Why is that surprising? Some people have more anxiety talking in person compared to being able to spend time crafting exactly what they want to say, some people might not live with other people or have any strong reason to go out to where other people are frequently...it seems like there could be so many potential reasons for this that aren't that weird, and I'm someone who's the opposite and probably averages twice that many words per minute when talking with anyone (due to a lifelong habit of talking much faster than I probably need to and often finding it easier to think though things out loud, which could be related to the first thing).
I don't talk due to disinterest in "people" things. I can say thousands of words if you project a stereotype in astronomy, physics, medieval/fantasy warfare, and so on. But most people don't do that, so all they hear is hi and mhmm/yes/no. Politeness apart, couldn't care less how's the day going, who seen whom and other people stuff.
Also I know/knew enough women who were mostly silent both in small and large groups (don't know the reason though).
I don't think it's gender-specific per se, but in my personal, opinionated experience the "women talk more" effect is due to the perceived uselessness of the talks that the most talkative of them have. When people talk about the topics you're not interested in, you think "they can't shut up can they" much more than when you're interested or neutral.
Yeah, I don't disagree with you that topic is super important, and in my experience at least, gender doesn't really seem to have any impact on the average amount of talking I notice people doing. I'm mostly just surprised that people seemed shocked that the parent commenter only expects that their median number of words per day is 50, especially when they also mentioned their _average_ is much higher than that. To me, that seems like someone who occasionally says quite a lot (maybe when meeting up with friends or family, or going to some sort of social event) but happens to live alone and doesn't feel the need to make small talk when they go out to run an errand or something (which also might not be very frequent, given how much can be ordered online these days).
