Blog post: Why "passive listening" is bad for you

Open Forum
21

Hi, Davide!

“a lot of them are based on opinion, experience, feelings and so on.”
Unfortunately, that´s true not only in SLA, but also in the social sciences and the humanities in general :slight_smile:

" Maybe you haven’t found scientific studies on the usefulness but have you found scientific studies on the not usefulness?"
No. As I wrote in my other comments, I think “active / passive listening” are the wrong keywords. Better keywords are:

  • focused attention
  • divided attention (with focus switches)
  • (human) multitasking
  • supertaskers
  • attention bottleneck
  • cognitive load
    For further literature, see the Wikipedia articles on “attention” and “human multitasking” that I mentioned in my other comments.

An interesting book that I found reg. listening in particular was this one:
" Listening Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching"
by Steven Brown, Steven Randall Brown

Hope that helps
Peter

22

@Peter: yeah, I’d like to have a lot more real scientific data on this kind of stuff and lot of others actually.

I like your new definitions although I think multitasking and supertaskers are no existent and they could go inside divided attention as we know now that the brain switches attention anyway. Unless we are walking or other automatic activities that don’t require much attention. I don’t know about the last two.

23

@Dominika
Have you described your studing routine anywhere?"
No.
And I doubt it would be useful for most language learners because I´m constantly experimenting with various approaches and apps - while multitasking a lot like you :slight_smile:

Besides, I´m in the middle of writing a book on language learning with digital media (esp. by means of various AudioReaders).
However, this book won´t be published until LingQ version 5.0 is released. It makes no sense to publish it as long as we´re still using version 4.x.

“And then I am asking about papers on listening, cause listening is my main method of learning. "
I found this book yesterday evening, and it sounds interesting:
" Listening Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching”
by Steven Brown, Steven Randall Brown

I" have ADHD and I am not able to focus for more than 2 minutes on anything repetitive"
Ah, I see. Then forget explicit flashcarding, i.e. SRS software.
But how about a mixed approach while maintaining your existing listening practice?

Examples:

  • Read a text fragment on LingQ, etc. for a few minutes (3, 4 or 5 minutes) using the Pomodoro technique, i.e. timeboxiing.
  • Write a short summary about what you´ve read (1-3 sentences).
  • Check what you´ve written by using Deepl (www.deepl.com) and / or a writing forum (here on LingQ, https://hinative.com/, etc.).
  • Listen to the text fragment several times while doing low-level cognitive activities (ironing, washing the dishes, whatever).

Or:

  • Listen to the text fragment several times while doing low-level cognitive activities
  • Try to summarize what you´ve listened to in your own words (= speaking to yourself)

Or:

  • Read a text fragment first and then listen to it several times while doing low-level cognitive activities.
  • Summarize in your own words what you´ve read / listened to.
  • Write a short summary using Deepl and / or a writing forum.

Or combine the practices mentioned above and find a tutor to talk about the subjects you´ve read / listened to (see below Jeff Brown´s approach to language acquisition).

etc.

As a busy bee, you´re hard pressed for time so timeboxing (esp. Pomodoro timers!) and baby steps (you could start with 5 minutes of reading and 1-3 sentences written 2-3 times a week. Increment, e.g., 1 minute / sentence every week until you reach 15-20 min of reading / 15-20 sentences written) are crucial while maintaining your existing listening practice.

“There must be efficient way to use listening to learn. There are many people who are blind and still managed to learn another language.”
Of course. Almost all children (if they aren´t severly disabled) learn their L1 without flashcards and reading, but they immerse and interact a lot.

So, if children can do it. You can do it! :slight_smile:
That is: You could short-circuit Jeff Brown´s approach with some of the practices mentioned above:

Jeff Brown is a language professor at Orange Coast College in California. Here´s his amazing YT video:

“He learns languages through interaction and having a “Language Parent”. With his partner, he listens to children’s stories and asks them to describe as many things as they can from magazines and resources that he brings.” Reddit - Dive into anything

Good luck, Dominika,
Peter

24

Hi Peter, given the different definitions that are being thrown around here, I think it would be helpful if you could identify some specific examples for the types of listening that you think are “bad” for language learners.

