“Silent Hangout”, because young people love being together without speaking

As generations are changing, uses and customs change. And so today, with surprise of those who are over 40 years old, among the twenties, the so -called “Silent Hangout”, the silent gatherings. Groups of guys who meet not so much to speak, to party or pull late, but for share a space and a time in silence. Everyone does his own things: there are those who read, those who write, those who work on the PC, those who shake the phone, who draws, and everyone does it next to each other, in a silent company that “warms” more than you might think. It is not insulation or loneliness, but sharing of silence, respect for the ways of others.

The phenomenon was born in large university cities (from Milan to Bologna, from Berlin to New York) and somehow developed in parallel with the success of the coworking, with the difference that we find ourselves not to work, but to spend your free time.

It is done in bars, libraries, squares and parks.

Examples of “Silent Hangout”

Thus, for example, a Turin Not only is the Silent Book Clubwhich, different from the most common book clubs, organizes appointments to share the pleasure of silent reading where everyone reads a book of his choice, but he also created himself Nature without wordsa group of people who gather and interact with each other and with the surrounding environment speak, but looking around, together.

TO Ravennaon the other hand, the historic Classese Library proposed the second edition of his Silent reading partyto rediscover the pleasure of reading immersed in the suggestive silence of the cloisters, disconnected from the digital world: the public is invited from 9 pm and, after the delivery of mobile phones safely to the library staff, you can start reading your book, until 11 pm. Only at the end of the evening, they have a chat, with a small refreshment.

The Silent Hangout Thus seems to be an alternative to hyperconnection and “forced” sociability: there is no performance anxiety, there are no obliged chats or group selfies. It is a pause that allows you to feel part of something without having to demonstrate it. A new urban rite that, far from an idea of ​​isolation, wants to underline the intimacy that can be created in this Shared silence.

Never like this year, to the Caciarone holidays, many have preferred the «Silent retort », The retreats of silenceperiods with a variable duration – can be three, five, seven days or even more – during which you withdraw in a isolated place in which it is not allowed to speak. Whether they are in Tuscany, Sardinia, Umbria or in the most distant Thailand or Nepal, whether they are to meditate, do yoga or simply read, think and recharge, you feel the need to lower the volume.