6.5: Barriers to Listening

Understanding Barriers for Better Listening

Now that you have a better understanding of the functions and styles of listening, we will discuss the barriers to listening. A barrier to listening is anything that is hindering you from recognizing, understanding, and accurately interpreting the message that you are receiving. We’ll discuss four barriers to effective listening: information overload, prejudice or prejudging, rate of speech and thought, and internal and external distractions. When you have a better understanding of the potential barriers to effective listening, you can pinpoint your weaknesses and work on building them up to make you a better listener.

Information Overload

We now know that a majority of our time communicating is spent listening. With all the listening we are doing, there are going to be times when we experience information overload. Information overload is when you have so much information coming at you, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. In a Public Speaking class, for example, you can experience this when listening to your classmates give speeches, especially if you’re hearing 20 speeches, one after the other. You become overwhelmed and you’ll probably find yourself tuning out at some point. Or what if a speaker condenses so many statistics into the presentation that you cannot keep track of all the numbers? That’s information overload.

To cope with information overload, you might consider taking notes to increase focus and your ability to process the information being delivered. If appropriate in the circumstances, such as in a business meeting or professional training, you might politely ask the speaker to repeat a point you missed, briefly paraphrase what they’ve said to ensure you’ve gathered the key points accurately, or even simply ask clarifying questions. You might also ask for resources or recordings that you can reference later at your own pace.

Prejudging

We, as humans, tend to be closed-minded at times. If you have an emotional reaction to a person or disagree with their ideas personally, you might be allowing personal prejudices to distract you. There are various ways we prejudge others. We may unconsciously prejudge a speaker because of their age, race, sexual identity, appearance, occupation, or political affiliation. Keeping an open mind when speaking with others is optimal but often challenging, because you may not even know this barrier is preventing you from fully showing up as a listener. Furthermore, you might have a hard time listening because you disagree with the speaker.

One way to identify some unconscious biases you may have towards others is to take the free Implicit Association Test (IAT). This test measures “attitudes and beliefs that people may be unwilling or unable to report” (Rudman, Greenwald, & McGhee, 1998). There are a variety of tests one can take, and the results are anonymous and allow you to examine unknown biases you may have toward others. Taking the time to examine your biases can help you become a better listener because you can suspend judgment and listen with an open mind. While you may disagree with the person’s perspective, you may learn more about them, yourself, or the topic they are sharing. You’ll never know unless you hear them out.

Journal Exercise: Try this!

It can be a struggle to open ourselves up to opinions, perspectives, or people with whom we adamantly disagree. These differences can create real problems in our relationships, at home, and at work. Deliberate listening can be a powerful tool in learning to connect more effectively with the people in your life.

For this entry, sit down with someone that you know who has an opinion or idea you find ridiculous or simply disagree with ... and spend at least 10 minutes engaged in listening to them.

After your conversation, take some time to reflect on your experience as a listener and let your insights sink in. Consider questions like:

• In what ways did you find listening to the other person challenging?
• How did you prejudge the speaker?
• What strategies did you use to suspend judgment while listening?
• What did you learn about the other person by listening to them?
• What did you learn about yourself as a listener?

Rate of Speech and Thought

A recent study suggests that most people speak at a rate of 100 to 150 words per minute (wpm) in everyday conversation or when presenting. However, voice readers of audiobooks, radio hosts, and podcasters were found to speak at rates of 150-160 wpm. In the same study, auctioneers’ speech rate was 250 wpm, and commentators came in at 250-400 wpm. (Barnard, 2022). So why does this matter? Ideally, the speaker’s rate of speech would line up with the listener’s speed of thought in processing the words spoken. A consideration is that the speech rate changes depending on who or what we are listening to. The question becomes “Can our brains keep up?”

A 2019 study conducted by Muller, et. al. that analyzed listening efforts in conjunction with varying rates of speech found that “the brain adapts to the auditory input for an optimal stimulus processing…show[ing] a clear influence of speech rate averaged across participants.” In other words, our brains will automatically adjust to increased speech rate. So, yes, our brains can keep up. Furthermore, it has been found that most people process between 400 and 800 words per minute (Hargie, 2011). But our brains can process information several times faster than the speed at which words are typically spoken. As a result, a mental lag can occur. Since we listen and process information much faster than the average rate of speech, including the high rate at which commentators speak, we tend to fill the void with other thoughts and cognitive biases. In turn, this speaking–listening differential can halt our listening altogether. We find ourselves tuning in and out while our minds are busy making predictions, perhaps prejudging and veering off into other related thoughts, or even simply slipping into a daydream.