As an example, here is a list of listening activities that I believe are specifically good for language learners:

Listening to podcasts or audiobooks while:
– driving
– cleaning
– walking my dog
– grocery shopping

Podcasts = less attention needed as the moment to moment content may not be crucial to understanding the content – mostly discussions etc.

Audiobook = somewhat more attention needed so one can follow the story being told, but still very doable while doing the above multitasking activities.

In my experience this type of listening is greatly beneficial.

Can you list the type of listening activities that you think are bad in your experience?

25

@t_harangi
Good idea! Some concrete examples could be useful for our discussion.
I’ll see what I can do. I just need to think about it a little bit more.

26

After reading and thinking a bit more about the topic of our discussion, I came up with the following distinctions and concrete examples:

I. INTRO

  1. Focused / divided attention instead of the distinction “active / passive”

“I really hope that people start thinking more about the complexity of tasks rather than throwing them into these “active” and “passive” categories, which are simply misleading” (iMeoWi)
Let me start by saying that the “active / passive” distinction is still useful if we reframe it as “focused attention vs divided attention” (see my comment below about the psychological distinctions).

Apart from the focus of attention, this includes also:
a) the language levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced, native-like) with different vocabulary sizes, different degrees of automaticity in listening, different depths of cultural background knowledge, etc.
b) the cognitive complexity both of the listening task itself and the task to be performed in parallel (walking, driving, doing household chores, etc.)
c) the degree of fascination of the listening task
d) the previous knowledge reg. the listening task, i.e. the degree of (un)familiarity with the content
e) the speed of the recording (very slow, slow, normal, fast, super fast)
f) the word density of the recording (e.g., movie vs TV episode vs podcast / audiobook vs audio play)
g) the number of speakers (one, two, or more) and their speech characteristics (oronunciation, speed, formal, neutral, informal or vulgar language registers, etc.)
etc.
All these factors affect our listening (comprehension) in a target language.

  1. The distinction “good / bad”
    This isn´t a good distinction because we´re talking about degrees in two main dimensions here:
    a) To which degree is divided listening (in)effective?
    b) To which degree is divided listening (in)efficient in terms of time?

That is: Divided attentional listening isn´t about “good vs bad”, but different degrees of effectiveness and efficiency. And I think the vast majority of language learners want a listening approach that is both quite effective and quite efficient (= the Goldilocks zone).

  1. Not all listening is created equal.
    "All passive listening is not the same. " (Dominika)
    That´s true both for focused and divided listening.

My personal listening pyramid in terms of effectiveness and efficiency is then
a) for focused listening:

  • very effective, but less (time) efficient:
  • Listening while reading (at a beginner or intermediate level) or reading first and then listening one or several time(s) later (at an intermediate or advanced level) and putting it directly into action (i.e. self talk, listening diary, story writing, talks with tutors / natives, creating (audio) flashcards, etc.)
  • less effective, but more time efficient than the above option:
  • listening while reading / reading alone (dependent on the language levels) without putting it into action

b) for divided listening:

  • less effective than a), but more effective than the subsequent options and time efficient:
  • divided listening while doing cognitive simple tasks performed with a high degree of automaticity and without many interruptions
  • the least effective, but time efficient divided listening options:
  • divided listening while doing cognitive simple tasks performed with a low degree of automaticity
    and / or many interruptions
  • listening to background sounds in the target language without paying much attention, i.e. with very infrequent stretches of focused attention
  • listening in your sleep

to be continued

27

II. CONCRETE EXAMPLES
“given the different definitions that are being thrown around here, I think it would be helpful if you could identify some specific examples for the types of listening that you think are “bad” for language learners.” (t_harangi)

Language learners who want to make progress on their L2 journey should give focused listening (with or without putting it into action) the highest priority.
However, divided listening while doing cognitive simple tasks (performed with a high degree of automaticity and without many interruptions so that there are long stretches of focused attention) are still useful because it´s always better than listening to nothing at all in the target language.

