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

by Kate Murphy

People get lonely for lack of listening. Psychology and sociology researchers have begun warning of an epidemic of loneliness in the United States. Experts are calling it a public health crisis, as feeling isolated and disconnected increases the risk of premature death as much as obesity and alcoholism combined. The negative health impact is worse than smoking fourteen cigarettes per day. Indeed, epidemiological studies have found links between loneliness and heart disease, stroke, dementia, and poor immune function.

Lack of listening is one of the reason of epidemic of loneliness

Much has been written about how teenagers today are less likely to date, hang out with friends, get a driver’s license, or even leave home without their parents. They are spending more time alone; blue in affect, as well as in appearance, thanks to the reflected glow of their devices. Studies indicate the greater the screen time, the greater the unhappiness.

The greater the screen time, the greater the unhappiness

Seen as efficient and data driven, looking at what’s trending on social media or conducting online surveys is largely how listening is done in the twenty-first century by the press, politicians, lobbyists, activists, and business interests.

But what does it mean to really listen to someone? Interestingly, people can more readily describe what makes someone a bad listener than what makes someone a good listener. The sad truth is people have more experience with what makes them feel ignored or misunderstood than what makes them feel gratifyingly heard. Among the most frequently cited bad listening behaviors are: Interrupting Responding vaguely or illogically to what was just said Looking at a phone, watch, around the room, or otherwise away from the speaker Fidgeting (tapping on the table, frequently shifting position, clicking a pen, etc.) If you do these things, stop. But that alone is not going to make you a good listener. It will just make it less obvious that you’re a bad listener.

Bad listener

Hearing is passive. Listening is active. The best listeners focus their attention and recruit other senses to the effort. Their brains work hard to process all that incoming information and find meaning, which opens the door to creativity, empathy, insight, and knowledge. Understanding is the goal of listening, and it takes effort.

Listening is active, I'm completely agree, it's like when you attend college class. You need to listen in order to understand the subject

The more you listen to someone, such as a close friend or a family member, and the more that person listens to you, the more likely you two will be of like minds.

To be listened, you need to listen first

Listening is about the experience of being experienced. It’s when someone takes an interest in who you are and what you are doing. The lack of being known and accepted in this way leads to feelings of inadequacy and emptiness.

Talking without listening is like touching without being touched.

“Even if I don’t get anything from them, I learn the mind-set, the stance, the beliefs. How does he look? What does he think? What does he think of the West? What does he think of a guy like me? It’s a mind-blowing experience. It makes me better,” McManus said.

The premise is this: listen in a prescribed way to get what you want (i.e., get a date, make the sale, negotiate the best terms, or climb the corporate ladder). Listening may indeed and probably will help you accomplish your goals, but if that’s your only motivation for listening, then you are just making a show of it. People will pick up on your inauthenticity. You don’t need to act like you are paying attention if you are, in fact, paying attention.

People will pick up your inauthenticity. Pay attention instead of act like you're paying attention

Listening requires, more than anything, curiosity.

Listen 🤝 Curiosity

The most valuable lesson I’ve learned as a journalist is that everybody is interesting if you ask the right questions. If someone is dull or uninteresting, it’s on you.

Best quote on the book

Think about a time when you were trying to tell a story to someone who was obviously uninterested; maybe they were sighing or their eyes were roaming around the room. What happened? Your pacing faltered, you left out details, or maybe you started babbling irrelevant information or overshared in an effort to regain their attention.

NOT to-do list when listening

Behavioral science researchers at the University of Chicago ran a series of experiments involving hundreds of bus and train commuters whom they assigned to one of three conditions: 1) sit in solitude, 2) engage with a stranger, or 3) act as they normally would on their commutes. While the study participants for the most part expected to be least happy and least productive if they had to engage with a stranger, the researchers found the opposite was true. The people who talked to strangers were the happiest following their commutes and didn’t feel like it prevented them from doing work they would have otherwise done. And whereas the study participants were convinced other people wouldn’t want to talk to them and the exchange would be uncomfortable, none of them reported being rebuffed or insulted.

Talk to stranger is the happiest outcome when it comes to bus and train commuters actions (the other two is just sitting and act normally).

The only certainty you achieve by not listening to people is that you will be bored and you will be boring because you won’t learn anything new.

Not listening = bored

Relying on the past to understand someone in the present is doomed to failure.

Don't judge someone purely by their past

You’ve probably experienced the phenomenon when someone close to you (maybe your spouse, child, parent, friend, etc.) revealed something that you didn’t know when the two of you were talking to someone else. You might have even said, “I didn’t know that!” This likely occurred because the other person was listening differently than you previously had. Maybe that person showed more interest, asked the right questions, was less judging, or was less apt to interrupt.

