of personal, it can come across as distant or even misleading, she says.
In the coming year, Nuru suggests using tools like ChatGPT as a brainstorming partner, rather than a stand-in for your own voice. “When everything starts to sound polished and predictable, we lose the small markers that make communication feel human,” she says. “We lose the quirks, hesitations, warmth, and lived experience that tell someone, ‘I’m here with you.’”
Leaving people on read
You know when you send someone a text, and you can tell they read it but they don’t respond for 12 anxiety-filled hours? Nuru thinks of it as the texting disappearing act—and says it’s time to close the curtains on the habit.
People who leave others on read “turn silence into a message itself,” she says. “We start wondering if something shifted or if we said the wrong thing, when really, that other person is just busy or overwhelmed.”
Read More: The 4-Word Trick to Saying a Great Goodbye
You don’t need to always be available, Nuru adds—and in fact, it’s a good idea to set boundaries instead of responding to texts 24/7. However, she recommends sending a short reply: “I saw this, and I’ll respond when I can.”
“That keeps the conversation relatively steady, instead of leaving someone to guess what that silence means,” she says. “We can give ourselves room to respond when we’re truly ready, while still letting the other person know that they haven’t been forgotten.”
Breadcrumbing
This buzzy term describes the slow drip of attention that never quite develops into anything meaningful. Think: occasional texts suggesting get-togethers that never happen, or vague messages with no follow-through. Unlike ghosting’s clean break, “it involves sending just enough sporadic communication to keep someone emotionally invested,” Nuru says, “without any actual commitment.”
There’s just enough warmth to keep hope alive, followed by silence that creates confusion and self-doubt. It feels like emotional whiplash, she adds—and research suggests it’s even more distressing than ghosting, because it keeps people in a prolonged state of uncertainty and triggers anxiety and feelings of helplessness.
If you’re guilty of breadcrumbing, keep in mind that being upfront with someone is better than keeping them on standby. “Clarity is kindness, even when it’s uncomfortable,” Nuru says.
Minimizing other people’s concerns
When Harrigan talks with college students, she notices they often default to the same habit: minimization. It stems from good intentions. “People don’t want to be in conflict, and they want to help each other problem-solve, so what they end up doing is saying things like, ‘It’s not as bad as you think it is,’ or, ‘It’s not as big of a deal as you think it is,’” she says. “It minimizes the importance to a person, but it’s not like people are trying to do it from a mean-spirited place.”
Breaking the habit requires being aware of differences in perception, she adds. Keep in mind that the way you make sense of an experience is different from the way someone else will. Before responding to a friend, Harrigan suggests embracing the power of the pause—and then asking a question. Rather than immediately offering advice or your opinion, you might, for example, ask one of these questions: “Why do you think you’re experiencing it this way? “ Or: “Can you explain a little more about what you’re thinking?”
“That reinforces that you care about them, and that your goal is to support them by understanding them better,” she says.
Making video calls in public
When we share information with people that they don’t want or didn’t ask to hear, we make them “reluctant confidantes,” Harrigan says. One common way it happens: FaceTiming in public. “The other day I was in a doctor’s office, and I couldn’t believe the conversation the person next to me was having with somebody out loud,” she says. “It was very personal.” Not to mention: Most people would prefer not to be unwitting background actors on someone else’s video call.
Read More: 7 Polite Phrases That Are Still Worth Saying
In the coming year, make it a point to be mindful of your surroundings, Harrigan adds—and think hard about whether it’s really the right place to fill your best friend in on the late, late night you had with your date the night before.
Skipping pleasantries
Yes, everyone is busy. But Harrigan implores: Don’t skip a quick hello at the beginning of your message. “People email for work all the time, and they jump right into the task without even a friendly greeting, a ‘how are you?’ or a ‘how was your weekend?’” she says. “It makes the interaction cold—almost like they’re useful to you only for the task you’re working on.” Adding a friendly salutation is a quick, easy fix, she adds, that goes a long way.
Text-trapping your friends
People aren’t always upfront about their motives, as you may have learned the hard way. Imagine, for example, getting this text: “Do you have plans for tonight?” Maybe you assume the person sending it wants to meet for dinner or watch a movie. But when you respond, they inform you that they need a ride to the airport, and since you’re free, you can take them—right?