Examples for such tasks (with low cognitive complexity, a high degree of automaticity and without many interruptions):

  • Washing the dishes alone
  • Ironing the clothes alone
  • Going for a walk alone (or with a dog)
  • Driving on a lonely highway
  • Running alone on a familiar and not too difficult terrain at a slow / medium pace
    etc.

However, it isn´t the activity itself that is decisive here, but all three aspects, i.e. low cognitive complexity, high degree of automaticity and low number of interruptions. In this case, you have longer stretches of focused attention - and that´s the key!

Or, to put it differently:

  • if you increase the level of cognitive complexity (cooking an unknown dish, driving in difficult inner-city traffic conditions, running on a tricky terrain, etc.)
    and / or
  • if the degree of automacity is low (e.g., you´re a novice at driving)
    and / or
  • if there are many interruptions (you´re driving while your partner and your kids are talking to you, etc.)
    divided listening becomes increasingly ineffective due to information overload, constant focus switches, etc.

From my experience, the degree of effectiveness of divided listening (while doing simple, automated and uninterrupted tasks) can be massively improved by doing some of the focused listening activities mentioned in comment I first! Then divided listening is mainly for repetition and consolidation, which is especially important at the beginner and intermediate stages.

On the other hand, doing focused listening activities before is less important for advanced (or native-like) language learners. They can simply indulge in divided and extensive (pleasure) listening .
I mean, after all the long hours the advanced learner has invested in the target language, he or she deserves that treat - don’t you think? :slight_smile:

28

III. NOTABENE

My argument here isn´t that divided listening is beneficial.

My argument is rather that the more divided listening enables (stretches of) focused listening because of the three aspects I mentioned, the more beneficial it is for language learning/acquisition.

In short: Focused istening is king, after all - even if it´s disguised as divided listening. :slight_smile:

29

Completed off topic, but I get amused how large my gaps in knowledge are (or rather how narrow my knowledge is). I had to lookup “NOTABENE”.

30

Don´t worry, Toby!
We all have knowledge gaps.
It´s unavoidable in our complex society.

For example, if you’re not interested in basketball, you don’t know what
a “stretch five” is - even as a native speaker of English.

Or simply ask me something about baseball or American football.
I don’t know anything about these sports. I only know that they exist :slight_smile:

BTW:
There´s an eponymous Youtube channel in French reg. history:

So, if you were ever interested in French, this would be an excellent resource
(from a B1-B2 / B2 level upwards).

Have a nice day
Peter

31

I saw this post a few days ago and just wanted to throw in this article which references research about children and listening:

I’m going to dive a little more into this later today and find out how research was done exactly but to summarize, babies/toddlers who had talkative parents and were hearing up to (an extreme) 11 million words a year/ 30,000 words a day achieved far greater scores by the time they were in the 3rd grade compared to those who had parents not speaking to them as often (parents who tended to not be at home as much due to work apparently). Obviously speech directed toward a child will probably be far more beneficial since it is testing the child’s brain but the majority of the speaking was probably indirect. So I believe it’s obvious active listening is far greater but it seems this research is a good indication that passive listening as much as possible is not insignificant at all but actually greatly beneficial. With that said, I am very guilty of not prioritizing passive listening when I have time to do it haha. But this research might be enough motivation for me to change that bad habit.

I’ll also mention that I’ve made it a point to change my language practice with my wife to prioritize more of a passive approach that seems in line with what this research was observing for the first general input of infants/toddlers, that is just receiving verbal commands or hearing the native speaker talk outloud (about anything) instead of focusing on me speaking. It still tests my understanding and finds things to learn but also it removes stress from me needing to output. I just most mimic, if anything. And to me this feels like revisiting my childhood of mostly being talked to, talked around, but not doing so much talking with anybody but that was fine obviously as I wasn’t expected to respond most of the time with sentences. I have plenty so I credit Jeff Brown from his video here for sharing that idea How to acquire any language NOT learn it! - YouTube although his examples seem to have him responding a lot from the start, but ya he stresses just listening a lot which is not conventional for a 1 on 1 language practice but it does feel very beneficial for me so far.

