What I find interesting is that the article seems to imply that wearing earbuds to isolate is somewhat "unnatural" (for lack of a better term).
However it does not take into account that the kind of social interactions where people wear earbuds (i.e. loud and busy environments with many strangers, often physically closer than comfortable) is unnatural to begin with.
For me, isolating myself acoustically is a way to normalize such environments back to a more "natural" setting.
I do the same when visiting large metropolitan areas! I don't want to be completely deaf, but reducing all the high-pitched noises and rumbling really makes my perception see/hear the environment more calmly.
Whenever I try to do that, the noise canceling amplifies the wind noise so much it winds up being louder and less comfortable than not wearing them at all.
And what I really like about them is the ease of use.
The moment I start talking to someone, automagically the NC is paused as well as any audio you were listening to.
It sounds so easy but is really running smoothly. Over time Apple really perfected the workings.
This blend is what makes them so valuable for me. I don’t have to manually do anything, simply speak and interact without having to touch them.
This is what bothered me really well, especially at work. Headset on, headset off - not anymore.
And people now don’t feel neglected when you keep the Pods in your ear.
Social reconditioning was part of the problem so to say. This tool is now accepted.
Well deserved. I am buying another pair of the AirPods Pro. I want a bit of safety after I temporarily lost one ear pod - I felt so disturbed, suddenly not being able to enjoy freedom acoustically anymore. Just to make sure and switch between them.
> And people now don’t feel neglected when you keep the Pods in your ear.
I disagree with this. Pods in ears are essentially a "do not disturb" sign for most people. Being around people who regularly have the "do not disturb" sign feels neglecting. People who might initiate conversation don't know if they will even be heard if they try to talk, so why bother. I would rather be alone than in a room of people who are actively ignoring each other.
I dislike the NC pause because it often awkwardly unpauses when someone is replying to you. I just pop the earbuds out when I start talking. To me, speaking with earbuds in is rude, and I want to show the courtesy to the person I'm talking to that they have my attention.
The automatic switching from noise canceling to transparency mode really does work incredibly, and I'm still shocked at how well it works, but it still feels ridiculous to speak to someone with AirPods in my ears. Even if I know that transparency mode is on (and on the newest Pros, it's so good that I can barely hear a difference between it and not wearing them), it still feels rude to speak to someone with them in.
I always take one AirPod out if I have to say literally anything to anyone, and both come out if it's going to be more than one sentence. Just feels rude. We've someone created a technical marvel: the world becomes silent all around you, and then the world comes back immediately when you start speaking, and then it slowly evaporates around you when you stop speaking for a few moments.
This is how I interpret headphones in/on people's ears. I live in a mid-sized town in the US and I swear it's over 80% of people I see walking through the forest trail system have headphones in. I wave and say hello to everyone without headphones. I find it bizarre how many people go outside and walk in the forest just to block out the natural sounds. Or how everyone in the grocery store has them in. I feel like I'm surrounded by androids without an interest in human interaction. Or maybe more generally, I'm suspicious of the impulse to always have something to listen to, like music, a podcast, or an audiobook. Oh well, I suspect I'm just being an old man. I'm glad they have found a way to make going out more enjoyable.
I go to forrest to listen to podcasts while not sitting. The purpose is walking and it is more pleasant experience then walking on streets - ground is softer, there is shade, it is cooler, it looks better.
Keep in mind that some AirPods are now certified hearing aids.
So before calling someone rude for talking to you with their AirPods on, make sure they don't need them on to hear you in the first place.
I myself always put at least one down when talking to someone, but I've learned to make the distinction between someone that is actually involved in the discussion, and someone that's still listening to what's coming from their connected device.
I don't call people rude for doing it. Maybe I should. I consider it rude. Maybe I should inquire if the earbuds are for hearing assistance then mention they are rude if they say no. Not really my style, but at least it would be direct. I don't know what percentage of earbud users depend on the earbuds for hearing assistance, but I would wager it is a small percent of the total of people who use earbuds. I doubt that I'm the only person who considers people who leave their earbuds while talking rude.
