Often public speakers get goosebumps and butterflies in their stomach before delivering their speeches. This fright will soon lead to them having poor eye contact with their audience. Researches done through interviewing a couple of amateur public speaker, almost half of them still have trouble holding an eye contact. This then will lead themselves lose confidence in their speeches and most probably end up not doing their best. Speaking of eye contact, why is it always emphasized when we talk about giving a speech in front of a huge number of people? Here is a list why eye contact is important and will surely upgrade you to become a better speaker.
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1. Eye contact helps you to concentrate.
Do you know that focusing your eyes helps you concentrate? If you keep looking around and not control your line of sight during delivering a speech, you will become lost in the middle of it. This is because you are so focused on trying to avoid eye contact with other people that you end up losing concentration on your speech. Studies also show that when your eyes wander, they will take in random and insignificant images that are sent to your brain. Your brain then will focus on those objects, significantly slowing it down.
2. You will look less confident.
Eye contact is also important to control how your audience perceive you. If your eyes wander non-stop and keep trying to avoid your audience, there will have an impression that you are not confident with yourself or your speech. This will then lead to them not paying attention to your words as well as not believing the points that you are trying to push through the speech. That is why keeping your eye contact is crucial to appear more confident and convincing.
3. People will stop listening to you.
This point is related to the previous one. If your audience starts to have less confidence in you and your words, they will eventually stop listening to you. Not looking at people in the eye will not make them look at you back, so in a way, you will slowly lose their attention as they start thinking about something else or be distracted by their own thoughts. The last thing you want your audience to do is not pay attention to you.
4. Message sent and accepted.
Keeping eye contact with the people who are listening to your speech will more likely make them listen to you, or so we’ve discussed in the earlier part. When they keep listening to your speech, they will pay more attention and eventually get the message you’re trying to deliver to the crowd. A locking of eyes can be all you need to have some understand something you mean. If you’re trying to get a point across or just want some reassurance, eye contact can be an important asset in communicating your thoughts. The sole purpose of public speaking is to express yourself and if you can’t get your message across, it is not preferable as it can be considered as a failed speech.
5. Making people feel more engaged.
Keeping an eye contact will make your listeners feel more engaged. They will feel more invited to interact with you. They feel encouraged to signal to you how they feel about what you're saying for example with nods, frowns, or raisings of their eyebrows. This interaction can help you through delivering your speech as the involvement of the listeners can determine if they’re enjoying your words or message or not.
In general, eye contact is something people don’t think enough about while doing a presentation. It’s important to teach children from a young age to look people in the eye when they’re talking to them or they could develop a habit of seeming aloof or disinterested in communicating with other people. This habit will then be carried to adulthood and sometimes will jeopardize their social skills. Use your eyes to project a positive image and one look could be the catalyst for change in your life.
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