"Everybody's talking at me. I don't hear a word they're saying, Only the echoes of my mind." This is what Harry Nillson told us back in the 60s, but he could just as well have been thinking of 2005!
We live in a world enveloped by a weird dichotomy: We're surrounded by a vast array of modes of communications and yet communication itself seems to be so lacking. Put another way, everybody's so busy "talking" that nobody has time to listen.
Many of the societal problems we continue to be plagued by either are caused by or exacerbated by a lack of adequate communication. The US divorce rate continues to hover near 50%. We have over 1.3 million runaways. Child abuse and neglect remains a serious issue. Far too many people succumb to substance abuse, spousal battering and workplace violence. And we spend far too much money going to counselors and mental health providers to try to help us figure out why we (or our significant others) are so screwed up.
If we were better able to communicate genuinely with each other, many of these statistics would quickly lessen.
It seems almost laughable to say that communication is such a pervasive problem in this day and age. We are surrounded by all sorts of gadgetry that has supposedly launched the communication and information era. We have Ipods, pagers, email, fax machines, television, movies, radio and the ubiquitous cell phone.
People are constantly yammering in one form or another -- Emails, text messages and endless conversations. Still, a common complaint is that people don't understand us or they don't get where we're coming from.
As indicated above, from my humble perspective, the primary reason we continue to have difficulty communicating is that we hear just fine, but too many people don't take the time to listen. There is a chasm of difference between hearing and listening.
You can hear someone without having to focus on what they are trying to convey. It's like grooving to a song with a good beat and/or melody. It can make you smile or tap your feet and you don't have to focus consciously on the lyrics.
Listening takes a good deal more effort than simply hearing. You can't have an ongoing conversation inside your head or be babbling yourself while you're listening to someone else. You must focus on the person you are conversing with. You must attempt to filter the information presented in such a way that you understand the message the person is trying to convey AND you must respond intelligently to what it is you THINK you comprehend.
Listening involves a give-and-take. And that's a hard skill to master in a world that puts too much emphasis on taking.
We live in a world enveloped by a weird dichotomy: We're surrounded by a vast array of modes of communications and yet communication itself seems to be so lacking. Put another way, everybody's so busy "talking" that nobody has time to listen.
Many of the societal problems we continue to be plagued by either are caused by or exacerbated by a lack of adequate communication. The US divorce rate continues to hover near 50%. We have over 1.3 million runaways. Child abuse and neglect remains a serious issue. Far too many people succumb to substance abuse, spousal battering and workplace violence. And we spend far too much money going to counselors and mental health providers to try to help us figure out why we (or our significant others) are so screwed up.
If we were better able to communicate genuinely with each other, many of these statistics would quickly lessen.
It seems almost laughable to say that communication is such a pervasive problem in this day and age. We are surrounded by all sorts of gadgetry that has supposedly launched the communication and information era. We have Ipods, pagers, email, fax machines, television, movies, radio and the ubiquitous cell phone.
People are constantly yammering in one form or another -- Emails, text messages and endless conversations. Still, a common complaint is that people don't understand us or they don't get where we're coming from.
As indicated above, from my humble perspective, the primary reason we continue to have difficulty communicating is that we hear just fine, but too many people don't take the time to listen. There is a chasm of difference between hearing and listening.
You can hear someone without having to focus on what they are trying to convey. It's like grooving to a song with a good beat and/or melody. It can make you smile or tap your feet and you don't have to focus consciously on the lyrics.
Listening takes a good deal more effort than simply hearing. You can't have an ongoing conversation inside your head or be babbling yourself while you're listening to someone else. You must focus on the person you are conversing with. You must attempt to filter the information presented in such a way that you understand the message the person is trying to convey AND you must respond intelligently to what it is you THINK you comprehend.
Listening involves a give-and-take. And that's a hard skill to master in a world that puts too much emphasis on taking.
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