It's just my guess, but I think that most people are so uncomfortable with their own thoughts and feelings that they have to continually drown them out with idl

It's just my guess, but I think that most people are so uncomfortable with their own thoughts and feelings that they have to continually drown them out with idle chatter. The problem is that they select those others very carefully so as to avoid any ideas that may impinge upon their established worldview. Perhaps it comes down to that there are just very few genuinely curious and intellectually honest people in the world, the result being that the majority (i.e. the others) self-select their environments and then either ignore others or, worse yet, attack them.