I think everyone has probably engaged in one or all of
the types of nonlistening at some point in their lives. I feel like when people
get on comfortable or bored or distracted they become less attentive and tend to
engage in nonlistening. I know that when I have a lot on my mind or I am really
busy I tend to engage in pseudolistening or selective listening. Because I have
so much going on in my head I kind of tune people out or only listen to parts
of what they are saying. When this happens I normally realize I am doing it at
some point and I normally just focus extra hard or excuse myself from the
situation. When I do try and focus on the conversation, I push everything else
from my mind and focus on what is happening in front of me. I also tend to
engage in monopolizing when I get uncomfortable. Everyone’s favorite subject is
themselves and that is who I talk about when I get uncomfortable. When these
situations occur, I worry about the conversation dyeing down or stopping, so I kind
of just talk. To overcome this, I will
try and focus more on the other person and what is being said instead of
focusing on what could happen.
Hi Catherine,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I suffer from the same form of non-listening. I think part of the problem is that I always feel short on time. So during meetings I am always trying to multitask. The result is, that I really do not pay attention to anything 100%. Often, I try and tune out the topics that I feel do not relate to me. The problem with doing this is that I often miss topics and information that could help me. I honestly feel that the only person that is suffering from this is myself. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to break this habit. In my mind, by using selective listening, I am freeing up time to focus on other areas, such as research and emails, in reality, I am not getting the information that I should be, thus I am not an active participant in anything.
I can relate when you say that you have so many things going in your head so you result in psuedolistening and selective listening. I feel like as a college student, we are given so much pressure from our teachers, peers, and classes that our minds are so full of information everyday that causes us stress. So to avoid having an overload in our brain, we tend to block any other new information in the form of pseudolistening because it allows us to sort out the ones we already have. Also, if we feel like we need to know more, we only do selective listening to balance out the information that we already have.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading through your blogs because you type rather casually by using words such as "like" and "kind of". Thus, I feel like I am talking to a real human. On the other hand, I think I type seemingly robotic because all I really do is define terms. You have allowed me to realize that in my own writing. Also, I relate to you when you state that you tend to use pseudolistening and selective listening when you have other things on your mind. I had completely forgotten that I use those two types of nonlistening most during that type of situation until I read your blog.
ReplyDeleteI agree that in some point in everyone’s life there are aspects of nonlistening. I also usually engage in pseudolistening. I think in this day and age people have so much going on so it is hard to really focus on one thing. This is why I think a lot of people engage in pseudolistening and selective listening. People only listen to parts of conversations while running through all of the other thoughts in their head. I think it is a real hard skill to be an active listener because we have so much going on. I think you are correct in saying that we need to try and focus on what is being said and really be attentive with others.
ReplyDelete