Styles of Listening

When I read chapter 6, I immediately knew that I was a context centered listener. I definitely consider myself a people person, but when it comes to my listening, I only like to hear facts. Many people often come to me for advice and I am always trying to help them find solutions to problems or help them work through a situation, so I have adapted this style of listening and unfortunately for me it has become a terrible habit.

I know that I 100% get this habit from my mother because she would do this all the time and it would make me so mad. It is clear that she has developed a habit of doing it also, because when my siblings and I would get into an argument she would always have to be a judge and listen to all the facts of the case to determine who was at fault and who was going to be punished. In doing this, she would listen to our stories and repeat different facts and ask us different questions about what took place. This would make me mad because I never liked when she played detective, I just wanted her to put the blame on my siblings and let me continue playing haha….

Now, whenever I hear a story I am always trying to listen to the facts to make judgment about how to act accordingly based on what I heard. This is not a good thing for me because when I am listening to my friends and they are just gossiping about regular everyday things, I zone out.  If it’s not a story where I need to pay attention in order to get the most important facts and give my opinion, I begin thinking about something important and what they have to say is no longer relevant. I feel like I don’t need to be listening because my help is not needed. I do this a lot with my brother; he tends to tell a lot of stories, and I hear him talking, but I’m actually in my own world thinking about something different. Once he is done with his story he is expecting me to laugh or comment about it, but instead I just change the subject (which my mother also does) and this makes him so upset. I don’t do this on purpose it’s just a habit that I can’t shake.  I think that we should be able to adapt to different listening styles because different styles are needed all the time. There’s a time and place for everything, clearly.

Adaptation Theory

The adaptation theory states that people adapt to communication behaviors. This is something that we never really think about while we are talking to someone, but while learning about this in class, you tend to notice that you do change based on the energy that the other person is giving you. Three examples of this that I noticed recently are when I was talking to my brother, my friend, and my manager.

           

I had not seen my brother for a couple days and really missed him. Although we attend the same schools and live about 6 minutes away, we rarely see each other because we both have very busy schedules. When I finally had a chance to see my brother, we never are very touchy with each other but I did miss him and was happy to see him. When I saw him he was very normal, but I was excited to see him. He did not have a smile on his face but I was smiling and ran to give him a hug. When he noticed how happy I was to see him, he hugged me longer and tighter because by me showing how much I missed him, he felt that he needed to express to me how much he had missed me also.

Another conversation that I had was with my classmate. We did not really talk much, but had many classes together. We always looked at each other but neither of us said a word, because I looked like I was not interested in getting to know her, and so she looked the same toward me. One day we actually sat near each other. I had no interest in speaking to her, because I felt like she did not have any interest in talking to me. She actually smiled at me and said “hi,” I smiled back and adapted to her attitude. I found that she was a very nice person and we talk every class.

One final conversation happened at work. I just started a new job and don’t really know any of my employees. I find that my managers are very strict and informative my first few days. I notice that I seem lost and confused which is why they make sure that they state exactly what they mean. I used to stand very far away from them and never really talked to anyone. One day I went to work determined to make friends with my managers because I saw that many of my other coworker had a great time speaking to the managers. I went to work and stood a little closer to them and smiled, I saw that their attitudes towards me immediately change and they are more open to make jokes around me and have me do other things for them.

Technology and Interpersonal Communication

There are four assumption that can be made about social networks and your cyber self in chapter 11.

Assumption #1: The computer screen can deceive

The internet can be very tricky because you only see the words that are written on the screen, you never really know the emotion behind it. In my opinion, social networks, such as facebook, can be very deceiving. They are a mask that hides people’s true feelings and lifestyle. On facebook people are able to portray an ideal lifestyle. They are able to hide all the different things that are really happening in their life and use words that make them seem perfect. I personally only have facebook because my brother is in Bagdad and that is the only way that I can actually communicate with him. Although I am “friends” with lots of family members and classmates, I rarely let people in on my every move and update my status constantly. I do read other people’s statuses and find that they tend to be misleading. An example of this happened recently when I saw my sister post that she was having a “GREAT DAY!” And she was so happy and thankful for people in her life. I was very happy to see this post, so I called her only to here a sad voice and find out that she was not feeling well because she was bored and had a stomach ache. This showed me that on facebook, people are able to twist their lives and basically play mind games.

