Why Do People Interrupt You?

This video dives into why we interrupt. Some reasons why are more straightforward: perhaps you blurt something out, perhaps people are jerks, but some new research tries to identify the bits of the brain that are responsible for you keeping time in a conversation. The research involves an obscure species of ultrasonic singing mice. Naturally.

This episode was written by Bahar Gholipour and Vanessa Hill.

Archive footage supplied by AP Archive

REFERENCES 📚

Farley, S. D. (2008). Attaining status at the expense of likeability: pilfering power through conversational interruption. Journal of nonverbal behavior, 32(4), 241-260.

[chavamara]

My frustration is that whenever I want to say something in a conversation, I wait for the other person to pause long enough to see if they're finished speaking, but when I go to speak, they either start up again or someone else starts talking!

[RJ-dzhu]

I think a lot of the time people are just plane rude and they don't respect you - I hate it when people interrupt you such bad manners. Thanks for the video

[ALZulas]

Some of us interrupt because our memories no longer work, and if we don't interrupt long winded talkers, we will forget anything we have to say and never speak at all.

[nevelpapperman]

There are no words to describe how much I can relate to being interrupted. Literally for my whole life I got interrupted by my family. And it came to a point, where me mentioning it, doesn’t get taken seriously. It is so frustrating because the moment I decide to not speak anymore, I get labelled as „dramatic“ or „aggressive“. Or they simply just tell me to keep on talking. I am 20 years old today and I still have difficulties to have a proper conversation with them. Even if it is just smalltalk. They always talk over me or interrupt me. I feel like they don’t even recognise my presence.
But after all those years I realised that they simply won’t listen to me or what I have to say. So I rarely talk to them and rather talk to people who are willing to have a conversation with me. I only talk when it is necessary. I do feel sad about it sometimes especially seeing how my friends can have proper convos w/ their family. But it is what it is.

[MukMn]

I was taught to never interrupt and always wait for someone to finish before speaking. Combine that with me being slow to think and formulate thoughts and sentences, plus slow reaction time socially, and being able to speak when I'm in a group setting is almost impossible. If I really want to say something, I get frustrated because I don't want to interrupt or accidentally cut someone off. I wait for them to completely finish, but by the time my brain realizes that they are done, someone else has already begun speaking. Most of the time I just don't care and keep all my thoughts to myself, because let's be honest, half the time I make a fool out of myself anyway. :) for some reason I'm significantly better at expressing my thoughts through writing than speaking. I can write coherently, but when I speak I often sound like a fool.

[Dixavd]

1/5th a second to feel natural?! No wonder I feel so awkward in conver- POLITE SINGING MICE! How adorable 💖

[maxximumb]

Someone interrupts me as a power thing, I walk away.

[angiebaby]

sometimes you have to interrupt people who don't give you a chance to respond and just continue talking over you when you try to get in the conversation you're supposed to be a part of. idk if it's just me, it might be... lol

[shimmypost]

In a three person or more conversation someone might interrupt so that they get a turn to speak.

[hviw]

Fairly often somebody askes me a questions and then interrupts me two syllables into the answer. I can't thik of any reason other than to be a jerk.

[Trojanpige]

As an introvert, I don't speak that much. But when I do speak, I get interrupted constantly. This causes me to be socially drained and not wanting to be in the conversation anymore.
Worst is when the person talking to you doesn't even stop to take a breath, drowning you in small talk and making you feel like suffocating.

[JRexRegis]

Interrupting just makes me angry.

you're talking to someone about something, and they'll just start talking randomlyin the middle of your sentence.

I try to stay conscious of my interrupting, and if I absolutely have to, I commit the last sentence they said to memory and repeat it when the interruption is over (because people seem to have a problem remembering their train of thought).

but honestly, sometimes it just doesn't feel fair. I have to put a bunch of thought into conversations, I have to remember for them where they were, and I have to have an extreme focus on their faces and emotions alike, all while also talking, while they just start talking in the middle of my sentence, and not courteous, but I'd be saying "honestly, I think it's a problem with the hum-" and then they start giving their opinion to the topic, or someone else butts in and talks about something totally different.

the worst thing though is talking to someone, and having another person come in and start talking to them over you. bonus bad feels if both ignore you afterward.

[sentdc]

My parents don't even let me finish the sentence when we talk via Skype. It's all about power dynamic.

[stormwatcher]

Being interrupted angers me so so much

[lucius_hilley]

I've had times that I they repeatedly interrupted and they clearly want and expect a response that they can interrupt again. Many times I just fall silent and blank stare until the say. "What?" or "Well?" That is MY power move to say something like. You don't seem to need me in this conversation. I've also been known to just walk away. Silence can be just as powerful as interruption and talking louder.

[Jules-motu]

You just interrupted my watching of another video

[JoeBob]

A friend of mine used to interrupt me, and everyone, a lot, and a lot of the time she wasn't even be aware of it.
My "fix" was to first mention it to her when she did it., and after that, depending on the situation, I'd either completely shut up and stare at her until she realised she'd interrupted me, or else I'd start constantly interrupting her in return, literally every 2 seconds, with random gibberish, so she could never even finish a sentence.
Even when she was aware of it, I could sometimes see her body trying to interrupt me even though her brain was aware of it, and she would trying to stop herself. It was like her head and shoulders would move forward, but then her brain would stop her from talking. It was actually kind of funny.

[aido]

Some people do not actually want to have a conversation, but, rather, want to lecture you, and leave no space for interaction. If you're not leaving that space, then you're speaking at someone, not with them.

Also, if that space is not given, then the other person will either simply not make the valuable, relevant point they had, as the pertinent point in the conversation has passed, or they have to drag the conversation backwards, which is potentially frustrating for both parties, and even more so if the speaker has made an error in developing their argument or point, and was not challenged at the time.

[alexixeno]

As someone who works in a call center I have to say that the art of conversation is even worst when you are on the phone. The rate that people makes assumptions when on the phone is insane. I once had one guy who was so sure he know what I was going to ask that all I could say was "and what is" before he would blurt out an answer. Took him 4 times before he finally let me finish and realised he hasn't answered a single question yet. I think even worst is when I ask them a question and they will start to answer and stop half way through and go "are you there?" like they were expecting me to interrupt them at some point.

Also if you ever want to know why call centre employee's can sound so cranky at times, it's usually because they asked someone a really simple yes or no question and instead got a long winded story. As much as we hate it, our employers usually rank us on time T.T It sucks and makes us cranky when some people don't know how to stop talking.

[ailst]

I tried to practice „active listening“. Part of it is to never interrupt the other person. So I consciously give more than a second of pause to the other person to make super sure they finished their thought. I really don‘t think that anyone considers that as „awkward“.