[korlja]

There are easy, non-offensive, non-interrupting methods of communicating while another person is talking. Signal yes/no, dissent, agreement? Thumbs up or down, Nod or shake head. Applause? Deaf people's clap (raise both hands, oscillate quickly around z-axis). Want to say something? Raise one hand. Want the speaker to get on with it? Circular motion with the tip of the index finger around the y-axis. Strongly disagree with speaker and intend to insult? Show middle finger (ok, that one is offensive, intentionally).

There is a rich repertoire of non-verbal communication available to us that most people will understand. And if you use them, the problem instantly vanishes.

That people don't use them is imho not a problem of not knowing or not understanding. It is a problem of lacking civility. Of the desire to assert dominance by interrupting. Of asserting dominance by talking for a long time. And of the myopic concentration on verbal communication.

Now if you are on the phone, there isn't much else you can do, of course...

[mananaysiempre]

The problem vanishes—assuming the speaker has plenty of free mental capacity to keep track of the audience (which is also small enough to keep track of, ≤ 15 people or so if meeting in person).

If I am lecturing on a familliar subject with 1:1 or greater preparation time : lecture time ratio, maybe I do.

If, on the other hand, I’m retelling a paper I’ve banged my head against for the last couple of days and probably still don’t get a good part of, then sorry—I’m barely holding on here, I have to sort dependencies and not miss anything and remember to bring attention onto subtle points or the whole thing will apart and I have to backtrack and lose everyone because nobody can apply a verbal diff that goes half an hour back.

Again, I’m so sorry, but I don’t have the brain time to process your visual cues. Wait for the nearest syntactic boundary and shout over me. Please. I can suspend my flow—I can’t work out of it.

(From the other end, the problem vanishes assuming I’m either taking prodigious notes or already know half of what you’re saying, because people only poll for nonverbal interrupt requests once per logical point, so 2—7 minutes, and at best I’ll forget half of what I wanted to ask, at worst you lost me at the very beginning and you’ll have to spend the 5 minutes all over again, in addition to the two or so minutes it’s going to take us to negotiate an understanding of the question. And how do I deal with a presenter who mistook my simple question for a similarly-sounding advanced question? Interrupt their long advanced explanation?.. Right.)

[tdeck]

> Want the speaker to get on with it? Circular motion with the tip of the index finger around the y-axis.

If someone did this to me I'd find it pretty offensive, much more so than being interrupted. Unless that person was explicitly asked to help keep time beforehand.

Details aside, all of these examples are basically substitutes for 1-3 words. Hardly anyone is interrupting to say just a word or two, and such interruptions aren't really disruptive anyway.

[atq2119]

As usual, different cultures. It's better to not jump to conclusions that somebody is trying to offend you.