“The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply,” Stephen Covey.
This isn't new ground, we've known this for ages.
But it's magnified to the n-th degree with the acceleration of technology, that the masses understand and know more in terms of broadcasting more than listening.
We even have the term "reply guy" to describe people (men, obvs) that have the super power of replying anything and everything they feel like, with any take, as long as its a reply to something. There is literally no other qualifier than the "right to reply" to be this person.
And "...listen to understand." implies reflection, in order to come to understanding.
"...to reply" requires no reflection- and I use "reflection" and not "thinking" because I mean a multi-dimensional activity (like speed vs acceleration), I know thinking happens- you're thinking about what you're going to reply with- reflection, I'm arguing, means "applying my brain processing abilities on both the incoming information and my own information, to reach an understanding".
And that understanding can be expressed in a response (again, I'm thinking of response here as a more sophisticated form, but analogous to a "reply"), or not.
You can just take the understanding, that's the valuable part of the whole exchange.
But it's no wonder our communication is terrible when we're all shown and taught 50 million different ways to podcast, youtube, tweet, insta, viber, blog and broadcast with the goal of getting our thoughts and feelings out to the world, and less about how to read, research, discuss and debate with topics, ideas and opinions.
Listening to understand is it's own reward. We can do more of that.