The only one thing that you requested was for the trash to be taken out. A little bit later you realize your partner failed to do it. “I Didn’t hear you”, they declare. Why aren’t you surprised that your partner failed to hear the one thing they wanted done? This “selective hearing” is a normal indication that communication is failing.
We normally think of selective hearing as a negative, kind of like it’s a character defect. It’s as if you’re accusing someone of intentionally not listening. But selective hearing might actually be related to untreated hearing loss instead of a short attention span.
What is selective hearing?
You’ve most likely had at least one or more situations in your life where someone has accused you of not listening, even if no one specifically used the phrase “selective hearing”. Selective hearing happens when you can clearly hear information that’s beneficial to you but conveniently miss the part that’s negative. You hear the bit about the chocolate ice cream, but you miss the part about the calories. Things like that.
As a behavior, selective hearing is extremely common. But this behavior is more common in men than women, according to some studies.
How individuals are socialized does give some context and it may be tempting to make some assumptions from this. But the other part of the equation may have something to do with hearing health. Let’s say your “selective hearing” starts to become more prevalent or more common. That could actually be an early sign of hearing loss.
Hearing loss can create gaps in communication
Communication will definitely be more difficult with undiagnosed hearing loss. That’s most likely not that surprising.
But here’s the thing: in many cases, communication issues are an indication of hearing loss.
Symptoms can be really hard to detect when hearing loss is in the early phases. Perhaps you start turning the volume up on your tv. You can’t quite hear what your friend is saying when you go out for a beverage at your local pub. You most likely just presume it’s because of the loud music. And so, other than that, you could go through most of your day-to-day life without giving much notice to the volume of the world around you. Your hearing can gradually decline because of this. You barely notice the problem until you’re at the point where you frequently have difficulty hearing conversations.
Your partner is becoming worried about the health of your hearing
The people around you will likely be worried. Your family and friends will likely be frustrated when they think you’re deliberately missing what they say. But that aggravation often becomes worry when they realize that hearing loss might be the actual culprit.
And your partner may want you to find out what’s going on by having you schedule a hearing test.
Your partner’s worry is relevant and it’s important for you to recognize that. Have an open discussion with them and accept their help because they care about your well-being and aren’t simply annoyed with you.
Early hearing loss has a few other signs
You should be aware of some of the other early warning signs of hearing loss if your selective hearing seems to be getting worse. Some of those signs include:
- Consonants are hard to make out
- Turning up the volume on your devices
- People sound distant or muted when they talk
- Hearing in crowds is challenging
- Requesting that people speak slower and talk louder
If you have any of these symptoms, you should call us for a hearing test.
Use ear protection
It’s essential that you take steps to safeguard your ears so that you can prevent hearing loss. Reduce your exposure to loud settings (or at least use earmuffs or earplugs when you must be around noise). Hearing aids can also help you communicate effectively, which can smooth over many rough spots that your hearing loss might have caused in the first place.
A diminishing attention span will be to blame for most selective hearing situations in your life. But when you (or somebody around you) notices your selective hearing becoming worse, you may want to take that as an indication that it’s time to get your hearing checked.