Follow Up:
According to this article: New Research Ignites Debate on the ‘30 Million Word Gap’ | Edutopia
There is some great debate about how these statistics were collected (a scheduled and awkward case of an obvious observer in your home with a video camera pointed at you apparently) and if the ultimate result of the children in the 3rd grade was possibly much more connected to other factors outside of just hearing parents speaking. But it does go on to reference another hidden recorder study that yielded results that were finding some “gaps” but nothing like the initial study and also MRI scans done by Harvard & MIT on kid’s brains who had high frequency of interaction vs low frequency showed very different neuro patterns. So with that said I’m assuming listening as much as possible is still very beneficial but maybe not to the extreme degree the study mentioned.

32

Yeah, but isn’t this just a really elaborate way of saying that “passive listening” is good for you? I mean, you’re calling it divided listening here, but it’s describing the same thing as most of us would understand it.

The argument that focused listening is better is a bit of a logical fallacy here, no? The whole point of passive listening is that you’re doing during a time when you’re doing something else.

If I’m driving in my car and listen to an audiobook, am I supposed to stop that and pull over and read along and make notes, otherwise it’s “bad” for me? I‘m guessing not.

33

Btw, I don’t think the point is that if these practices are “bad”. It’s not that passive listening is killing us. :smiley:

I mean they are not bad at all, in the worse case scenario they don’t help at all at anything.

The point of interest would be if they are helpful in learning a language and how and in what. And I think this is not so easy to quantify and it’s just based on opinions as usual.

For example, passive listening could just be joyful, could just motivate a person even without helping them to acquire one single word more. Would that be helpful in learning a language? It depends on what we are probably focus on in that moment.

Would passive listening help me acquiring new vocabulary? Not in my experience but I might learn differently from someone else.

Would passive listening help me to enjoy an audiobook and learn from the content of that audiobook without improving the language a bit? Absolutely.

And so on and on.

Sorry, I answered here but I think I’ve lost the point on this topic. Probably it was that passive listening is BAD if you want to ACCELERATE your listening comprehension skills. Compared probably from 1 hour of this and 1 hour of that of you have only 1 hour available.

And also, I think this comparison belong to the left side of the brain, we are thinking about it rationally. But we know nothing about the right side of the brain that learns in a completely different way, creating connections and associations without that we realize it. So we have no idea on how the right brain would learn from a passive listening experience and help the left side of the brain to focus on the language. Imho.

34

Hi, t_harangi / Davide!

“Yeah, but isn’t this just a really elaborate way of saying that “passive listening” is good for you?” (
t_harangi)

“The point of interest would be if they are helpful in learning a language and how and in what.” (Davide)

As I wrote in my comment (I. INTRO) below, binary distinctions like “good / bad” aren´t helpful in this context. It´s better to distinguish two dimensions or spectra here:

  • To which degree is divided listening (in)effective?
  • To which degree is divided listening (in)efficient (in terms of time. etc.)?

To make things a bit clearer here, see this Wikipedia article on “effectiveness” (Effectiveness - Wikipedia):
“Efficacy, on the other hand, is the extent to which a desired effect is achieved; the ability to produce a desired amount of the desired effect, or the success in achieving a given goal. Contrary to the term efficiency, the focus of efficacy is the achievement as such, not the resources spent in achieving the desired effect. Therefore, what is effective is not necessarily efficacious, and what is efficacious is not necessarily efficient” (higglighting by me).
[…]
Simply stated, effective means achieving an effect, and efficient means getting a task or job done it with little waste." (higglighting by me).

In short:

  • Efficacy refers to the degree to which something is successful in producing a desired XY, i.e. a goal, result, or effect.
  • Efficiency refers to the degree to which a given resource (time, money, energy, etc.) is used.

Applied to language learning, you could then ask, for example:
How many words can be learned / acquired with the least amount of cognitive effort (like focused attention, etc.) in the least amount of time (minutes / hours, etc.)?

Of course, the tricky thing is “quality” here. That is, what do we mean by “learning / acquiring” a word (word group = collocation or idiom)?

  • Just being able to recognize a word (group)?
  • Being able to translate and use it in a specific co- and context in speaking, writing, reading or doing flashcards?
  • Being able to distinguish many different use cases and shades of meaning , i.e. the typical collocations, associations, connotations, and evaluations related to specific communication situations, language registers, socio-cultural norms, etc. ?