I suspect the numbers will grow given how much cheaper they are compared to the standard medical devices.
My point was: I understand where you're coming from, I used to feel the same, but a shift is in the making, and you could consider someone's attitude rude when they are actually impaired.
So starting from: "this person is wearing AirPods as hearing aids" to realize that they're just being rude, is probably better than starting from "they're being rude for wearing AirPods" only to realize you've made a mistake.
>> The moment I start talking to someone, automagically the NC is paused as well as any audio you were listening to.
This is one of those features I thought would be great and unfortunately had to disable in minutes. If you ever listen to music and sing along, even for a few seconds, the volume cuts because it thinks you're talking to someone. It's a shame. There's so many really great AirPods features and I feel like I've had to disable almost all of them for one reason or another.
>> And people now don’t feel neglected when you keep the Pods in your ear. Social reconditioning was part of the problem so to say. This tool is now accepted.
I think it'll get there eventually but it's still far from accepted in my opinion. Maybe if you're ordering at a Starbucks or something but if someone was trying to have a conversation with my with AirPods in I'd consider it rude. And even if it's becomes widely accepted I think it'll still have some mild stigma (equivalent to wearing sunglasses when having a conversation unless the sun is in your eyes).
>If you ever listen to music and sing along, even for a few seconds, the volume cuts because it thinks you're talking to someone. It's a shame.
This became such a huge problem when watching Jeopardy with my AirPods. I keep mumbling answers every 30-ish seconds, and when I do that, the show pauses and the world suddenly becomes audible and I have to remember to disable that feature.
> The moment I start talking to someone, automagically the NC is paused as well as any audio you were listening to.
When I'm listening to music, the music helps form my sense of time. It is deeply jarring to have the music pause for a few minutes and then start as though in 'music-land' no time had passed.
I'd be happier if the music volume went to zero but the song/track kept progressing.
They seem to have done so much work on the magic behaviors of the airpods (most of which I don’t have occasions to use) but they still work worse than a $35 pair of Ankers when it comes to just connecting, staying connected, and playing music without issue.
They’re especially flaky if you’re using them with apples watch.
I spent a few bucks on the pros, and the phone, and the watch, and the mini, and the tv, and the laptops. I shouldn’t be leaving that ecosystems ear buds in the drawer because the borderline disposable ones off amazon are the pair that “just work”.
The "always works" is the only reason I am using Airpods.
I have never had earbuds that are consistent in the way they connect in any circumstances. I have had Bose, high end Sony, Anker, and there are often times when you need it to connect in a rush and it forces you to shut down the device, the bluetooth on the phone, and waste 30 seconds that feel like 5 minutes.
It works especially well when switching between devices, from iPhone to iPad to Mac and so on. I’ve never had the same seamless experience with other brands which often require you to re-pair just to switch.
I used to be a huge Audio Technica fan but I can’t go back anymore.
Complete opposite experience. Moved to the Apple ecosystem including the watch, and the seamlessness of how airpods work with them all had me give away all my other earbuds - even though the airpods do not have the best sound quality. The convenience of everything just working had me never reaching for anything else.
I have plenty of complaints about Apple, but the Airpods experience is one the stickiest user experiences they have and would be one of the harder things to give up if I moved back to Android.
Are you sure you haven't got a faulty pair? Mine switch seamlessly between devices. I bought a bluetooth speaker recently and using it is hell on earth comparatively. The number of times I have to find the device it last connected to and disconnect before I can connect the one I actually want is absurd.
Agreed.
Unrelated pro-tip: wearing them while riding a motorcycle. Reduces fatigue and transforms a rough experience into almost luxurious. Highly recommended.
Please retract your comment and don't encourage such stupidity.
