joec

Summary: Zoning out is difficult to avoid and common, zoning out without admitting it hurts your comprehension, therefore you should admit that you zoned out and ask people to repeat things. If you’re anything like me, you’ve “zoned out” before. You’ve probably even zoned out when you’re trying to learn something interesting. In fact, I’d bet that you’ve zoned out when listening to someone you respect teaching you something interesting, and that you didn’t admit it, and that this left you with a gap in understanding that you may or may not have filled in later.[1] Perhaps I’m falling for the typical minds fallacy, but I don’t think I am. This happens to me very often,[2] and I think it happens to others, and I think that any community focused on rationality or scholarship or understanding ought to account for this. I doubt we’ll be able to prevent people from zoning out, but I know we can encourage people who are listening to admit when they’ve zoned out and we can encourage people who are speaking to patiently re-iterate the thing they just said without taking offense. One time I was explaining something to a friend of mine and she said the unthinkable. “Sorry, I zoned out. Could you repeat what you said after first bringing up mitochondria?” I was at first somewhat taken aback, but quickly realized that I’ve been in the same position as her. I repeated myself and took less than a minute to do so. I think her understanding was better than it would have been if she hadn’t simply admitted she zoned out. I’m thankful she did it, since it brought the fact that I could do the same to my awareness. If you’re in the right company, admitting that you’ve zoned out has barely any cost and real benefits. Zoning out when someone is talking to you is far more common if the things they’re saying are boring or hard to comprehend or otherwise unpleasant. It’s perfectly rational to, as a speaker, take “people are zoning out” as evidence of a poor job. However, if you were unplea