Research suggests that the mere presence of a cell phone can automatically distract listeners and detract from a meaningful conversation.
That's why conversation and communication expert Celeste Headlee challenges all of us to a "Do Not Disturb Date Night" by leaving our phones at home, or tucked away and out of sight.
"Try leaving your phone at home! Make sure you have directions to the restaurant or movie theater, enable your "do not disturb" message so that people don't wonder why you're not answering. If you don't think you can survive without your phone (spoiler: you can), make sure you at least disable as many notifications as possible. If you turn all that other stuff off and you make a real of putting your phone out of sight, you'll find that you can vastly cut back on the number of times that you touch your phone.'
Celeste says that just the visual of the phone can cause someone to have a negative reaction to you.
"The phone is actually distracting you and it's distracting your brain. We know this scientifically. In fact, with the phone visible, just on the table, it lowers your IQ. That's how difficult it is for your brain to be thinking about that phone, thinking that at some point it might ring or text the whole time you are trying to focus on something else. The thing I find interesting is they've discovered, through experiments, that having a phone visible on the table, even if it makes no noise, makes [the other person] find you less empathetic, less trustworthy and less likeable.'
Celeste is an award winning journalist and the author of the book "We Need To Talk: How To Have Conversations That Matter."
Here are her tips for having more meaningful conversations:
1) Don't have a prepared script
"The main thing is you can't come prepared with questions. If we're on a date, I'm going to look at you and ask you questions about what you have chosen to wear, the restaurant we are in or something that happened in your day. You cant prepare questions because you need to make sure you are actually in the moment and if you are thinking about a prepared script, you're not."
2) Don't offer unsolicited advice
"Everyone should just have honest conversations. Unsolicited advice is a problem, any form of unsolicited advice. For example, 'You know they have an upgrade for that phone?' Any form of it where you are telling someone what to do, our brains just really don't like it. In fact, we perceive it as an attack. and we just won't listen."
3) Have balance
"Balance the listening and the talking. If you need a reminder, I say play a game of catch. You literally can't throw more than you can catch. It should be the same way in your conversation, including the amount of time. A good exercise is to tell a story you tell often and time yourself to see how long it takes. You may not genuinely be aware until you see that glazed look in their eyes come over you realize you've lost them."
To hear more from Celeste Headlee, checkout her website www.celesteheadlee.com or watch her TED Talk "10 ways to have better conversations".