CONSIDER THE DILEMMA

You’re attending a weekend seminar for a professional certificate. To qualify, you must pass two tests, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. If you fail the test on Saturday, you have to attend a remedial session that night and retake the test. Passing both tests means you will receive national certification and an immediate pay raise.

Saturday goes well. The presenter is great, and much of the material is familiar. Consequently, you find time—while listening and taking notes—to text your family. Your sister Danielle’s softball team is playing in a tournament, and if her team wins, she’ll pitch in the finals that night.

Despite your confidence while taking Saturday’s test, you fail. Now you must attend the remedial session and retake the test. If you fail the retest, you won’t be allowed to proceed, and your chance at certification will be lost. What’s more, Danielle’s team won, so now you’re going to miss seeing her pitch for the championship.

Sitting in the remedial session, you’re intent on not missing any of the content. The presenter is going fast, but you’re holding your own. So you start texting your mom for game updates. Danielle’s team is up by one, but she loads the bases with no outs in the last inning. You’re freaking out when suddenly you hear the instructor call your name. Looking up, you see her staring at you. She snaps, “This content is essential for your certification. Please tell me you’re not sitting there texting while you’re supposed to be listening!”

CONNECT THE RESEARCH

One of the most important ways you can improve your listening is to limit the amount of time you spend multitasking—especially shifting your attention back and forth between different forms of technology, each of which feeds you unrelated streams of information (Ophir et al., 2012). For example, if you were writing a class paper, would you also be checking Twitter? Watching TV? Playing an online game? Texting? Stanford psychologist Clifford Nass has found that multitaskers are extremely confident in their ability to perform well on the tasks they juggle (Glenn, 2010). Their confidence, however, is misplaced. Multitaskers perform substantially worse on tasks, compared with individuals who focus their attention on only one task at a time (Ophir et al., 2012).

Why is limiting multitasking important for improving listening? Because multitasking erodes your capacity for sustaining focused attention (Jackson, 2008). Cognitive scientists discovered that our brains adapt to the tasks we regularly perform, an effect known as brain plasticity (Carr, 2010). In simple terms, we train our brains to be able to do certain things through how we live our daily lives. People who spend too much time shifting attention rapidly between multiple forms of technology train their brains to only be able to focus attention in brief bursts. They lose the ability to focus attention for long periods of time on just one task (Jackson, 2008). Not surprisingly, habitual multitaskers have grave difficulty listening, as listening requires extended attention (Carr, 2010). Limiting your multitasking and spending at least some time each day focused on just one task (such as reading, listening to music, or engaging in prayer or meditation), with no technological distractions, helps train your brain to sustain attention—and you to listen more effectively.

COMMUNICATE

Before making a communication choice, consider the facts of the situation, and think about the multitasking research. Also, reflect on what you’ve learned so far about listening and multitasking (pp. 168–169), listening functions (pp. 167–168), and feedback (pp. 166–167). Then answer these questions:

If you were in the presenter’s shoes, what attribution would you be making about your behavior? Would you react in the same way?

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What challenges do you face in explaining your situation to the presenter? In balancing your family interests with the weekend seminar? How can they be overcome?

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What are you going to do for the rest of the session?

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