Finally, recollection, the final stage, involves the retention and remembrance of the conveyed message. .
Personally, I have the most trouble with the final stage of the communication process. I often find myself frustrated due to my lack of short-term memory compared to others around me. I have thought about supplements that aid in memory retention to cure my ailment but have never thought that my lack of retention could be caused by weak communicational skills. Statistically, immediately after getting a message only fifty-percent of that message is remembered and after eight hours, a paltry twenty-percent. My frustrations occur in all highly specified aspects of my daily communication though. I find myself struggling to recall things that are said late at night, and things that I am not particularly interested in. Naturally, as a teenager, I am not always fully engaged and interested in what my professor may have to say, which is unfortunate because there is a direct correlation between my knowledge retention and my GPA. Also, I stumble upon embarrassing instances often when I try to remember the name of the person I was just introduced to. I don't forget their name because I am not interested in what it is, but because I am typically more anxious to hear what they have to say I tend to just see our introduction as a mere waste of time. .
There are two different types of listeners: active and passive. A passive listener expends little or no energy in the listening process explained above. Differences between active listeners and passive listeners include: the amount of energy put into becoming interested in a message, importance placed on both the verbal and non-verbal messages, value placed on the interaction, and the willingness each has to listen through the duration of the message.
If I were forced to select whether I was an active or passive listener I would say I was passive with some workings of an active listener.