EDIT: Since this is being misinterpreted... Earplugs that deaden sound are fine and encouraged on a motorbike, playing music in your ears is what masks other sound and is both stupid and illegal.
Really depends on how they are being worn. If they are on without any sound being played its fine. Ear plugs are highly encouraged while riding a motorcycle and after a decade plus of riding I have never thought ear plugs along with a headset prevented me from hearing whats going on around me.
Maybe it is your own misinterpretation as the parent never said they were playing music on them. You might not realize just how loud the wind noise is on a bike, you are not exactly hearing your surroundings music or not. Most if not all of your awareness on a motorcycle is coming from your eyes not ears, so hard to really say its stupid.
There's just a tiny step from wearing noise canceling earphones with no music playing, to pressing a button and blaring Bat out of Hell while you speed down the mountainside.
In any case, it's irrelevant - as far as I know, wearing headphones or earphones while driving a motorcycle is illegal whether or not you happen to be playing music in them, because how would anyone else know? If you get in an accident and get charged with distracted driving, that's on you. If you want earplugs, just wear them. They're much cheaper and more effective than sound cancelling headphones if you genuinely just want to block noise.
Not sure what your trying to a argue but it simply depends on the local laws but from a safety perspective I cannot think of many opportunities the sound would save you as it’s already loud enough from wind noise alone. I ride with a comm system that I play media over and trying to be reflective of my past and I don’t see it. Not really advocating one way or the other like yourself, I don’t have that strong of a feeling about that law but from purely a safety aspect I don’t fully agree with the opinion. If you don’t want to wear ear protection just don’t wear it. It’s your ears.
> I ride with a comm system that I play media over and trying to be reflective of my past and I don’t see it.
One risk is your focus going from what's on the road to what's coming into your ears.
This may have some useful mental aspects if you're doing a long-distance drudgery ride down Route 66 with nothing much happening in between pitstops, but it's another thing on I-5 or I-95 with all sorts of chaotic lane changes going on.
Visual awareness is much more important for safety than sound especially once your at speed. Distracted driving is completely different and can happen anywhere. We should be arguing that cars should not have any speakers if that’s the case.
It's a debate spectrum / sliding scale on how society wants to go, but at the very least one should be aware of the risk factors and be mindful of where your attention is.
What is the stunning part? It’s not so much a perspective but pretty common safety advice, visual awareness is much more important than sound while operating a motorcycle. I suspect the gap is from folks who have only driven a car so there can be a sense of shock.
Like all things it does depend on where you ride and the general driving culture. In America that’s how I ride but in Vietnam it’s very different. Road rules are not as often followed and honking is common to make yourself known, usually while there I wear lower db reduction ear protection.
I am also not saying that there is zero opportunity to hear a horn but already on a motorcycle you have to have so much more awareness that I don’t find that sounds are all that helpful. It absolutely applies to driving a car too, after driving a motorcycle for a while I am as shocked as you just how unaware drivers are of their surroundings.
Keep in mind at around 35mph you can easily hit 85-90db from the wind. I do think ear protection actually helps identifying sounds but I still argue the hearing part is not that helpful.
I am not trying to say you have to follow my methods but folks calling for criminal punishment and shaming are a bit too far as the safety benefit from hearing is quite minimal depending on the driving culture.
> I am a bit stunned reading this.. Is this a common perspective of motorcyclists?
No.
For example, every beginner-advice thread in /r/motorcycle has a highly-upvoted comment(s) recommending ear protection, including many folks stating they wish they had started using it earlier.
And even if it is conceded that sound may not save you from other vehicles, ear pro(tection) reduces the health risk of hearing loss that would effect other aspects of your life.
Have you sat on a mktorcycle? The motor and air noise drowns out pretty much everything else anyway - I ride with good earplugs because I don't want to become (more) deaf.
When you learn to ride a motorcycle you learn to look - look behind you when changing lanes, look in your mirrors, basically stay aware of whatever is happening at all times by looking. Because you're sure as hell not hearing a lot.
