Eavesdropping

By Taylor

What did she say? What was that? She said my name. They’re talking about me. No, they’re talking about her. Did you hear that? She did what?

We all do it. When we’re feeling self conscious, when we’re feeling excluded, when we’re feeling unsatisfied with what we know for certain, we catch ourselves eavesdropping. Humans may often find themselves tuning into a conversation, that they, themselves, are not partaking in, during times with their ears are not being stimulated directly by a conversation.


The act of hearing, or listening to something, is a rather simple process. The outside part of the ear, called the pinna, is what human’s physically identify as "the ear." The pinna collects sound waves from a person’s surroundings and sends them into the middle ear where the eardrum is located. The sound waves are now in the form of vibrations and travel to the inner ear where the liquid-filled cochlea is located. The cochlea is responsible for sending these vibrations to the brain to be interpreted into messages as well as keeping our body’s balance in check. When the cochlear fluids lack stimulation, the body becomes wobbly and unstable, which explains why humans, even unintentionally, eavesdrop on other’s conversations. Humans seek stabilization: when the ears are not being stimulated, our listening drifts to an outside conversation in order to stimulate the cochlear fluids and help to maintain the body’s equilibrium.

Because the twenty-first century is seeping with new technologies, society struggles with determining limits when it comes to eavesdropping. Technology has altered the way society interacts with one another. As the world becomes increasingly advanced technologically, we see a decrease in the amount of communication that occurs verbally, and an increase in the amount of communication that occurs visually. Need to urgently relay a message? Ten years ago, a phone call would have been suitable. But today, we would opt for the text over the call. Or the email over the call. Or the Facebook message over the call. Technology has literally dismantled the telephone from the walls in our homes. Prior to this, the act of eavesdropping wasn’t as debatable as it is today. Mom, dad or a pesky sibling, sneakily picking up the spare phone connected to the landline and listening in on your conversation. But what happens when communication no longer requires voices? Is glancing over a shoulder and reading a text message conversation eavesdropping? What about sifting through emails that aren’t yours? Sure, no longer are you literally ‘listening in’ on a conversation, but with the advancement in communication, there is not a whole bunch to listen to. So, when we read a conversation that we aren’t a part of, we are essentially committing the same action. Therefore cyber snooping is the twenty-first century’s solution to eavesdropping.

Upon entering the maniacal teenage years, eavesdropping is hard to avoid on a daily basis. It is human nature to be interested in what is occurring in the lives of acquaintances. So when teens are closed into the tight proximity of a high school and everyone wants to know every detail about the lives of their classmates, these urges to listen in on conversations escalate. Eavesdropping allows people to obtain interesting information that may have no basis or fact to it. Eavesdropping is the source from which gossip material thrives; gossip is the source from which high school drama thrives; high school drama is the plot of which many television shows thrive; television is the source from which the media thrives. Eavesdropping is a past time of the high school student. To many teens, sharing gossip is second nature: it is a past time, just like watching television. It makes people feel knowledgeable, accepted, and powerful.

Eavesdropping (Simon Bookish Remix) (Simon Bookish Remix) - Grizzly Bear


Eavesdropping alters messages, similarly to the timeless child’s game "telephone." One person spreads what they thought they heard and the process continues in an endless cycle. A director may witness a great event and make a documentary about it. Then Hollywood snatches a hold of it and creates a movie "based on real events." Eavesdropping works in the same fashion. What once was informative rapidly degrades into a parody. Is the act of eavesdropping truly erroneous or simply a mindless act? Do humans ‘overhear’ in order to find material to sabotage people with? Or do humans listen to other conversations in order to occupy their restless ears with? Eavesdropping enables us to find a way to take negative attention away from ourselves and to redirect it elsewhere. We find problems with other people and forget about our own, temporarily boosting our morale: eavesdropping is a mechanism humans use to distract themselves from reality. Eavesdropping keeps us preoccupied. It keeps our ears entertained.