Assumption 2: Online discussions often prompt introspection

 The second assumption in chapter 11 is that online discussions often prompt introspection. I find that on facebook, many people love to pretend that they have their lives well put together and therefore want to tell you how your life should be. They do this by posting “inspirational messages” and giving lectures about what you should and should not do. Unless you know the person and are able to see that they themselves do not take the advice that they give, you will be forced to consider their advice and think about what you should do to change your life. I personally do not listen to what others say on facebook, because I think that it is filled with hypocrites.

Assumption3: Online discussion promote self orientation

Your personal facebook is a presentation of who you are. People who do not know you well will be able to see what type of person you are, and what type of lifestyle you live based on your presentation. Your status, pictures, and even personal information will tell a lot about who you are. Based on that people will decide the type of relationship they want to have about you, and also the type of feelings they will have toward you.

Assumption 4: Self- disclosure online occurs

Some people are more private than others. Facebook allows you to have limitations. People are able to show certain things to certain people. Some people post their numbers and school names and birthdays and make all of this information public. I personally keep a lot of my information private and not many people on facebook are able to find me unless they are friends with people I already know. Some people want only their school friends to see certain things that are different from what their family is able to see. Facebook allows you to do this which is good because we all create different personas with different people

Some other concepts include screen names; some people choose to post their actual name as their screen names, and others choose to post screen names that symbolize something. My screen name on facebook is Tempestt Duncan because I personally do not have any alter egos, but my brother, Amir Duncan uses the name Landon Hood because he is an artist, and that is his artistic title.

Another concept is signaling theory, this theory applies to people only portraying part of them, people only show the positive side if that’s how they want others to think of them or some choose to show a tougher side if they want people to think they are tough and scary.

Other concepts include; abbreviated language, identity marker, and write literally. These apply to what you choose to say and show. People use abbreviated languages when they are writing conversations because they do not want to write too much but they want to get right to the point, which is what write literally means. Identity markers apply to who you are such as your name or a picture of yourself. My cyber self says that I love my family and am a very quiet, yet friendly hardworker. I do not let many strangers into my life, but I reveal just enough for them to get an idea of the type of person that I am.

Intimacy Quiz

On the intimacy quiz I received a score of 96. I believe my score was shown to be below average but not surprising to me. I believe that this score was accurate, because I have never been an affectionate person. When I interact with people I am usually standoffish. Depending on who the person is, I prefer them to stay at an arm’s length from me when we are talking. I have never really noticed this until I began my first job. At this job I had a coworker who smoked constantly. Every time she returned to work from a cigarette break, she would stand very close to me to whisper and the stench from the tobacco would be present throughout the conversation. Anytime I moved away from her, she would move closer to me, and I would constantly keep moving away. I also had a few teachers who spit while they were talking; so for many of the questions that asked whether or not I moved away from people, my answer to this question was very high because this was true for me.

Words Are Powerful

Some words can be powerful based on the way that they are spoken, and some words just have a powerful meaning. Some of the most powerful phrases are made up of three words; I love you and I hate you. Growing up you rarely hear the words, I hate you, because your parents teach you to love everyone and treat everyone kindly. There are some rare occasions when you hear the words, I hate you. You never really know what they mean, but you know that it can make someone very upset. One day my mom put me on punishment and I said, “I hate you,” to her. She asked me if I knew what these words meant and I told her it means that I don’t like her. She then explained to me that hate and dislike have two very different meaning, Hate is a much stronger word, and because we are Christians, the bible teaches us that no matter how much we dislike someone, we should never hate them. She also explained to me that once you say something like this it very hurtful and can really upset a person, as it did her. That night I realized that those three simple words had a lot of meaning. Not only did it help me realized that saying I hate you can mean a lot to someone, but also saying I love you meant a lot. Two simple words, love and hate, hold all the meaning in the world when it comes to someone’s feelings and seeing how I hurt my mother’s feelings that night, I made sure to always choose my words carefully and only say what I really mean.