At highway speeds, the wind is loud. The engine is often loud even with a factory exhaust. The only audible signal that's likely to matter is a car horn, and those are loud enough to hear over music at reasonable volume.
Cars are quieter, and hearing other vehicles is more likely. If anyone shouldn't listen to music, it's car drivers, not motorcyclists.
Since the advent of EVs, its not a safety issue imo. When Tesla's first came out, and the first adopters were all people that wanted to drive FAST, I was often surprised by them, especially since I always rode slightly faster than traffic as a safety mitigation technique. I quickly learned to use my eyes more.
My eyes are my ears and you cannot rely on sound to know who or what might be coming up from behind you. Mirrors and head on a swivel are way more important.
It’s been a thing since the Prius allowed driving with the engine off with parents complaining that the Prius is a silent killer of kids because they couldn’t hear them coming.
Now, with the noises EVs have to make below a certain speed, they are louder than ICE cars. One person on my street has an electric Chevy, maybe a Cadillac, and it’s the only vehicle I can always hear from inside the house. It’s drives me insane.
I hoped electric cars would make for quieter cities, but instead they seem to make them worse, imo. All due to this noise making requirement. Then, at higher speeds, tire noise overtakes engine noise at a certain point, so the drivetrain becomes a moot point.
My earbuds have a setting to allow for outside noises. Wearing them while walking, I often hear cars and other people well before I see them. Even with louder music, I still hear them. I can hold a conversation with people without taking them out. I don't wear them without music, though, because my own breathing is also louder and irritating.
If I have the noise cancelling turned on, it would be downright unsafe.
While it is likely illegal in many places, it isn't everywhere and the safety risk depends on what sort of equipment you have.
It is not illegal in every country. Further, wind noise and exhaust are too loud to hear anything anyway, so having music on and navigation is a bonus.
That's completely untrue, speaking as someone who drives a motorcycle every day, at least if you're not driving some horrible (to everyone around you) 500cc beast, you can hear things just fine. Especially horns, trucks, busses etc.
Speaking as someone who has raced, commuted and has run multiple iron butts. Only really true at low speeds and if you are not wearing ear protection (which is a choice). Once earpro is in and you are going a decent speed there is really not much to be heard. Have never found hearing to save me from situations. If someone is honking that I am in danger I am probably already in it.
Absolutely your choice not to wear hearing protection though. Eventually you will get naturally immune to it.
> If someone is honking that I am in danger I am probably already in it.
This is an incredibly dumb and dangerous attitude to hold and you need to rethink things if you've become so overconfident in your driving because you've raced or done "iron butts", whatever those are. Driving on real roads isn't like racing and you need to separate your attitudes and driving styles in each situation before your arrogance causes an accident. Remember that it's not just your life on the line but the other innocent people around you too.
No need to take that kind of tone. It’s condescending when you have not even defended your position beyond talking down to me.
As I said elsewhere, it depends on driving culture and where you are located in the world. It’s not a hard and fast rule. In America sound serves little safety though I can still hear car horns generally speaking with earpro on. In Vietnam because of the culture, organized chaos and usage of horns I will usually opt for low db ear protection. Semis will absolutely honk and run you over there. Since you consider a 500cc a beast I can generally pinpoint your location and understandable why you think like you do.
In both situations though, most of your safety is still from strong visual awareness.
You’re failing the shibboleths though. You don’t drive a motorcycle, you ride one. A 500cc bike is low mid range, not a beast. You can’t hear rolling or engine noise of cars, trucks or busses over 50kph if you’re wearing a helmet.
Further, sound deadened cars with the stereo on an appreciable level also aren’t conducive to perceiving what’s around you.
Speaking as someone who commuted on 600 twins and 300 singles for years, if you’re wearing hearing protection and listening to some tunes and navigation hints you’re fine. Just ride defensively like you should, and make sure you’re not over doing it on the volume.
