barriers to listening

Have you ever experience a situation when you are trying to woo a lady of you choice and you get distracted by the strong music. This is happening all the time in different situations, at work or during family outings.

The surroundings can be a barrier to you listening skill. The noise in the room, poor acoustics, bad odor, extreme temperature and uncomfortable chair can distract your attention and affect your listening. In order to improve the communication, the noises and barriers have to be removed.

The other barrier to listening is psychological. You can be very sad, or upset about some other things or you had something against the speaker. Basically the barriers to listening can be summarized under the following headings:

1. Too many distraction - There are many other things fighting to get the attention of the listener. The noise from radio, tv, the people that pass by, all can be a distraction. The mind will naturally filter out the least relevant items.

2. You think you know the subject - With this in mind, you can jump to th conclusion and interrupt the conversation. There may be details that he has missed.

3. The gap in the speed - A speaker can speak at the rate of about 150 words per minute, whereas our mind can manage about 400 word per minute. So the mind actually has some gaps to play with, and this enable him to venture into different areas. Without proper discipline, it is easy for the listener not to listen to the speaker.

4. Lack of knowledge on how to listen. Average people will spend more time to listen compared to other skills like reading and writing. The other skills are being taught and researched, but not many people undergo a training to listen effectively.