Australians are conversing less every year, with a recent study showing we lost an average of 338 spoken words each day between 2005 and 2019. That adds up to a staggering loss of 120,000 spoken words per person, compared with the year before.
While rapidly evolving AI tools and chatbots promise faster responses and so-called “empathetic” listening, oral historian Shirleene Robinson argues our greatest loss might be our ability to listen. “Listening to other people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives who may not hold the same views as us can improve our mental and physical wellbeing,” she writes.
The Power of Oral History
Language is culture. It tells us who we are. As an oral historian, Robinson has spent much of her career studying the power of human speech and storytelling. Between 2018 and early 2024, she led a team at the National Library of Australia responsible for the largest oral history collection in the southern hemisphere, which began in 1957 and now consists of more than 58,000 hours of recording.
The depth of the library’s collection, much of which is available online through Trove, is extraordinary. It holds accounts of First Nations Australians speaking about deep history and first-person memories reaching back into the 19th century. Robinson has now listened to thousands of Australians from different eras, places and backgrounds tell their stories in their own words.
What We Lose When We Stop Listening
Robinson says listening to oral histories helps her understand exactly what we lose when we stop listening. When she listens to an oral history, she immerses herself in the life of someone she most likely will never meet. In a world where our social circles are reducing due to distance, remote work and increasing time online, the gift of hearing from someone different is precious.
Voices from the past include Dame Mary Gilmore, born in 1865, speaking of tallow candles and life before electricity; an Australian prime minister recalling being elected after their party spent 23 years in opposition; a mother who risked everything sharing how she sought refuge here, crossing pirate-infested seas after the Vietnam war; and Dr Ella Stack, a Darwin doctor who survived Cyclone Tracy, stayed to help, recorded survivor memories, then ensured Darwin was rebuilt as mayor.
Empathy as the Richest Gift
Listening to other people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives can improve mental and physical wellbeing, foster the exchange of information, grow understanding and spark new ideas. It is also deeply linked to building empathy. Empathy is the richest gift listening offers, and that will be our greatest loss if we speak and hear less.
By engaging with experiences of others without requiring instant gratification and artificial agreement, we enter into other’s lives. We grow to be patient and appreciate difference. We learn we can disagree but in ways not unnecessarily destructive. Mostly we learn that, although a century or more of time may separate us as well as our diverse backgrounds and experiences, we can still connect through moments of shared humanity and experiences of love, loss, change, challenge, joy and resilience.
Dr Shirleene Robinson is an oral historian and visiting fellow at the University of Technology Sydney’s school of communication and social sciences. She edited The Memory Tapes: Voices from the Oral History Collection of the National Library of Australia and hosted the accompanying podcast.