Have you driven a 500cc? Modern supersport and adventure bikes have very quiet exhausts. Any loud exhaust you hear on your commute is usually somebody who put an aftermarket muffler on their 125cc bike.
I wear earplugs and play music via Cardo while riding nearly every single day. It's fine.
Let's be realistic - noise cancelling isn't a perfect technology. I rode with my AirPods for a short period of time and could still hear everything I needed to. The only reason I switched is because they're uncomfortable in a helmet.
When riding a motorcycle, you’ll encounter people that don’t see you almost every trip. The same is not true in a car.
Riding a bike is just a 100% engagement thing with higher risks and lower margins for error, for all kinds of reasons. And it’s not just traffic, minor pavement imperfections become relevant, the necessary skill floor is also higher. It just demands more attention, straight up.
In a car, you shouldn’t, and it’s not without risk, but you CAN occasionally get away with minor distractions: adjusting the radio, seat, etc. That just doesn’t work on a bike as well. I’m failing to properly articulate the why, but it really is fundamentally different in some ways. I’ve spent many years doing both, and the bike just demands more of your attention resources, independent of your vulnerability in the event of an accident.
I’ve been over handlebars a couple of times. The last time was riding a bicycle no faster than 10 mph, I hit some loose sand, the rear wheel swerved and I panicked. My MIPS saved my scull but I still looked beat up 2 weeks later, cheeks, chest, shoulders .
This is to say - I am aware of the dangers:) My state doesn’t even have a helmet law for motorcyclists.
Driving a car is a higher net risk than riding a motorcycle. The problem is that drivers externalize much more of the risk. People die riding motorcycles all the time - way more than people driving cars. But you know what people driving cars do? Blow holes into buildings. Smash cars. Kill pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and other drivers.
A motorcycle demands your attention because the risk is mostly on the rider. Drivers are pacified by how externalized their very existent risk is.
Noise cancellation headphones that will block out loud things or ambulances approaching you, sitting exposed on a motor strapped to two wheels at a high speed? Yes. That is different from driving in a Lexus.
They don't block out loud things or ambulances approaching you. They block out constant loud background noise. This is why they're good for airplanes, lawn mowers, motorcycles and being out in public, and not good for shooting or as industrial hearing protection.
As I mentioned in another comment, on an airplane, my airpods in ANC mode make it easier for me to hear announcements.
I drive a car and ride a bicycle and an e-bike in Miami. The ANC isn’t that magical, I hear plenty of out of the algorithm noises (ambulances, etc). Head on a swivel and look straight.
+1, but add a motorcycle to that list too. Not Miami, but a large city, and now a smaller city.
All the assertions I'm seeing in this thread are bizarre to me. One can easily hear a siren over noise cancellation and over wind noise, and it's even easier to hear if you have noise cancellation for that wind noise.
As a related example, when I'm on an airplane and I have noise-cancelling headphones on, the pilot announcements are easier to hear than without them.
If that's illegal than cars with closed windows would be illegal too. Even more so if they have the radio on. As a cyclist I keep having issues with car drivers not hearing anything happening outside of their vehicle (not a bell, not yelling, not a bicycle hooter). That's like wearing headphones or earplugs and still is considered normal. I'd love if everyone would be required to drive a cabrio.
Agreed. The people who complain about earphones while riding/driving/cycling are older and grew up in an era where they had advertisements on television warning people not to do that. The actual risk is fairly minimal. As you point out: modern cars are designed to be super quiet. Just use some common sense.
Cars are much more safe in a crash (surrounded with a steel frame, airbags, safety belt...) and also safer while driving (better mirrors, bigger and easier to see).
I use the bike, and I know for a fact that almost any crash with a car means me in a coffin. I need all my senses at 100%, can't afford the luxury of listening to music or wear shorts for example.
