When we are engaged in a conversation, we often wonder: Is this person listening? Then we check for nonverbal cues that suggest they’re paying attention: making eye contact, nodding at the appropriate times, and not looking over our shoulder. However, studies from Harvard University show that most people aren’t very good at accurately detecting whether someone is listening.
How attentive is the average person during a conversation?
Across five different studies, Harvard researchers found that people’s minds wander during conversations an average of 24% of the time. So, during the average conversation, the person you’re talking to is fully attentive only 76% of the time you are speaking.
The studies also found that people aren’t very good at telling when others are listening and that the average person overestimates how much time their conversation partner is completely focused on them. Why is that? People are generally quite good at pretending to listen.
“Our results suggest this overestimation is (at least partly) due to the largely indistinguishable behavior of inattentive and attentive listeners,” Julia Minson, a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, wrote. “It appears that people can (and do) divide their attention during conversation and successfully feign attentiveness.”
The studies also revealed that people aren’t very good at detecting whether they were listening during a conversation. Researchers recorded people listening to someone talk, then played back five-second clips. People could identify when they were listening 64% of the time, but they could identify when they weren’t listening only 5% of the time. It seems we’re so good at pretending we’re paying attention that we can even fool ourselves.
How to make people pay attention when you talk
Knowing that the average person is tuning out at least a quarter of the time we’re speaking, what are some ways we can be more engaging, whether it’s at a party, a work meeting, or on a first date?
1. Make intermittent eye contact
Research shows that people stay engaged when we make brief eye contact, then look away for a moment before returning their gaze.
“Eye contact is really immersive and powerful,” Sophie Wohltjen, a graduate student in psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth College, said. “When two people are having a conversation, eye contact signals that shared attention is high—that they are in peak synchrony with one another. As eye contact persists, that synchrony then decreases. We think this is also good because too much synchrony can make a conversation stale.”
2. Use clear language
A large study found that when you use concrete language and avoid jargon, people are more likely to pay attention to what you have to say. So instead of saying, “A strategic upward recalibration of our pricing model will unlock enhanced margin expansion opportunities,” you can just say, “If we raise prices, we’ll make more money.”
3. Ask questions
If you ask questions, even if you’re not looking for an answer in that moment, it keeps people on their toes and paying attention. Try peppering some questions into your story to keep others engaged, such as “Can you believe that?” or “What were they thinking?”
Unless you’re the most compelling conversationalist who has ever lived, studies reveal that around a quarter of the time, people aren’t paying attention when you speak. The good news is that you probably won’t feel so bad when you zone out while listening to other people; it’s all part of natural human interaction. Knowing this is a good reminder to all of us to communicate as clearly as possible because there’s a very strong chance the audience didn’t hear the entire message.