“And I think this is not so easy to quantify and it’s just based on opinions as usual.” (Davide)
I agree. It can be quite difficult to test, quantify, and evaluate the efficacy and efficiency of divided attention (i.e. multitasking) practices, especially with regard to language learning and acquisition.

On the other hand, iif you use the search term “multitasking” at Google Scholar, you get more than 100000 search results:
https://scholar.google.de/scholar?hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_vis=1&q=multitasking+&btnG=

So, a lot of research has been done - and is still being done!
And one of the key insights of this research seems to be that
“multitasking is typically accompanied with performance decrements (PB.: the quality of tasks to be fulfilled decreases, the performance is slower and the likelihood of errors increases, memory recall can worsen, etc.) that become evident when comparing performance on a task done in isolation to its performance done in combination with other tasks” (New perspectives on human multitasking | SpringerLink; highlighting by me)

However, “typical” doesn´t mean “always”, i.e. in 100 per cent of all use cases, because there are other incluencing factors (the degree of preparation, the degree of task complexity / automaticity, age, time pressure, etc.) at play here as well.

@t_harangi
But, this doesn´t mean that “passive listening", i.e. multitasking / divided attention with respect to listening, is intrinsically beneficial or good for you!

Rather the opposite:
If performance decrements have typically to be expected, then it´s better to resort to active listening as much as possible!

And putting what you´ve listened to into action (by talking to yourself, writing “listening diaries” or summaries, having conversations with your tutors or other natives, etc.) will further increase the depth of engagement compared to active listening (with or without concurrent reading) alone.

That being said, strictu sensu there´s no “passive” (i.e. non-operational) listening:
All listening is operational and, therefore, “active”. And listening is a more or less complex meaning-deriving activity, which includes: distinguishing sound pattens, building sound pattern - meaning pairs (traditionally called “signs”), using one´s short-time and long-time memory, making inferences, etc., when it comes to language processing.

If that´s not the case, there´s no language processing.

In other words: “Passive listening” refers only to the constant switching of your attention focus (from a non-listening task to a listening task, for example), but focusing is always operational / active!

Consequently, the more “passive listening” (divided attention / multitasking) resembles “active listening” (focused attention / monotasking!) the better.

In short [and this time without the “notabene” :-)]:
“Focused (active) listening is king, after all - even if it´s disguised as divided (passive) listening!”

35

@t_harangi:

“The argument that focused listening is better is a bit of a logical fallacy here, no? The whole point of passive listening is that you’re doing during a time when you’re doing something else.”
Sure.
And the next question could be: “Passive listening is better than doing nothing at all in your TL, isn´t it?”

The obvious answer seems to be: “Yes, of course!”. However, a better answer is “It depends!” because not all “passive listening”, i.e. active listening with constant switching of the attention focus, is the same.

Three examples where “passive listening” is rather ineffective and, therefore, isn´t a good idea at all:

  • If you try to prepare for your language exam ( let’s say, reading and writing) while listening to a random radio program in your target language (see Benny’s C2 exam in German!), it will have a negative impact on both activities: Your reading and writing performance will decrease, and you won’t learn much listening.

  • When I did grocery shopping while trying to do “deliberate practice” sessions with the Michel Thomas Advanced Course in Japanese , audio flashcards in Japanese, and the phrase book exercises of 50languages in Brasilian Portuguese) the error rates in both (!) activities skyrocketed. After a few trials, I had to stop this experiment: “Never again!” In short, if I do grocery shopping, I do grocery shopping. If I do deliberate (listening) practices, I do deliberate (listening) practices. For me, there´s no “both / and” here, only “either / or” with fully attention focus - period.

  • The third example is trying to listen to lectures in Machine Learning (both in English and German) while going for a walk in my home town with a little bit of traffic and some pedestrians to be dodged. There are two words to describe my experience: “Forget it!” :slight_smile: This topic is too advanced for using passive listening. So, either full attention focus or nothing.