Cars are only safer in a crash if you are inside the car. They are a big problem for anyone they crash into. That's why it's so very important that you see and hear everything happening around you. Why should the once with more mass and speed have the luxury of listening to music?
It's been decades since I've ridden motorcyles but as I recall the helmet usually had foam padding over the ears and that was adequate for wind and noise reduction.
That’s wrong. Wearing headphones is not banned. Isolating yourself to a degree where you cannot hear warning signals (emergency vehicles, car horns) is (10 € fine), though that’s not the same as being able to hear all traffic sounds (which would be non-sensical, given that cars are and have been for a very long time quite sound isolating. Horns and emergency vehicles are two of the only things that really get through.)
In practice this means that police won’t do anything about people wearing headphones. Wearing them is totally fine. However, if you get into an accident you might get a larger part of the blame if it’s determined that you not hearing so well contributed to the accident. (The rules of the road do have a general clause that you need to pay sufficient attention – so anything distracting might get you to shoulder more of a blame in case of an accident, even if it isn’t explicitly banned. Use common sense …)
As I said, cars are inherently quite isolating, so car-centric maniacs better try not to legislate my right to wear headphones while riding the bike aways while they sit in their sound dampened boxes, casually overtaking me with too little distance.
(I strongly suggest to never turn on noise isolation while riding the human powered kind of bike and I also recommend either turning on the pass-through mode or just putting in the earphone on the side away from the road.)
In your opinion, how hard should somebody beat their wife to deserve an extremely painful death or being mutilated for a lifetime?
If this is what you fancy, your local emergency services will probably welcome you to come along with them for a day, so that you can laugh and jeer at people while they are dying or dead.
In Europe it's strictly forbidden to wear headphones under the helmet. In case of a fall the in-ear device could cause grave injuries. Wearing a recent helmet and protective gloves with hardened knuckles is of course mandatory. But many helmets are equipped with bluetooth speakers and mike, of course.
When I got my (admittedly car) license they made it clear that's illegal. Hasn't stopped people from doing it but yeah don't. Maybe get a quieter exhaust
It's illegal in a few places in the US, but not everywhere. It's definitely not illegal to put in a few kW of amplifiers and a few square feet of speakers, and often not even a problem to turn them all the way up and stop whole areas from hearing anything.
Those loudspeakers on wheels at volume are illegal in many places -what’s not happening is police caring enough to make arrests. Maybe other jurisdictions will take a cue from Las Vegas and begin enforcing laws to protect normal people from teenagers and adult idiots who still think they’re teenagers taking over streets.
Arrests seem like overkill. Ask them to stop, issue a fine, whatever. Sure I get you're asking for any enforcement at all. But hyperbole has a polarizing effect on discourse we should try to avoid, IMHO.
Yes, I agree, but really we shouldn't even be comparing "arrests" and "fine". The latter is a punishment, and the former is a practical measure to prevent a future crime (such as destruction of evidence) or to prevent someone from evading justice (by destroying evidence, hiding or leaving the country, for example). Obviously some police forces do use arrests and searches and confiscation of "evidence" as a form of extrajudicial punishment but that shouldn't be allowed.
Arrest? No, but if you've done illegal modifications to your ride then being forced to get it from the impound lot seems fairer to me compared to a ticket you can pay at your convenience.
In this case, it's not the modification that is potentially illegal, but instead the noise that it can make.
A big-honking stereo system isn't illegal to have at home or in a car in any jurisdiction I'm aware of, but there can be limits on how loudly it is used.
A stereo is a lot like a hammer in this way: Anyone can have a hammer. There's plenty of legal things a person can use a hammer for, and also plenty of illegal things as well. But the hammer itself, of any size, is A-OK.
There can even be time limits on when hammering is allowed[1].
[1]: I was involved in fire remediation after a friend's house burned. There was a lot of work to do, and we were working very late. The police showed up and politely told us that we'd need to keep it quiet until morning and suggested that they would find some way to make us quiet down if we didn't. We stopped hammering and tossing things into the dumpster at 11PM after that incident.
