Abstract
Why Do We Not Listen? A Sociocultural Analysis of the Inability to Listen
The ability to listen is the first language ability learnt in the mother’s womb, and in healthy people, the last one to be lost before dying. Therefore, the ability to listen and its appropriate use of this ability is quite important for an individual to realize him/herself, adopt a social role and status within the society and to achieve the values of success and happiness, that is to live a good life.
Listening can be described as an active process including hearing, concentrating and understanding, combining what is understood with the previous knowledge and responding appropriately.
Today, what lies beneath the lack of communication within the society, which constitutes the basis of the problems the people encounter, is the fact that the act of listening is not realized on a complete and appropriate basis.
Listening is a multi-dimensional behavior pattern in terms of its formation, exposition and effect. As a result, the factors underlying the inability to listen are also multi-dimensional. Therefore, the present study aims to first define the problem of inability to listen, and then to analyze the reasons behind this problem on a multi-dimensional basis. The reasons are analyzed in terms of private living space (family), social structure, transition from oral to written culture and traditional education on the dimensions of ignorance of the ability to listen, mass culture and technologic life. The inability to listen is analyzed on a socio-cultural basis, and solution suggestions are made in this regard.
Keywords
Listening, inability to listen, culture, education, family-society, technology.