[apelapan]

I'm on my fifth decade living in the nordics. Strangers have conversations at bus stops and neighbours socialize by the garbage bins and across the hedges all the time.

Not as much as in some other places in the world, but it is not at all rare.

[brabel]

Maybe in other regions, I am in Stockholm and would be shocked by an approaching neighbour trying to talk to me, unless it was to complain about my trees or something.

On the bus/train, even when it breaks down and we have to wait nearly an hour for it to start moving again, I've seen carriages full of people not speaking a word to each other (except people now think it's ok to speak on their phones, to my great annoyance).