The American Psychological Association's 2025 Stress in America survey found that 62 percent of U.S. adults consider societal division a significant source of stress, while 54 percent say they often or sometimes feel isolated. Among adults who identify societal division as a significant source of stress, that figure rises to 61 percent. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have also found that 37 percent of Americans reported experiencing a "political breakup," meaning they had lost a friendship, family relationship, romantic relationship or relationship with a coworker because of political differences.
These figures tell me that our inability to listen to one another is no longer simply a problem with political debate. It is affecting how we relate to one another. I don't believe America has lost its willingness to disagree.
If anything, we have become exceptionally good at it. What I worry we have lost is something more important: the discipline to listen. Disagreement has always been part of American life.
We argue about politics, religion, culture, economics, morality and the direction of the country. Those disagreements are not inherently unhealthy. A society that cannot challenge its own assumptions cannot grow.
But disagreement becomes destructive when the objective is no longer understanding. Too often, we enter conversations preparing our response before the other person has finished speaking. We are not listening to understand.
We are listening for an opportunity to respond, correct, defeat or dismiss. I have come to think of this as a kind of debate only culture. Communication increasingly feels like a competition, almost like a verbal game of ping pong.
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