Uber app now includes 'Disable Small Talk' feature

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—It's easy! Just enter your pickup address, your destination address, and whether or not you'd like to be asked what you do for work by a vaguely apathetic back-of-a-head.

Starting next week, popular transportation company Uber will offer its app users the option to simply touch an icon of a mouth with a line through it in order to legally forbid the driver from uttering any questions and/or statements to do with the busyness level of the rider's day; what the customer does for a living; probable causes for the current heavy traffic; notable features of the current weather; how the acquisition of a boyfriend or girlfriend is going.

Similarly, the driver will now have the option to disable the customer from asking how long he or she has been an Uber driver, how he or she is finding it, and/or how it must be nice to have a flexible schedule and only pick up as much work as you want to that day.

"Look, people want one of two things: to talk about something real, or to not have to talk to anyone, ever," explains Uber's CEO Klaus Davidoff.

"If you disable the small talk, that's not to say you have to ride in dead silence if you don't want to – why not climb into the car and immediately ask your driver, 'Hey, what do you think was your father's greatest failing as a parent?' or 'When's the last time you had a major health crisis?' You know, things like that!"

"I disabled small talk last week and picked up this guy named Rex to take him to a house party," explains long-time Uber driver Maxwell Sconetown.

"He got into my car and I just opened with, 'Hey man, what was your last significant breakup about?' Anyway, we talked – like, really talked – for the whole ride and now we're going to a baseball game next week. Week after that we're gonna get sushi and hit the motherflippin' symphony orchestra. We're extremely close. All thanks to Uber!"

Passenger Rex Hassell weighs in: "When we pulled up to the house party, I was like, you know what? Nah. I mean, I can go in there and chat with a bunch of knucklehead lawyers about their porch renos, or I can stay here on this guy's extremely comfortable tan leather, like – couch, basically? – and really get into the issues with my new bestie Max."

At press time, of course you can also just disable small talk and spend your entire ride staring dead ahead while silently and stoically pretending you don't give two shits that Despacito just came on.

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