What is the relationship between speaking and listening through social media?

Social Media Has Taught Us To Talk Rather Than Listen

Kalev Leetaru

Contributor

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

AI & Big Data

I write about the broad intersection of data and society.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

Getty Images.

Social media’s great promise was that it would give everyone in the world a voice and bring us together inenlightenedconversation about our shared future. The first half of that promise has come true for a quarter of the earth’s population, though most of the world remains absent from the digital revolution. It is the failure of the second half of that promise, to create shared conversation, that has so bedeviled the online world and led to the toxicity and hate, falsehoods and ignorance that threaten to drown out the kinds of enlightenment and community building that can only come from dialog rather than the monologues that rule supreme on social media today. In short, social media has taught us to talk rather than listen.

One of the most consequential aspects of Twitter’s evolution over the past seven years is the way in which it has devolved from a place for ordinary people to share their thoughts and experiences into a place the public comes to retweet celebrities. Twitter’s skyrocketing retweet rate and collapsing reply rate remind us that more and more, we talk but we don’t listen.

We no longer come to Twitter to gain insight from others and engage in thoughtful and knowledgeable dialog about mutual interests. We line up for a moment of Twitter’s megaphone to broadcast our own thoughts to the world but have little interest in thoughtfully considering the reaction from others. Those that agree with us we considerately retweet or thank, but those who disagree with us we either ignore or silence with vitriol.

On social media the one who screams loudest and most forcefully is the one who ultimately defines reality. Indeed, as the Librarian of Congress warned half a century ago, “it is the very simple technique of repeating and repeating and repeating falsehoods, with the idea that by constant repetition and reiteration, with no contradiction, the misstatements will finally come to believed.”

It seems some things never change.

In many ways social media, especially Twitter, have merely brought the longstanding practices of academia to the mainstream.

In the academic world, each new paper must demonstrate its worthiness of publication by drawing a distinction between itself and the literature that has gone before. This involves what amounts to critiquing past work and calling attention to what the author believes are their limitations.

Few scholars actually contact the authors of the papers they cite in theirbackgroundsections, meaning their critiques of those works may not actually be correct and reviewers aren’t always in the best position to adjudicate such critiques. Scholars rarely respond when asked to correct errors in their citations, even factual errors that undermine the entire outcome of their paper, while journals are similarly rarely eager to retract or force revisions. Some journals go so far as to threaten legal action against authors who request that citations to their works be corrected, due to the embarrassment of a journal having to acknowledge a revision or retraction.

The end result is that the core of the academic enterprise involves criticizing others from afar without granting them the opportunity to respond or refute those criticisms.

Sound familiar?

Social media has brought this model to the general public, building platforms that encourage speaking without listening.

Imagine if Twitter required users to carefully read at least fifty tweets for each tweet they were permitted to post (checking to make sure the user actually paused the appropriate amount of time to adequately read each rather than merely fast scrolling through them). This would encourage users to spend more time listening than posting.

Alternatively, what if Twitter required users to reply to at least ten tweets for each original tweet they themselves posted? (With appropriate content analysis to ensure the replies were relevant to the tweets they were in response to.) This would force users to engage in mutual dialog rather than merely talking past one another.

Instead, our social platforms are built to encourage precisely the opposite behavior: singular contribution without the requirement of listening or engaging with others. Users can post almost limitless content without ever consuming or engaging with the posts of others. These superposters become the draw for lurkers who merely consume without posting themselves, but who are still monetizable.

Users come to social platforms to consume content and thus social media companies have built their interfaces to incentivize contribution in the most frictionless way possible.

An unfortunate consequence of this design is that users are encouraged to offer their perspectives on anything and everything, regardless of whether they have the slightest background knowledge or experience to actually understand what it is they are attempting to comment on.

Putting this all together, social media has created a world in which we as a society have been taught to speak rather than listen, with incentive structures designed to prioritize screaming monologues over thoughtful dialog, with the loudest one winning.

In the end, social media has failed to live up to the most important part of its promise: bringing us together. Instead of creating a place where we can all come together and engage in conversation in the global town square, we’ve ended up with a great gladiator match of megaphones in which the loudest and most toxic one prevails.

Perhaps someday we’ll finally learn to listen.

