Haritosh SrivastavFounder & Head Coach, Confident Storytelling Hub

Pandemic in Public Speaking

12 May 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:59

In this short YouTube talk, the speaker frames the ubiquitous use of smartphones in public spaces as a "pandemic" that undermines public speaking and interpersonal communication. He argues that constant phone scrolling creates a barrier to genuine connection, but also presents an opportunity: by putting the phone away and observing the room, you can spot another person who is similarly disengaged and use that as a natural ice‑breaker. The speaker offers concrete, low‑effort tactics—store the phone in your pocket, make direct eye contact, and start conversations with simple prompts like “What was your major takeaway?”—to practice and improve face‑to‑face communication at conferences and networking events.

Chapters

Have you been to a public place and you see everybody scrolling their phone? And let me tell you, this is the biggest problem right now, the biggest pandemic, if I may say, when it comes to public speaking and interpersonal communication. Because when you go over there, everybody is so glued into their phone. And you know what, there's also an opportunity, because if you can get away from this third hand of you If you can start observing people, start observing what is happening, and you find another one person who's doing the same thing, you can very easily start a conversation. And how you can do that? What a great conference today. What was your major takeaway? And this way you can practice interpersonal communication. So next time when you are in a networking place, the one thing that you should stop doing is looking at your phone. Put it in your pocket and focus on making real eye contact with real people.