The only one thing that you asked for was for the garbage to be taken out. A little bit later you discover your partner didn’t do it. When you ask why they didn’t do it, your partner responds “I never heard you ask me”. Curious how that works, how your partner didn’t hear the one thing you asked them to do. The colloquial term for this is “selective hearing,” and it’s often a sign of poor communication.
This “selective hearing” is often viewed as a sort of character defect. It’s like you’re accusing somebody of intentionally not listening. But it’s possible that the actual cause behind your selective hearing might not be a short attention span, it may be the early phases of hearing loss.
What is selective hearing?
You’ve likely had at least one or more scenarios in your life where someone has accused you of not listening, even if no one specifically used the term “selective hearing”. When you miss all the things you don’t want to hear but hear everything else, that’s selective hearing. You hear the part about making a delicious meal but miss the part about cleaning up the dishes. That sort of thing.
As a behavior, selective hearing is extremely common. However, most studies point to males failing to hear their partners more often than women.
How individuals are socialized does give some context and it might be tempting to make some assumptions from this. But hearing health is most likely another major factor. If your “selective hearing” starts to become more common, it could be an indication that you may have undiagnosed hearing loss.
Communication can be impacted by hearing loss
Undiagnosed hearing loss can certainly make communication a great deal more difficult. That’s most likely not that shocking.
But here’s the thing: in many cases, communication issues are a sign of hearing loss.
Symptoms can be very difficult 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 drink at your local pub. You probably just presume it’s because of the loud music. And so, besides that, you could go through most of your everyday life without even noticing the volume of the world around you. This allows your hearing to gradually diminish. You scarcely notice the issue until you’re at the point where you often have trouble hearing conversations.
Your hearing health is worrying your partner
You will notice some of the people close to you are beginning to worry. Your friends and family will likely be annoyed when they think you’re intentionally ignoring what they say. But as it turns out more and more often, irritation may turn to concern.
And your partner may want you to find out what’s going on by having you schedule a hearing test.
It’s significant to listen to your partner’s concerns. Have an open discussion with them and accept their help because they care about your well-being and aren’t simply aggravated with you.
Other early indications of hearing loss
If your selective hearing is getting worse over time, it may be worth watching out for some of these other early signs of hearing loss. A few of those signs include:
- Difficulty hearing in crowds
- Cranking the volume up on your mobile phone, television, or radio
- Requesting that people talk slower and talk louder
- Consonants are hard to make out
- People sound distant or muted when they talk
You should contact us for a hearing exam if you have any of these symptoms.
Use ear protection
Safeguarding your hearing is so essential to preventing hearing loss. Minimize your exposure to noisy environments (or at least use earmuffs or earplugs when you must be around noise). Hearing aids can also help you have more effective communication, which can smooth over many rough patches that your hearing loss may have caused in the first place.
In most cases throughout your life, selective hearing will be an artifact of a waning attention span. But you may want to take it as an indication that it’s time for a hearing test when people around you begin to notice your selective hearing getting worse.