You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

by Kate Murphy

Like smokers nervously patting their pockets for cigarettes, people get jittery without their phones. Indeed, mental health experts say device dependency has many of the same behavioral, psychological, and neurobiological components as substance abuse. While our smartphones may not allow us to have a decent conversation (“Can you hear me now? How about now?”), they seem to offer us just about everything else—social media, games, news, maps, recipes, videos, music, movies, podcasts, shopping, and pornography, if you’re so inclined. In the end, none of it is as emotionally satisfying or as essential to our well-being as connecting with a live human being. And yet, like any addict, we keep tapping, scrolling, and swiping as if pulling a lever on a slot machine, hoping to eventually hit the jackpot. This compulsion, driven by a fear of missing out, prevents sustained attention, making listening—or any task requiring thought—difficult. It’s hard to concentrate on what’s happening in the real world when you’re preoccupied with what could be happening in the virtual one.