According to the text there are two concepts of listening: mindful and mindless listening. Each of them has certain advantages and disadvantages. The first one “occurs when we react to others’ messages automatically and routinely, without much mental investment. Words like “superficial†and “cursory†describe mindless listening better than terms like “ponder†and “contemplateâ€. The other one “involves giving careful and thoughtful attention and responses to the messages we receive.â€. Mindless listening is typical and even needed when we hear some remarks. For example, when my mother tells me not to forget to feed my cat I would rather automatically listen and respond to that. Also, people demonstrate mindless listening while long-winded stories. My friend Joanne loves telling her “breaking-up-with-Bill-story†every day. Of course, I cannot always listen to all that attentively. I would rather pay my attention to her studying problems and thus demonstrate mindful listening. Mindful listening is vital to improve relationships with others. When I meet new people, I am usually very attentive to remember everything they tell me. Remembering their names is very important to me so that I could avoid any kind of misunderstanding later.
My worst listening habit is pseudolistening. People usually think that I am a good listener and to some extent I am. Nevertheless I often suffer from my reputation of a good listener. It attracts more and more people to tell me the stories of their life. Therefore, the only way out ‘to survive’ is to pretend I am listening to them. To my mind my pseudolistening affects me firstly – I do not know when to stop a speaker. Luckily it does not affect my friends and people around me, for they do not even have a clue when I imitate listening.
My questions to both concepts are following. Is there any harm for the mindless listener? Is there a connection between mindless listening and low grades? Can anybody avoid conflicts while listening mindfully? Is the undivided attention an obligatory condition for mindful listening?