Not sure about americaland, but in France that would be considered a rude way of thinking. There's always bullshit to yap about, especially with people you barely know.
I mean, this is probably pop psychology nonsense, but I read somewhere that the local culture around small talk is based on the locale's population density. So like, in a rural place where you rarely meet other people, it's considered polite to have small talk with say, your cashier, because you rarely meet each others and you want to acknowledge that other people exists, while in an urban place where people just jostle into each others all the time anyway, it's considered rude to have unnecessary small talk.
So say, even in americaland, the culture around small talk in a metropolis like New York and the rural farming towns would be different.