Reg. your example:
“If I’m driving in my car and listen to an audiobook, am I supposed to stop that and pull over and read along and make notes, otherwise it’s “bad” for me? I‘m guessing not.”
Well, not all driving is the same.
When you drive in one of Germany´s cities with a lot of traffic, (i.e. cars, bikes, motorcycles, e-scooter,s, pedestrians), many one-way streets, narrow alleys, pedestrian zones, etc. - perhaps coupled with bad weather conditions like rain, fog and / or snow, it would be wise to forget your audiobook and just focus on the traffic.

But when you’re stuck in a traffic jam or driving for hours on a lonely highway, audiobooks, podcasts, etc. are your best friends, because you can enjoy long stretches of mainly “active” listening.

One last point:
" I supposed to …"
You’re not supposed to do anything.
So if you think language learning is best when you’re on top of Mount Everest while being oxygen deprived, go for it! :slight_smile:

We are talking about “options” here. What you make of them is up to you (and each and every language learner).
In short: your life - your choice - your responsibility.

Have a nice weekend
Peter

36

Hi, Stewart!

The problem here could be:
"but the majority of the speaking was probably indirect. "
If the little ones mainly listen (indirectly) to the conversations of their caregivers, older siblings, and other adults, but can´t derive meaning from them, then it´s “not” language processing.

Language processing without deriving meaning is just “sound processing.” Without comprehensible content, they can still benefit because they can observe others, learn sound patterns (i.e., pronunciation, intonation, etc.), and study some nonverbal behaviors in interactions (e.g., how others deal with pain).

In short, content that isn´t meaningful / comprehensible for little children is probably only of limited use to them because language processing tends to fall back to sound processing.

“passive listening as much as possible is not insignificant at all but actually greatly beneficial” (Stewart).
In our discussion, two meanings of “passive listening” are thrown around:

  1. Passive listening as listening without putting into action what you´ve heard by speaking, writing, reading, etc.

  2. Passive listening as the constant switching of attention focus (see my comments below, esp. to @t_harangi).

Reg. 2):
Strictu sensu, there´s no such thing as “passive” listening, only focused attention listening.
Without “any” focused attention, you don´t listen and aren´t able to process language (again: see my comments to Davide and t_harangi below).

Reg 1):
Active listening and putting what you heard into action reign supreme:
It´s better than active, i.e. fully focused listening alone,
it´s better than fully focused reading alone,
and it´s even better than focused listening while reading.

Why? The “depth of engagement” is simply greater.
So there’s a reason why for hundreds and hundreds of years (to this day) students at universities around the world have been taking notes, writing their own summaries, doing homework, etc., because actively listening to a lecture alone is not enough

It´s the same for academic scripts: For example, in the math / computer science scripts I had to work with, there was a constant reminder like this: “Make no mistake, reading is not enough. You´ve got to actively engage with the text, i.e. doing exercises, calculating, programming, etc.”

“to change my language practice with my wife to prioritize more of a passive approach”
Well, if you listen to your wife (even if you don’t speak in BR), it’s still active = focused listening.
Otherwise, you wouldn´t understand anything at all what she´s trying to tell you. That is: without any attention focus, you simply wouldn’t be able to “process” her speech (= no meaning deriving activity).

Anyway, why don’t you simply speak in English and she speaks in BR?
That’s how bilingual parents often teach their children. For example, in my family
my brother-in-law spoke in Hungarian and my sister in German to my nephews
when they were little.
My two nephews understood both languages :slight_smile:

Have a nice day
Peter

37

PS -
Why I´m also sceptical about the “word gap” study is the lack of cultural diversity (beyond possible built-in race / class biases and power or status differences). See, for example, the case of (some) Native American cultures in the US:

"“When Native Americans do communicate they put much more of an emphasis and value on listening rather than speaking. They very rarely talk just for the sake of talking. They don’t make much small talk except between close friends or family. Native Americans do not find power in words that other cultures may. There is much more emphasis on affective communication, such as expressing their feelings about something, rather than just verbal communication.”

"Children should not display themselves verbally in front of adults. "
Cultural Differences in Communication -     Native Americans

This means for L2 acquisition in general:
There´s much more to language learning / acquisition than the explicit use and processing of a language.