The helmet protects the ears from direct airflow noise, but it also extends out into the high-speed airflow much more than ears do.
The overall picture is that a helmet’s thick material blocks high frequencies. But it exacerbates and amplifies low frequency sound and white noise. As well, a helmet confuses the ear’s capabilities for identifying direction of sound that’s incoming
If a helmet is helpful is a question of how fast the motorcycle is moving and what kinds of sounds the rider needs to hear.
It’s complicated, but wearing no helmet might be safer at low speeds because the driver is more aware. No helmet, is undoubtedly not safer at high speed because brains are fragile
Edit: a simple experiment for anyone is to put on a full size motorcycle helmet anywhere, and then you can understand how much your hearing is dampened by it. But I guess it’s probably no worse than the experience of someone driving a car, which is soundproof by design
Not at all. 30-40mph you can hit around 90 db inside the helmet. You’re not that much better with a helmet off either. Air moving over surfaces is loud, if not the helmet you are going to get it from the wind hitting your ears.
There are certainly helmets that try to optimize for noise but there is no single one fix beyond ear plugs.
> Agreed. Unrelated pro-tip: wearing them while riding a motorcycle. Reduces fatigue and transforms a rough experience into almost luxurious. Highly recommended.
What kind of NRR rating, active or passive, do they have?
I wear disposable foam plugs when riding, and haven't ever considered using the AirPods I have. I find the sound of the machine part of the experience of riding and wouldn't really want to get rid of it; I treat the moto sound as a kind of white noise that's different that everything else in my life (though this is with a short-ish commute, and not long-distance drudgery).
If I wanted music or comms I would probably lean more towards ear plugs plus a Cardo/Sena unit. Or perhaps something with an official ANSI/CSA NRR rating, like Isotunes.
The reason they don't (and won't) have an NRR rating is that they're only useful for constant noise, and not for impulse sounds. There's no question that Airpods are not industrial PPE, for instance.
But I also ride with foamies most of the time (laser lites) and airpods occasionally, and I'd guess that the bike and wind are maybe 10-15% louder with airpods. The foamies win out for actually staying in my ears when I put my helmet on, but if I can get it on then the airpods stay in place fine.
Surprisingly, when I was looking for a rough equivalent to NRR for Airpods, I discovered that Apple does advertise their ANC as hearing protection[1], which I'll assume the FDA has now permitted, because Apple didn't used to make that claim because the FDA wouldn't permit it. They don't offer an NRR and they do warn against impulse sounds, but that KB article suggests a 20dB drop, which is nothing compared to foamies but is in the same range as musicians' earplugs or hardhat earmuffs, and probably better than Loops.
You're right, my comment is unfair. In my defense, I've had my sleep interrupted several times recently by motorcyclists trying to make as much noise as possible, so I'm a little ornery ;)
Sorry but no! On my corner of the world it's not allowed but more importantly it's dangerous. When riding your bike you must have all your senses fully engaged. First day I got on my new ride my dad gave me a piece of biker wisdom: You are the weakest and smallest vehicle () on the road, watch out and drive like nobody can see you or cares about you.
I ride with AirPods on, no content playing, just transparency mode. It cuts harsh wind noise, maintains 3D acoustics, and keeps me safer as a result. They’re a hearing aid for me in this case.
No, riding for a long time without ear protection will damage your ears. Ear plugs at least are recommended. I am not hearing anything over the wind and engine noise anyway.
In the Netherlands they banned wearing earplugs/headphones on bicycles for this reason (as well as using your device). Whether that's enforced / enforceable is another matter though.
On a motorcycle you need hearing protection due to wind noise, but good plugs will filter out the louder noises, not so much important ones.
On a pedal bike, it's very important because you are most likely to be hit by cars from behind. Motorcycles move much faster, and most riders wear helmets as well, already impacting hearing. The road noise and wind is very loud, try rolling down the window in a car on the freeway and imagine that on .your whole body.
