People can tell when you’re half-listening. They just stop telling you things.

Half-listening is louder than people think it is. Almost nobody confronts you about it, they just quietly file you as someone not to tell things to, and after that the news and the hard stuff route around you. The cost is not an argument. It is a slow narrowing of what you ever get told.

Take your next real conversation and put your phone face down and out of reach. Ask one follow-up question about the thing they actually just said. People finish their sentences differently when they can tell you are still there.