This blog post is inspired by an excerpt in Johann Hari’s book, Stolen Focus. In chapter 2 he describes being in a café, eavesdropping, and speculating on their circumstances based off their interactions. He details how one would talk about himself for ten minutes and then the other would do the same. No feedback, no questions, just interrupting each other only to start another monologue about themselves after a ten-minute stretch.
As somewhat of a professional people watcher, unfortunately to my detriment, I’ve witnessed and even experienced the same kind of projecting-without-listening type of interaction. Speaking and communicating are two different things, which is why we can be part of a conversation and still feel unheard. When we forget to listen, we risk the opportunity to connect, be curious and vulnerable with each other. Even while people-watching, my observations are just interpretations without questions. When you’re getting to know someone, you can’t interpret the nuances, expressions, or behaviors without making assumptions. In order for you to truly understand these things, you’d need to inquire, listen, and understand.
Could it be that face-to-face conversations in the age of social media are losing their quality? And even though the pair in the book had no issue with speaking (even if to themselves), as a society we are speaking 120,000 words fewer every year (Pfeifer). And with social media, we’re trained to react to the information quickly, maybe type up a quick response if we’re not selecting from the prompt of emojis, and then move on. There’s little opportunity to linger as we would in an engaging face-to-face conversation. It’s no wonder that even though we’re growing as a population, we’re seeing trends of loneliness when it comes to social well-being.
Social media can be many great things. Digital communication is often vibrant, colorful, and curated, but spending as much time as we do communicating online gives us less time with the art of in-person communication. The absence of nonverbal and social cues has led to less experience with listening, understanding, and empathizing with one another.
Hari (2022) details that at one point man A mentioned that his brother died a month before but man B didn’t even offer an “I’m sorry to hear that” before continuing to talk about himself. Hari suggests it wouldn’t have made a difference if they met up just to read their Facebook statuses to each other (page 48). After reading that, I wondered, Was the man cold, or did he fall short of recognizing social cues? Was there a change in the man’s voice when he talked about his brother? Was there an awkward silence or hesitation? Did his posture or eye contact change? If we’re spending the majority of our communication digitally, this is just some of the information we lose in practice.
As I write this, I can think of a few times I’ve recently fallen short of giving a loved one my undivided attention. Listening is active, and it takes practice. Maybe truly seeing someone requires the same thing. It requires us to slow down long enough to notice the things that aren’t so obvious, to resist assuming we already know the story, and to become curious enough to ask questions. We can look at someone without seeing them, hear someone without listening to them, and speak to someone without ever truly communicating with them. The last thing I’d want is for someone to feel lonely in my company and wonder, “Can you even see me?” Maybe the question isn’t only whether we are being seen, but whether we are willing to stop, look closer, and truly see one another.
References
Hari, J. (2022). Stolen focus: Why you can’t pay attention—and how to think deeply again. Crown.
Pfeifer, V. A., & Mehl, M. R. (2026). Sliding Into Silence? We Are Speaking 300 Daily Words Fewer Every Year. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 21(4), 447-449.
