Everyday communication, in any circumstances, business or personal, involves talking and listening. Recently, because of the development of technology, people have begun to lose the ability to listen. Interestingly, most of the time, 60% listen and process information during a conversation, but now only 25% are remembered (Treasure, 2011). In this talk, audio consultant Julian Treasure reveals some of the scientific reasons people have become less able to listen.
Treasure’s definition of listening as the transformation of sounds into meaning was my favorite. It fully covers the concept of oral speech perception and includes differentiation, orientation, filtering, and image creation. I agree with the statement that people have become worse at listening lately; this also happens with reading. Many scientists are concerned that people have begun to process less information, oral and written. However, I do not think this can be considered a danger. The 21st century forms an unusually fast pace of life, so a new way of thinking is being developed, adapting to the realities surrounding it. People today have become much more multifunctional; superficial perception is replaced by deep one as soon as the topic becomes attractive to a person.
I would like to try the first one of Treasure’s ways to develop or improve your listening ability. Spending some time in silence to restore and re-tune my hearing and mind seems the most appropriate thing for me. Due to his flexibility, the modern man spends a lot of time in contact with external ‘noise.’ Silence will help relax and relieve accumulated tension so that a person will not focus on many changing thoughts and will direct his attention to the interlocutor. Being quiet will improve my ability to listen and increase my information processing skills, which is my goal.
Reference
Treasure, J. (2011). 5 ways to listen better. TED Talk. Web.