Kalev Leetaru

• Print
• Reprints & Permissions

1. Introduction

As English is accepted as a global language; it is important to learners to be able to communicate well in the language and to take part in communicative activities around them. Among the four language skills, as a productive skill speaking is noted as the most difficult skill to master by most language learners [1]. Ur [2] reinforced this outlook by stating that speaking is looked upon as being the most vital skill to master among the four skills.

In a study carried out to investigate the problems and difficulties learners face when learning speaking, Al Nakhalah [3] highlighted some of the factors that may hinder learning to speak, which include the fear of making mistakes, feelings of shyness, feeling anxious, a lack of confidence in speaking, and a lack of motivation to speak in the language. In another study conducted by Al-Sobhi and Preece [4], five factors that hinder students from speaking were identified: (1) lack of exposure to language, (2) lack of motivation, (3) students’ anxiety and lack of confidence, (4) limited knowledge of English, and (5) inefficient teaching methodology. In other studies, researchers also looked at issues and problems related to the acquisition of speaking skills such as speaking anxiety, speaking difficulty, speaking challenges, speaking performance, and speaking problems [5][6][7][8][9]. ElNaggar [6] focused his study on preparatory students at the Al-Baha University who had problems in speaking skills as they were lacking in grammar, listening, reading, and writing skills. These students were also shy when attempting to speak. Djahimo et al. [8] discovered that students’ speaking abilities were affected by their anxiety and led to their failure to communicate in English.

Ur [2] explained that the learners’ psychology was the main reason for their speaking problems, as the learners had low self-confidence and feared making mistakes. These learners were also found to be lacking in ideas and were unable to take part in the speaking activities. As asserted by Saputra [9], speaking is perceived as the most anxiety-provoking activity as it involves interactions and communication. Therefore, it is vital that English language teachers create interactive environments for their students to practice speaking. The fear of making mistakes is ingrained in all learners of languages, so teachers must be creative and use a variety of techniques to help their learners acquire speaking skills. One suggestion given by Rao [10] is to work towards learner-centered approaches by involving the learners directly in speaking activities. One way of doing this is by making use of pair or group work where learners are encouraged to work on their own and to produce more speech. At the same time, their confidence level would increase, and they may be inspired to practice speaking when the opportunity presents itself.

One way of creating more opportunities for learners to improve in their speaking skills is by utilizing technology such as social media as learning platforms for learners. Kaplan and Haenlein [11], grouped social media into a wide scope, ranging from low social presence or self-presentation, to medium and high ranges. In regard to social presence, social media such as Wikipedia and blogs are at the lowest end. This is followed by content communities and social networking sites at the mid-level, with examples like YouTube and Facebook. The highest level is the virtual gaming world such as World of Warcraft, which has virtual scenarios. On the other hand, Faizi et al. [12] grouped social media platforms into three categories. The first category is social network sites which include Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Skype, Twitter, and Tik Tok, where members of the sites can connect and share ideas and resources. The second category comprises of sites like Snapchat, Flickr, Pinterest, YouTube, Tumblr, SlideShare, and Google+, which focuses on content-sharing organization. The third category includes sites like Google Docs, PowToon, and Canva, which looks at content creation and editing. Thus, social media, in the broad sense, encompasses a wide range of tools that integrate technology, social interaction, content sharing, and content creation. Another important feature of social media applications is to bring lessons outside the classroom, allowing for more opportunities for learners to practice using the language.

With the ubiquitous nature of social media, many educators are coming to see this technology as an avenue to make learning more accessible to their students. This positive nature of social media was even more evident with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced educational institutions and schools to move online to continue with teaching and learning [13][14][15][16]. As being connected to learners was a major issue during the pandemic, social media applications or networks were viewed positively and seen as a method to get students to engage in the learning process [17][18][19][20][21]. Furthermore, social media is also accepted as a medium that helps facilitate learning in a more engaging and motivating way [22][23].

What is Social Listening, Why it Matters, and 10 Tools to Make it Easier

If you don’t have a social listening strategy in place, you’re missing out on some of the most valuable data available to help build your business.

In fact, nearly two-thirds of marketers agree that social listening has increased in value in the last year.

Social media listening tools allow you to build a solid understanding of exactly how customers and potential customers think about you by analyzing what they say on social channels. You can also learn what they think about the competition. This is incredible market research readily available in real-time—as long as you know how to access it.