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

by Kate Murphy

In Western cultures, people tend to interpret silences longer than about half a second as disapproval, sanction, or ostracism, so they rush to say something to try to raise their standing. A silence of just four seconds is enough for people to change or nuance their expressed opinion, taking the quiet to mean their views are out of line.

A Dutch study showed people’s feelings of belonging and well-being diminished during video chat sessions with gaps or delays between responses. This occurred even when the subjects were told the conversational flow disruptions might be due to technical difficulties.

Certainly there are times when silences mean disapproval—think of the cricket silence after someone tells an inappropriate or off-color joke. But there’s a big difference between being “silent with” and being “silent to,” just like there’s a big difference between “laughing with” and “laughing at.” It’s more often the case in normal conversation that gaps are because the other person is just thinking or taking a breath before continuing. People pause while figuring out what, or how much, to tell you, or perhaps they need a moment to manage their emotions.

To be a good listener is to accept pauses and silences because filling them too soon, much less preemptively, prevents the speaker from communicating what they are perhaps struggling to say. It quashes elaboration and prevents real issues from coming to the surface. Just wait. Give the other person a chance to pick up where they left off.

Like Schafer, she encourages taking a day to dive into the “pocket of possibility” that is silence. “If you can bear to do it for just twenty-four hours, you will learn to be a better listener,” she said. “You will learn the unimportance of your words and the importance of other people’s words.” If a full day seems daunting, try staying silent during a single conversation. Don’t say anything unless asked a question. See what happens. Take it from bartenders—the other person probably won’t notice.

Somehow lost in our self-promoting culture is the fact that you can’t talk your way into a relationship. Garrulousness fills the silence but erects a kind of word wall that separates you from others. Silence is what allows people in. There’s a generosity in silence but also a definite advantage. People who are comfortable with silence elicit more information and don’t say too much out of discomfort. Resisting the urge to jump in makes it more likely you will leave conversations with additional insight and greater understanding.

Integrity and character are not things you are born with; they develop day by day through the choices you make, and that very much includes to whom and how well you choose to listen. Ethical behavior requires that you take into account how your words and actions affect others, and you can’t get a sense of that without listening.

In our self-reliant society, we believe we are responsible for our own happiness and prosperity. “Everyone must sell himself as a person, in order to be accepted,” Bruckner writes. But this constant self-promotion and image cultivation comes at a cost. We lose touch with others and ultimately our sense of belonging and connection, which was all we really wanted in the first place.

People tend to regret not listening more than listening and tend to regret things they said more than things they didn’t say. It seems giving people a piece of your mind isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

If you’re not good at reading other people’s reactions as you speak, then just ask them. Check in. “Have I lost you?” “Did I overstep?” “What do you think?” “Are you still with me?” “Had enough?” “Am I boring you?” “Make sense?” “Too much?”

The power of the listener is that you get to decide how much effort you want to put in and when you’ve had enough.

“We can readily accept the fact that we can be wrong,” the Polish-born social psychologist Robert Zajonc wrote, “but we are never wrong about what we like or dislike.” Better to listen to how people feel than try to convince them to feel differently.

Careful listening is draining, regardless of your personality, aptitude, or motivation. You can’t do it continuously.

Not listening because you don’t agree with someone, you are self-absorbed, or you think you already know what someone will say makes you a bad listener. But not listening because you don’t have the intellectual or emotional energy to listen at that moment makes you human. At that point, it’s probably best to exit the conversation and circle back later.

There’s a world of difference between gossip (talking about other people’s observed behavior to try to understand it) and betraying someone’s trust by divulging what the person told you in private.

And unlike most things in your life, listening is fully under your control. You get to decide who deserves your attention. Listening is your gift to bestow. No one can make you listen.

But just as you should be mindful and intentional when you grant the gift of your attention, you should try to be as mindful and intentional when you withhold it. While not listening is justified and a matter of practicality in some circumstances, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s a form of rejection. Consciously or unconsciously, you are choosing to attend to something else, which implies that person is not as interesting, as important, or as worthwhile, at least not at that moment. Not listening to someone can be hurtful even when you don’t mean to be, and it can be cruel if used as a weapon.

Anyone who has shared something personal and received a thoughtless or uncomprehending response knows how it makes your soul want to crawl back in its hiding place. Whether someone is confessing a misdeed, proposing an idea, sharing a dream, revealing an anxiety, or recalling a significant event—that person is giving up a piece of him or herself. And if you don’t handle it with care, the person will start to edit future conversations with you, knowing, “I can’t be real with this person.”

Listening is like playing a sport or musical instrument in that you can get better and better with practice and persistence, but you will never achieve total mastery. Some may have more natural ability and some may have to try harder, but everyone can benefit from making the effort.

Listening is a courtesy and, more fundamentally, a sign of respect. It’s impossible to convince someone that you respect them by telling them so. It must be demonstrated, and listening is the simplest way to do that.

Technology does not so much interfere with listening as make it seem unnecessary. Our devices indulge our fear of intimacy by fooling us into thinking that we are socially connected even when we are achingly alone. We avoid the messiness and imperfections of others, retreating into the relative safety of our devices, swiping and deleting with abandon. The result is a loss of richness and nuance in our social interactions, and we suffer from a creeping sense of dissatisfaction.

While listening is the epitome of graciousness, it is not a courtesy you owe everyone. That isn’t possible. It’s to your benefit to listen to as many different people, with as much curiosity as you can muster, but you ultimately get to decide when and where to draw the line. To be a good listener does not mean you must suffer fools gladly, or indefinitely, but rather helps you more easily identify fools and makes you wise to their foolishness. And perhaps most important, listening keeps you from being the fool yourself.

In our fast-paced and frenetic culture, listening is seen as a drag. Conversations unfold slowly and may need to be revisited. Listening takes effort. Understanding and intimacy must be earned. While people often say, “I can’t talk right now,” what they really mean is “I can’t listen right now.” And for many, it seems they never get around to it. This, despite what we all want most in life—to understand and be understood—only happens when we slow down and take the time to listen.