Why your closest ones don't open up to you

Making assumptions of uniformity or solidarity based on age, gender, skin color, economic status, religious background, political party, or sexual preference reduces and diminishes us all. By listening, you might find comfort in shared values and similar experiences, but you’ll also find many points where you diverge, and it’s by acknowledging and accepting those differences that you learn and develop understanding.

You should "listen" to understand instead of making assumptions based on age, gender, skin color, economic status, religion, etc

Research by Graham Bodie, a professor of integrated marketing communication at the University of Mississippi, shows that people are more likely to feel understood if a listener responds not by nodding, parroting, or paraphrasing but by giving descriptive and evaluative information.

Give a descriptive and evaluative information instead of just nodding

“People want the sense you get why they are telling you the story, what it means to them, not so much that you know the details of the story,”

Listening when it comes to emotional perspective

Their data suggests that listeners’ responses are emotionally attuned to what speakers are saying less than 5 percent of the time, making your dog look pretty good by comparison.

LMAO

So it’s not that your friend lost his job that’s significant but how it’s impacting him emotionally.

An eye opener statement

Good listeners help speakers figure that out by asking questions and encouraging elaboration. You know you’ve succeeded as a listener when, after you respond, the other person says something like “Yes, exactly!” or “You totally get it!”

Instead of giving solution right away, I should start asking questions until he/she says "You totally get it!"

Listening helps you understand people’s mind-sets and motivations, which is essential in building cooperative and productive relationships as well as knowing which relationships you’re better off avoiding.

You miss out on opportunities (and can look like an idiot) when you don’t take a breath and listen. Talking about yourself doesn’t add anything to your knowledge base. Again, you already know about you. When you leave a conversation, ask yourself, What did I just learn about that person? What was most concerning to that person today? How did that person feel about what we were talking about? If you can’t answer those questions, you probably need to work on your listening.

Talking about yourself doesn’t add anything to your knowledge base, this is so true

“If you go into every situation thinking you already know everything, it limits your ability to grow, learn, connect, and evolve,” Noesner said.

Fixed mindset won't bring you anywhere

“I think a good listener is someone who is open to hearing someone else’s experiences and ideas and acknowledges their point of view.”

Good listeners use their excess brain capacity to notice these things, gathering more than just words.

This is why listening is an active action instead of passive

“They worry that if they really pay attention or really understand the other side’s point of view, they will lose sight of what matters to them.” It’s why people listen to individuals and media that affirm their viewpoints. And it’s also why it’s so hard to refrain from jumping in to refute speakers with whom you disagree before hearing them out, much less keep from nonverbally communicating your resistance by folding your arms, sighing, or rolling your eyes. We almost can’t help ourselves because when our deeply held beliefs or positions are challenged, if there’s even a whiff that we might be wrong, it feels like an existential threat.

The reason why most people don't want to listen different perspective (different opinion)

Neuroscientists at the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles recruited subjects with staunch political positions and, using an fMRI scanner, looked at their brain activity when their beliefs were challenged. Parts of their brains lit up as if they were being chased by a bear. And when we are in this fight, flight, or freeze mode, it’s incredibly hard to listen. (“So tell me, Mr. Bear, why are you chasing me?”)

When their beliefs were challenged = Being chased by a bear, interesting study lol

Disagreements and sharp differences of opinion are inevitable in life whether they are over political ideology, ethical issues, business dealings, or personal matters. When engaged in any kind of dispute, the father of listening studies, Ralph Nichols, advised listening for evidence that you might be wrong rather than listening to poke holes in the other person’s argument, much less plugging your ears or cutting someone out of your life entirely.

Listen to different opinion (that actually make sense)

According to Carl Rogers, the psychologist who coined the term active listening, listening to opposing viewpoints is the only way to grow as an individual: “While I still hate to readjust my thinking, still hate to give up old ways of perceiving and conceptualizing, yet at some deeper level I have, to a considerable degree, come to realize that these painful reorganizations are what is known as learning.”

Listening = Learning

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs famously hired people who weren’t afraid to push back on his ideas as hard as he pushed, often brutishly, on theirs. There was even an award given out every year by Apple employees to whomever did the best job standing up to him. Jobs knew about it and loved it. It’s as if he was looking for people who would force him to listen when his nature was to run roughshod over them. In one instance, an employee reportedly argued with Jobs but eventually backed down, exhausted by the fight but still convinced Jobs’s logic was flawed. When it turned out the employee was right, Jobs berated him. “It was your job to convince me I was wrong,” Jobs said. “And you failed!”

To listen does not mean, or even imply, that you agree with someone. It simply means you accept the legitimacy of the other person’s point of view and that you might have something to learn from it. It also means that you embrace the possibility that there might be multiple truths and understanding them all might lead to a larger truth. Good listeners know understanding is not binary. It’s not that you have it or you don’t. Your understanding can always be improved.

