This is exactly the opposite of curiosity, it’s an attempt to gloss over your ignorance, which seems both lazy and mean to the person you’re talking to.
Ironically, I see this as 100% the opposite. If you’re paraphrasing, then that means you’re basically guessing what the words mean, inserting your own ideas instead of holding open the possibility that you don’t actually know what was said. It also means that you’re not necessarily listening to what exact words somebody used. (A pet peeve of mine, TBH: people rounding off what I say to the nearest familiar thing, rather than listening with precision.)
So, demonstrating the ability to parrot-phrase is a much stronger signal to me that someone is paying close attention to what I actually said, and not just jumping to a round-off.
Parrot-phrasing comes across as kind of manipulative in this description
I don’t see any problem with the first two points, as putting extra effort into something is not a measure of virtue.
For the third point, that’s a bit out of context: that person’s video describes how she used it as a new department head who didn’t yet understand all the technical details of what they were doing, but needed to get to know her staff and their concerns. Parrot-phrasing allowed her to quickly become familiar with her staff, the terms and what things were important to said staff without needing to stop conversations to learn all the terms first. (From context, I gather that she looked up the terms afterward, instead of making the staff explain everything to her up front—thereby allowing her to focus her learning on the things the staff thought most important.)
In context, that sounds like an unequivocal good for everyone involved.
From a computer programming perspective, I look at this as simply being able to use “forward references”—i.e., the ability to use a term as a placeholder that has not yet been defined. In truth, until the terms are defined, you don’t really know what somebody is using their words to mean anyway. But you can learn quite a lot about a situation or person without yet knowing their precise definitions of the words. And your value as a listener doesn’t often require complete understanding, anyway.
For example, I often help people work through problems where I don’t know an exact definition of every word they’re using, and sometimes if the subject matter is uncomfortable to discuss, I will have them use code words whose entire purpose is to ensure I don’t know part of what they’re talking about!
Similarly, computer programming professionals know that “rubber ducking” doesn’t require a deep understanding anyway, as otherwise one could not use a rubber duck to do it. The fact that people poured out their deepest secrets to good ol’ ELIZA should be an indication of how valuable simply providing a mental loopback interface to someone can be… not to mention how often it is that just providing the loopback is more valuable to the recipient than any actual interjection from another brain.
To put it another way, when people want a listener, the listener’s actual understanding is far less important than it appears. Even if the listener is a professional helper of some kind, their value is usually more in the area of guiding the speaker through a reflective process of some kind… in which the speaker’s understanding of their own thoughts is the actually important part.
Ironically, I see this as 100% the opposite. If you’re paraphrasing, then that means you’re basically guessing what the words mean, inserting your own ideas instead of holding open the possibility that you don’t actually know what was said. It also means that you’re not necessarily listening to what exact words somebody used. (A pet peeve of mine, TBH: people rounding off what I say to the nearest familiar thing, rather than listening with precision.)
So, demonstrating the ability to parrot-phrase is a much stronger signal to me that someone is paying close attention to what I actually said, and not just jumping to a round-off.
I don’t see any problem with the first two points, as putting extra effort into something is not a measure of virtue.
For the third point, that’s a bit out of context: that person’s video describes how she used it as a new department head who didn’t yet understand all the technical details of what they were doing, but needed to get to know her staff and their concerns. Parrot-phrasing allowed her to quickly become familiar with her staff, the terms and what things were important to said staff without needing to stop conversations to learn all the terms first. (From context, I gather that she looked up the terms afterward, instead of making the staff explain everything to her up front—thereby allowing her to focus her learning on the things the staff thought most important.)
In context, that sounds like an unequivocal good for everyone involved.
From a computer programming perspective, I look at this as simply being able to use “forward references”—i.e., the ability to use a term as a placeholder that has not yet been defined. In truth, until the terms are defined, you don’t really know what somebody is using their words to mean anyway. But you can learn quite a lot about a situation or person without yet knowing their precise definitions of the words. And your value as a listener doesn’t often require complete understanding, anyway.
For example, I often help people work through problems where I don’t know an exact definition of every word they’re using, and sometimes if the subject matter is uncomfortable to discuss, I will have them use code words whose entire purpose is to ensure I don’t know part of what they’re talking about!
Similarly, computer programming professionals know that “rubber ducking” doesn’t require a deep understanding anyway, as otherwise one could not use a rubber duck to do it. The fact that people poured out their deepest secrets to good ol’ ELIZA should be an indication of how valuable simply providing a mental loopback interface to someone can be… not to mention how often it is that just providing the loopback is more valuable to the recipient than any actual interjection from another brain.
To put it another way, when people want a listener, the listener’s actual understanding is far less important than it appears. Even if the listener is a professional helper of some kind, their value is usually more in the area of guiding the speaker through a reflective process of some kind… in which the speaker’s understanding of their own thoughts is the actually important part.