Wait vs. Interrupt Culture
Here&#x27;s why interrupt is inherently more efficient: as long as both participants are willing to <i>yield</i> to interrupt-denies and counter-interrupts when interrupting, you have shifted the communication mode from:<p>A) Anticipate up front what other person needs to hear and say it all<p>B) Rapid adjustment to ideal info requirements as your model of their knowledge&#x2F;interest is live-updated.<p>But the trick people seem to miss is that interrupt-denies and counter-interrupts make the whole thing possible.<p>When I&#x27;m talking with someone for whom this style is natural, there can be many very rapid small gestures to interrupt, which sometimes are accepted and sometimes are rejected by a small &quot;just let me keep going, you&#x27;ll see why&quot; gesture. Each of those gestures takes a fraction of a second (and generally does not actually break flow of speech, just eye contact + a little head motion), and conversations employing them are far more enjoyable because information flow is near optimal.<p>On the other hand, when speaking with anti-interrupt people, I often get so bored it&#x27;s hard to pay attention because either 1) they left something out that I wanted to ask about so I can&#x27;t follow what they are saying, or 2) I already had a thorough understanding of something they insist on giving a long explanation of.