One of her greatest talents is asking questions that don’t rob people of their stories. For example, when moderating a focus group for a grocery store chain that wanted to find out what motivates people to shop late at night, she didn’t ask participants what would seem like the most obvious questions: “Do you shop late at night because you didn’t get around to it during the day?” “Is it because stores are less crowded at night?” “Do you like to shop late because that’s when stores restock their shelves?” All are logical reasons to shop at night and likely would have gotten affirmative responses had she asked.

Instead of asking why, tell them to share their stories the last time it did happen (1)

Nor did Naomi simply ask why they shopped late at night because, she told me, “Why?” tends to make people defensive—like they have to justify themselves. Instead, Naomi turned her question into an invitation: “Tell me about the last time you went to the store after 11:00 p.m.” A quiet, unassuming woman who had said little up to that point raised her hand. “I had just smoked a joint and was looking for a ménage à trois—me, Ben, and Jerry,” she said. Insights like that are why people hire Naomi.

Instead of asking why, tell them to share their stories the last time it did happen (2)

Salganik told me using social media data to learn about human behavior is like learning about human behavior by watching people in a casino. They are both highly engineered environments that tell you something about human behavior, but it’s not typical human behavior.

Naomi has what I have come to recognize as the listener’s demeanor. By that, I mean she’s exceptionally calm and has an expression that transmits interest and acceptance. Her eyes don’t dart, her fingers don’t fidget, and her body seems always relaxed and open. I spent several hours interviewing her and observing her interactions with others, and not once did I see her cross her legs or arms. When she was with someone, she never gave the slightest indication she was on a schedule or there was somewhere else she’d rather be. My most vivid image of Naomi is her sitting with her elbows bent in front of her on the table, cheeks resting in her hands, eyes wide, listening like a rapt teenager.

Naomi is the perfect example of good listener

“The real secret to listening I’ve learned is that it’s not about me,” Naomi said at one point. “I’m holding my cup out in front of me. I want them to fill my cup and not pour anything in their cup.”

A great quote from a good listener

What they found was that the most productive teams were the ones where members spoke in roughly the same proportion, known as “equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking.” The best teams also had higher “average social sensitivity,” which means they were good at intuiting one another’s feelings based on things like tone of voice, facial expressions, and other nonverbal cues.

Conversational turn-taking -> The best output on the team

In other words, Google found out that successful teams listened to one another. Members took turns, heard one another out, and paid attention to nonverbal cues to pick up on unspoken thoughts and feelings. This led to responses that were more considerate and on point. It also created an atmosphere of so-called psychological safety, where people were more likely to share information and ideas without fear of being talked over or dismissed.

Conversational turn-taking -> The best output on the team (2)

Moreover, listening is essential to being funny.

“Dating is a ritual of getting to know another person well enough to laugh.”

People who have conversational sensitivity not only pay attention to spoken words, they also have a knack for picking up hidden meanings and nuances in tone. They are good at recognizing power differentials and are quick to distinguish affectation from genuine affection.

If you think back to the times in your life when you were fooled, if you’re honest, there were likely things you missed or chose to miss. The too-urgent tone. The facts that didn’t quite add up. The hostility or exasperation in the person’s voice when you asked questions. The facial expression that didn’t quite match what the person was saying. The slight discomfort in the pit of your stomach that you couldn’t quite put your finger on.

Fooled -> Lack of listening and understanding

We often miss lies, as well as truths, because when someone says something that doesn’t make sense, most of the time, we don’t stop the conversation and say, “Wait. Back up. I don’t understand.”

“Wait. Back up. I don’t understand.” is needed instead of just nodding

Misunderstandings, like differences of opinion, are valuable reminders that others are not like us, or even remotely like us. Because we only really know ourselves, it’s a natural tendency to have a solipsistic view of the world. We incorrectly assume other people’s logic and motivations resemble our own. But, of course, they have different backstories and baggage.

LISTEN TO UNDERSTAND

Listening to a wide variety of people, too, is helpful. Many voices bring many perspectives. Questioning people and considering their responses is how you get better at doing the same when you have dialogues with yourself. As difficult as a problem may be, having a dialogue with yourself is ultimately the only way to solve it, or at least come to terms with it.

In his book of essays, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, Feynman wrote, “By trying to put the points of view that we have in our head together and comparing one to the other, we make some progress in understanding and in appreciating where we are and what we are.”

“When I left the dining room after sitting next to Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But when I sat next to Disraeli, I left feeling that I was the cleverest woman.” No surprise she preferred Disraeli’s company. The two-time Tory prime minister was a brilliant orator but also a keen listener, solicitous and adept at steering conversations toward whomever he was with.