In an ordinary conversation today, it’s not hard to sense when someone stops listening. Their attention shifts, their response comes too quickly, or their gaze drifts to a nearby screen. The exchange continues, but something essential has already been lost. We express ourselves, more than ever, through platforms, devices, and digital spaces. But are we truly listening to one another?

Contemporary public debate tends to focus on speech. Questions of who can speak, what should be regulated, and whether freedom of expression is threatened dominate discussions about digital life. These are obviously important issues, but they rest on an assumption we rarely examine: that being heard is a natural consequence of speaking.

The ancient Athenians understood that democratic speech required two things in equal measure: the right to speak and the courage to speak the truth. But these two ideals depend on the presence of something the Athenians rarely mentioned explicitly, because, in the agora, it was simply taken for granted: an audience willing to sincerely receive what was said. Speaking and listening are not competing concerns. They are two sides of the same civic duty, and it is impossible to defend one without being concerned about the other.

Today, we devote considerable energy to protecting and expanding the right to speak. We pay far less attention to what happens on the side of those who receive that speech.

What listening actually requires

Listening is not a passive activity. It is not simply about remaining silent, nor is it merely about hearing words pass by. To listen well is to engage with the words of others as something meaningful, something that deserves to be understood, interpreted, and to which one can respond in one’s own words.

Philosophers refer to this as “uptake” : the willingness to accurately receive what someone has said before reacting. This means devoting enough time to an argument to truly grasp its meaning, rather than responding to a simplified or distorted version of it. It involves distinguishing what a person has actually stated from what we have assumed they meant. It also means considering the speaker as a participant in a shared exchange, not as an obstacle to be eliminated.

It’s harder than it seems. We tend to listen in order to respond rather than to understand. We wait for the moment when we can reply, the flaw in the argument, the opening that will allow us to impose our own point of view. That’s not listening. That’s waiting.

This distinction is essential in a democratic life. When citizens react to caricatures of opposing opinions rather than to the opinions themselves, public debate loses its capacity to produce anything more than noise. Disagreement becomes a performance. Argumentation transforms into theater. And the possibility of genuine persuasion—that of truly changing one’s mind in light of what another person has said—silently vanishes.

Digital environments make listening more difficult

The platforms that host the majority of our public conversations today were not designed to encourage listening. They were designed to generate engagement – ​​which is something else entirely.

Engagement, as measured by major social media platforms, corresponds to clicks, shares, reactions, and time spent. Content that evokes strong emotions—particularly outrage, moral anger, or scandal—generally performs well according to these criteria. Content that encourages thoughtful reflection performs much less well.

The result is an informational environment that systematically rewards forms of communication least conducive to genuine listening: fast-paced, assertive, emotionally charged, and designed to provoke a reaction rather than elicit a thoughtful response.

Added to this is the way algorithms present content to us. We rarely encounter arguments in their full form, expressed by those who defend them and placed back in the context in which they were formulated. Instead, we are most often confronted with fragments, screenshots, summaries, or paraphrases, often chosen precisely because they are easy to dismiss or ridicule. In other words, we are trained to interact with caricatures. But caricatures don’t require listening. They only require a reaction.

The consequences for democratic life are serious. A public space in which everyone speaks constantly without truly feeling heard is not a healthy space. It is a space where frustrations build, positions harden, and the common ground necessary for collective decision-making becomes increasingly difficult to find. This is not just a technological problem. It is a civic problem. And it demands a civic response.

How to teach (and practice) listening

The good news is that listening, unlike algorithm design, is something we can directly influence. It’s a skill, and skills can be taught.

In educational settings, this means creating spaces where students deliberately practice active listening. Teachers might, for example, organize debates in which students must satisfactorily rephrase a classmate’s argument before offering a critique. This practice establishes an environment where equitable participation becomes a structural requirement rather than a secondary consideration, and where disagreement is viewed as an opportunity for understanding rather than a means to prevail.

The same discipline applies beyond live discussions. Students can be asked to listen to a podcast, watch a video, or read an article with a single instruction in mind: are you able to honestly present the argument before deciding whether you agree with it?

These are not mere school exercises. They are rehearsals of democratic life.

These habits can also be cultivated outside of formal education. Before responding to something that provokes or annoys you, take a moment to ask yourself if you truly understand the argument. Before criticizing a position, rephrase it in terms its defender would recognize as correct. Distinguish between what someone actually said and your assumptions about why they said it. These are small adjustments, but when practiced consistently, they transform the quality of communication.

A democracy that merely teaches citizens to speak freely has only accomplished half the task. In ancient Greece, the agora was not a stage. It was a place for exchange. Rediscovering that spirit—in classrooms, in conversations, and in the digital spaces we now share—begins with a more subtle and demanding skill: learning to truly listen.

Author Bio: Sara Kells is Director of Program Management at IE Digital Learning and Adjunct Professor of Humanities at IE University