To be an effective listener, one has to be mindful of this differential and use strategies to prevent the mind from veering off for too long. One strategy to prevent this mental lag is to mentally summarize the speaker’s ideas from time to time to keep yourself engaged. Taking notes, doodling images or symbols of things you are hearing, or visualizing what the speaker is sharing might also help to fill the void while still remaining engaged as a listener. The point is that awareness of this mental lag can help you build your mindfulness around your capacity as a listener and develop strategies that take advantage of the thought–speech differential.

Internal and External Distractions

Let’s face it, you have a lot going on in your life. You attend school, you probably work, you might be raising a family, and you have your own issues to work through every day. Sometimes when we are absorbed in our own thoughts and concerns, we can’t focus on what someone else is saying. We have all experienced moments of being physically present but mentally absent. Instead of truly listening, your mind is worried about something happening at work or feeling excited about an upcoming event scheduled later in the day with friends. You could also simply be thinking about your to-do list or reflecting on a conversation you had with a partner the previous night. When you allow those thoughts to take your focus, you will find that you become a less effective listener. Such distracting thoughts and feelings are your internal distractions.

In addition to internal distractions, we also experience external distractions as a listening barrier. External distractions come from the physical environment and involve any visual, auditory, or other sensorial elements within the space that captures your attention. Perhaps the most prominent external listening barrier today involves technology. The powerhouse technological distractor that most of us carry around is a smartphone. We use our cell phones to send a text message to a friend, make a call to a significant other, record a video on Tik Tok, post a thought of the day or special photo on social media, surf the web, and use the calculator, only to name the basics.

We have created a culture of cell phone dependency and seek out personal connections through our technological devices, which has increased exponentially due to the significant worldwide impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Entire communities around the world shut down and moved to technology to stay connected. However, our dependency has become so great that it is a frequent source of external distraction. For example, when someone is trying to communicate with you, and you hear the notification chime go off on your phone, immediately picking it up to see what it was before the other person has finished speaking, you have just experienced an external listening barrier. Next time, you might consider silencing your phone and placing it out of reach, especially when someone is trying to emotionally connect or engage in an important conversation with you. That being said, putting the phone down for every conversation is ideal for improving communication overall.

Furthermore, external technological distractions may occur when you are on a virtual platform (such as Zoom) for a meeting, college class, or even a virtual video call with a friend. You might experience technical issues with the audio or video components that disrupt the listening process, such as the microphone not working, losing internet connection, or even the video feature malfunctioning. This can be especially frustrating for both parties if, let’s say, your mother is telling you something that is important to her and you don’t hear everything because the audio cut out. Testing these components beforehand could alleviate the potential for distraction and avoid such frustrations. We know we can’t control all of the technical difficulties that could arise; however, taking time to test for issues in advance is one way of being mindful and intentional in your listening practice. Likewise, working, reading, or typing in other applications or browser tabs, checking notifications from Facebook, or checking the email that just came in while you are on a video call would be considered, in part, external distractors. To avoid this, you might consider closing all the tabs you have open and either temporarily disable or plan to ignore notifications that come through while you’re on a video call.

The physical environment can also be a source of disruption to listening. Classroom doors slamming, cell phones ringing, or students having conversations outside in the hall are some examples. When working from home, you can experience extensive environmental listening barriers from the mess around you that still needs cleaning, the temptation of grabbing a snack in the refrigerator, the dog barking, the baby crying, a strong odor, the pain in your back, cell phones chiming (there they are again), the glare of the light on your screen … the list goes on and on. When all of these distractions are happening, it is easy for your ability to listen to be dramatically reduced. Consider planning ahead for these things to maximize your ability to listen fully. Play with the dog right before your virtual meeting to tire them out. Turn your cell phone to silent mode. Have a snack beforehand. You get the idea.

Given the numerous internal and external distractions that are likely to occur frequently in your everyday life, the question becomes “How can I minimize these distractions to become a better listener?” More often than not, the answer is mindfulness. A little planning, preparation, and practice can help you to prevent these types of listening barriers effectively.