Reasons for Poor Listening

If we know why we lose our attention during the communication, we can find ways how to overcome and enhance understanding people more. There are several reasons we fail to listen to well.

Too many messages make us easily lose our focus during the conversation. Unintentionally, we are in the deluge of communication like emails, texts, messages, and mass media. That overwhelmed information become disturbances to us.

When the speed to talk is too fast, we fail to listen well. According to Adler, Rodman, and du Pre (2017), we have a great deal of mental “spare time” to spend while someone is talking. The trick is to use this spare time to understand the speaker’s ideas better rather than to let your attention wander.

When we concern about other things than communication, it is easy to lose a point of the conversation because a listener is already preoccupied with noises from his or her cognition.

Like psychological noise can be a distraction of your listening, physical noise is the same. When you are tired or have something discomfort, you can’t listen well. Even the best intentions aren’t enough to ensure a clear understanding. (Adler et al., 2017, p.130)

If you have hearing problems, the Defects of hearing make trouble to listen. Older people aren’t the only ones affected. According to Adler, Rodman, and du Pre (2017), the number of young people with hearing loss is on the rise, in part because of earbuds and similar technology that make it possible to blast our eardrums with a dangerously loud noise.

When you don’t have enough understanding of cultural differences between you and others, it may lead to miscommunication. Listening styles can be varied depending on cultures and become more the function of habit than of conscious choice, and people often come to rely on a predominant listening style (Dragan & Sherblom, 2008, p.174). Individual cultures show action-oriented listening versus collectivist cultures more people-oriented listening style. People’s listening styles reflect the influence of that person’s cultural background. (Langer, 1980)

How well listen has a profound effect on how well understand in our communication. We can't control how the other person conveys their information. Still, as a listener, we can improve the quality of communication by sorting necessary information and improving the ability to listen by avoiding the distraction of unrelated thinking and maintaining good physical condition.

Reference

Dragan, D. & Sherblom, J. (2008). The Influence of Cultural Individualism and Collectivism on US and Post Soviet listening Styles. Human Communication, Vol. 11 Issue 2, p173-188.

Adler, Rodman, and du Pre (2017). Understanding Human Communication (13th ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.