“You feel trapped,” Harrigan says. Many find it to be an ethical quandary: Is it OK to lie to get out of it? (“Whoops, I forgot! I’m actually meeting so-and-so for dinner!”) In 2026, avoid putting your friends or colleagues in this situation by always being upfront about your motives, she says.
Filling all silences
The sound of silence makes a lot of people uncomfortable. That’s why they jump into saying something—anything—without necessarily giving it much thought. When that happens, people can end up making promises they can’t keep or immediately regretting their words.
In the year ahead, Harrigan issues this challenge: Get comfortable with silence. If you’re not sure what to say during a difficult conversation, she suggests acknowledging that: “I’m pausing because I really don’t know the best thing to say,” or “I want to be helpful and show my support, but I’m unsure how to best do it, and I want to be thoughtful about it.”
“Honesty like that can be very valuable in relationships,” she says.
Gunnysacking
When someone stores up a litany of frustrations, grievances, and hurt feelings—and then dumps them all out during a fiery outburst—it’s called “gunnysacking.” This unhealthy communication pattern can take a serious toll on relationships, says Jimmie Manning, a professor of communication studies at the University of Nevada, where he’s also the director of the Relational Communication Research Laboratory.
“If I have a relationship and I don’t like that they chew with their mouth open, but I don’t say anything, I’ll throw it into my little gunnysack. Then maybe they want to split the bill even though they’ve ordered two drinks and I haven’t, so I throw it in the gunnysack,” he says. “One night they say something rude, and I just let it all out: ‘You are such a bad friend—you do this, you do that, you do this.’”
A better approach is to focus on immediate, healthy conflict resolution. It’s also a good idea to reflect on whether the things you’re getting annoyed about actually matter. Manning suggests asking yourself: “Does it really matter if they chew with their mouth open? Is that a ‘you’ problem, or a ‘them’ problem? Because at the end of the day, it probably doesn’t hurt you,” especially if it’s coming from a friend or colleague you don’t spend every meal with. “I call it the price of admission,” he says. “Sometimes you have to be willing to put up with things.”
Misdiagnosing conflict
Manning sees it all the time: Young people, in particular, diagnose their peers as narcissists, or accuse them of gaslighting or triggering a trauma response. This “therapy speak” usually isn’t accurate—and is weaponized to “shut down conversations and make these accusations that could carry stigma,” he says.
People are especially likely to misdiagnose conflict. Imagine this scenario, for example: “My boyfriend has been staying over, and now he’s eating all my food. He’s a total narcissist who eats whatever he wants. When I told him I didn’t appreciate him drinking all the milk and eating all the donuts, he gaslit me and said, ‘Well, I buy all the food for us when we go out to eat.’ Now every time he walks in the room, I have a trauma response because I’m afraid he’s going to eat my food again.”
Read More: Here’s How to Know You’re Talking to a Narcissist
“This probably all relates back to some very valid feelings or tensions in the relationship, but it misdiagnoses conflict,” Manning says. “It stigmatizes mental-health language and uses it in a way that’s not appropriate—and most importantly, it’s probably going to escalate the problem.”
Framing hurtful words as honesty
Honesty is essential in any relationship, but it can also be misused. One way that happens is when people frame harsh words as “just being honest,” releasing frustration without considering how the words might be received. “It becomes a shield for cutting remarks,” Nuru says. “Honesty stops feeling like a path toward understanding, and starts feeling like something that carries more hurt than clarity.”
To ditch this habit, make it a point to slow down and consider what role you hope honesty will play in the conversation. Nuru advises asking yourself questions like: “Does this need to be said? Does it need to be said now? And am I the one who needs to say it?” Doing so can help clarify whether the comment will foster positive change and understanding or add strain, she says.
Struggling to hold differences
Caring about someone doesn’t mean you have to be on the same page about everything. Yet “somewhere along the way, we started believing that closeness requires agreement,” Nuru says. She often sees people slip into either/or mindsets, convinced that only one perspective is valid; anything else feels like a threat. That shifts the focus of conversations from trying to understand to trying to win, and people end up defending positions rather than exploring perspectives, she says.
Read More: 11 Things to Say to Your Relative Whose Politics You Hate
In 2026, challenge yourself to remain open—which doesn’t mean changing your mind, but simply hearing another perspective as part of the conversation. It’s possible to stay connected and recognize different viewpoints, Nuru says. “We don’t lose anything by hearing something else,” she adds. “Relationships can hold more than one truth at a time.”
Wondering what to say in a tricky social situation? Email timetotalk@time.com