38

Yyyeah, but the title of this thread was very specifically: “Why passive listening is bad for you” – a statement that has not been supported by the arguments. Especially when you’re saying we shouldn’t think of it as a binary “good / bad.” The title was very binary in that sense.

From the examples that you list, an accurate title would have been “Why doing weird stuff with audio is bad for you” – grocery shopping while doing deliberate practice with Michael Thomas is by definition not passive listening. Benny’s example of audio in the background while reading and writing is, again, not passive listening. These are all just weird activities that some people might try from time to time and quickly dismiss because of course they don’t work.

Same is true for listening to a lecture on an advanced subject – maybe that’s not the right material for passive listening but in no way does that mean that activity itself is bad for you, you just had the wrong material for it.

If you’re driving in an environment that requires a lot of attention, most people would just turn off the audio because, of course that’s not the right time.

A lot of bloggers and influencers make these kinds of arguments in search for clickable material: “I did a weird thing, and here is why it didn’t work” – ok, but, most of us could’ve told you that beforehand.

39

Following your interpretation of “weird”, doing grocery shopping (which includes, for example: comparing prices and products, looking at the expiration dates of products, dodging other customers, asking supermarkt staff, etc.) while trying to listen to audiobooks is also a “weird” activity because I tried that, too. And it didn´t work (very well) either due to the high error rates mentioned.
I even tried it with shorter (i.e. 15-18 min) podcasts like “Revisteen” in Brazilian Portuguese: https://audioglobo.globo.com/cbn/podcast/feed/752/revisteen-cbn-joca). Again: “Forget it!”

" but in no way does that mean that activity itself is bad for you, "
In general, if there´s a lot of “multitasking” (and that´s the “essence” of divided attention!) involved, you have to expect all kinds of “negative” effects (decreasing quality, increasing error rates, deterioration of memory performance, etc.), at least
in the case of regular people (i.e. non-supertaskers, people without ADHD, etc.) like me.

If such an accumulation of “negative” effects (and these are intrinsically linked to heavy multitasking!) is “good” for you, then that´s “weird” in itself, don´t you think?

Therefore, my thesis is:
“Passive” listening is only (more or less) effective in those cases where it basically resembles “active” listening. Consequently, the goal should be to minimize focus switching between activities as much as possible. Or, to put it differently, the goal should be to transform “passive” listening - as much as possible - in “active” listening.

In the end, there´s not much left of the “passivity” of “passive listening”, don´t you think? :slight_smile:

Furthermore, we can generalize your statement:
" but in no way does that mean that multitasking itself is bad for you, "
Increasing multitasking, exacerbated by all sorts of digital “distractions,” has a lot of negative effects. Perhaps the worst is that more and more, esp. younger people have shorter and shorter “attention spans” (= focused attention sustained over an extended period of time).

However, that´s not only an individual, but also a social phenomenon:
" Our data only supports the claim that our collective attention span is narrowing."

With this in mind, training and protecting focused attention is important, esp. for knowledge workers (like coders, scientists, etc.). Otherwise, you won´t last long in these domains.

And that´s the reason why topics such as “mindfulness”, “deep work”, etc. are more and more en vogue…

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I think those of us who believe in passive listening are able to draw great benefits from it because we’re good at pairing the right material with the right activities to get the best results form it.

I commute on a freeway every day and audiobooks are great for that. I walk with my dog everyday – again, great time to listen. I shop at a grocery store where I always buy the same things every week, so I’m pretty much on autopilot (this shopping pattern may be weird for some people, but I have a system for weekly groceries) what’s not weird is for me to listen to audiobooks when I’m doing this, because I’m able to follow the story I’m listening to and hence it works for me.

So, again, when done right, this type of listening can be great practice for a language learner. I’ve done this with multiple languages over the course of years and it has helped me build not only listening comprehension, but better speaking ability as well.

Any combination of activities that you list where the listener is engaged in something that prevents them form being able reasonably follow what they’re listening to is not an argument against the benefits of listening, it’s argument against that particular combination of activities for that person.