Brazilian marketing agency Mark+ decided it was time people got back to a normal social environment so they came up with an unique, yet simple idea: conversation. Created as a social experiment conducted in Pelotas, they used stickers, that encouraged passengers to interact, and small post-its with possible topics. It’s what you’d call a Facebook counter-fight and we like it.
Did you ever stop playing Candy Crush for a second and just look to the people standing around you in the public bus, wondering what others do while their commuting to work? If you did, you probably found yourself surrounded by people wearing headphones, hypnotized by their smartphones, basically isolated from everything else. No wonder there is no basic conversation anymore. But it wasn’t always like that.
At least that is what these Brazilians believe, who managed to convince the local transportation agency to put 5 stickers in a dozen of their vehicles. They were sticked next to the seats reserved for those who were willing to travel different for a change. Because some of us are not keen of starting random conversations or simply have no idea on a proper subject, they also put some post-its with several topics.
Simple questions for simple conversations
The social project assumes that silly questions like “is it raining?” or “what was your last book?” can initiate a nice conversation between two people. “It’s a way to encourage people to give a rest to their phone, take the headphones off and simply listen and understand who is standing next to them”, Thomaz Ballverdu Brod, one of the people that created the project, explained.
PS: Don’t get us wrong, we’re not blaming Facebook (or any other social network for that matter) for our inability to interact to the person standing next to us. It’s totally our fault. This experiment is only here to remind us that...
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