5 ways to listen better | Julian Treasure | TED

Summary

This talk explores the art of listening, highlighting our diminished ability to truly hear and understand what we're exposed to. The speaker discusses the importance of conscious listening for personal growth and societal connection, noting how modern distractions have eroded this skill. Offering practical exercises like silence, sound awareness, and listening positions, the speaker encourages us to rediscover the power of listening to foster a more connected and peaceful world.

Takeaways

• 👂 Listening is a crucial part of communication, yet we retain only 25% of what we hear.
• 🔍 We use techniques like pattern recognition and differencing to extract meaning from sound.
• 🎶 Sound helps us understand our environment through its patterns and differences, even in noisy situations.
• 📚 The advent of recording technologies has diminished the need for careful listening, impacting our ability to listen attentively.
• 🌐 Our modern noisy world can make it difficult to focus on listening, leading to a preference for sound bites over oratory.
• 🎧 Many people use headphones to create personal sound bubbles, reducing the shared experience of listening.
• 📉 The constant bombardment of loud media has desensitized us, making it harder to appreciate quieter, subtler sounds.
• 🧘‍♂️ Listening is essential for understanding and connection, and a lack of it can lead to a frightening lack of empathy and understanding.
• 🤔 The speaker suggests five exercises to improve conscious listening: silence, the mixer, savoring, listening positions, and the RASA acronym.
• 📈 Practicing these exercises can enhance our listening skills, potentially leading to a more connected, understanding, and peaceful world.
• 🌟 The speaker passionately advocates for the teaching of listening as a skill in schools to prevent a decline in our ability to connect and understand each other.

Q & A

What percentage of communication time is spent listening, according to the speaker?

The speaker states that we spend roughly 60 percent of our communication time listening.

How much of what we hear do we typically retain?

The speaker mentions that we retain just 25 percent of what we hear.

What does the speaker define listening as?

Listening is defined by the speaker as making meaning from sound, a mental process of extraction.

What is one technique we use to distinguish noise from signal?

One technique mentioned by the speaker is pattern recognition, particularly recognizing our own name in a noisy environment.

What is 'differencing' and how does it relate to listening?

Differencing is a technique where we listen to differences and discount sounds that remain the same, helping us focus on new or changing sounds.

What role do filters play in our listening process?

Filters help us to go from all sound to what we pay attention to, often unconsciously creating our reality by determining what we focus on.

Why did the speaker say we are losing our ability to listen?

The speaker suggests that the invention of recording technologies, a noisy world, personal sound bubbles created by headphones, and a preference for sound bites are contributing to the decline in our listening skills.

What is the importance of intention in listening, as mentioned by the speaker?

Intention in listening, such as the speaker's promise to his wife to listen to her every day as if for the first time, is important as it sets a goal for conscious and attentive listening in relationships.

How does sound help us understand our surroundings in terms of space and time?

Sound helps us understand our surroundings by giving us cues about the size of a space through reverberation and the number of people around us through micro-noises. It also embeds time, allowing us to experience the flow from past to future.

What are the five exercises the speaker suggests to improve conscious listening?

The five exercises are: 1) silence for three minutes a day, 2) 'the mixer' to identify individual sound channels, 3) 'savoring' mundane sounds, 4) changing listening positions to suit what is being listened to, and 5) using the RASA acronym (Receive, Appreciate, Summarize, Ask) in communication.

Why does the speaker believe that teaching listening in schools is crucial?

The speaker believes that teaching listening in schools is crucial because conscious listening is essential for full, connected living, understanding each other, and spiritual connection, which are all fundamental for a world of peace and understanding.