Had a close call with a cyclist going the same direction as me. She veered over in my direction as I was overtaking and was rather startled to see me, as she was wearing Airpods.
> On a pedal bike, it's very important because you are most likely to be hit by cars from behind.
If anyone hasn’t tried a bike radar, they are a massive help.
Eg Garmin Varia. Take care with the new model, the light is insane, on 5% you have the eye of Sauron blinding the rider behind you.
As a cyclist, I find sound such a poor signal I'd consider it optional. Too many threats are silent and sound is too late, misleadingly bounces of other surfaces and generally poorly correlated with significance.
Safe cycling is all about vision. If you can't see it's safe, it's not. It isn't simply seeing imminent threats but predicting them e.g. identifying drivers that aren't paying attention and where a car could suddenly emerge like blind turnings, car doors, pedestrians and such, and countering with appropriate caution / road position.
If you find noise useful, IMHO it means you aren't sufficiently aware of your environment.
I cycle every day, and sound is definitely important; you need to plan ahead when you hear an ambulance approaching, for example. Plus, your brain processes things you see much better if there's a sound it can correlate the movement with.
> (i.e. loud and busy environments with many strangers, often physically closer than comfortable) is unnatural to begin with.
That's very natural when it comes to life in an urban setting. Love it or hate it, we wouldn't have been here now (I'm talking from a civilizational pov) without us humans moving into the cities.
I think the argument is that the urban setting itself is ancestrally unnatural. Only a tiny proportion of humans lived in areas full of strangers in close proximity until the last hundred or two hundred years, which is not long enough for any related changes to spread widely given generation length.
I would even argue that being surrounded by people is a natural state. Being isolated in a suburban home or an automobile is probably just as unnatural as being “surrounded by strangers”.
Our ancient ancestors probably did all of the following within eyesight and earshot of around 40 people:
Privacy and isolation are a very modern phenomenon. Even in the 19th century social norms around fornication and defecation and the privacy expected are much different than today.
Edit: I’m also deeply fascinated by the ability of historical sociolinguistics to give us insight into cultural attitudes towards different topics. Consider the evolution of and the attitude towards the expletives “fuck” and “Jesus Christ!”
But those 40 people were likely more or less consistent and known to you and you also had direct or implied trust built up with them.
That's fundamentally different from an anonymous mass of people in a city. I've seen and heard much more than 40 people (many of them different every day) before I even reach the office in the morning.
> you also had direct or implied trust built up with them
This part is definitely not true. By all I read about the history, the abusive or hostile "I cant escape" situation was simple fact of life. They get less prevalent when you can leave easily, more prevalent when you are dependent.
> But those 40 people were likely more or less consistent
Not necessarily, people started to organize into larger groups basically whenever they could.
Two extremes, equally unnatural, was simply my point.
Either you have to trick your mind that the people who are going about the same rituals with you shoulder-to-shoulder are part of the same tribe as you: using the same bus, coffee shop, elevator.
Or you have to trick your mind that being completely alone and going hours, sometimes days, without opening your mouth to communicate with someone or exercise the part of your brain that reads facial cues or even smell the hormones of another human (good or bad) is also somehow okay.
Having done both (2 major metros, as well as suburban and WFH life), I’ve found the former to be easier for me, personally. I also find suburban and rural people to be generally more misanthropic than urban people, which of course has some selection bias. Exurban people seem to be the most misanthropic, by far (shout out Dallas-Fort Worth).
But the point is, being surrounded by people day-in and day-out doesn’t seem to me to make people misanthropic on aggregate - otherwise cities would be an even worse place to exist. It’s the humans that make it bearable.
> we wouldn't have been here now (I'm talking from a civilizational pov) without us humans moving into the cities.
What do you have in mind specifically?
Edit: I'm aware that statistically, there's more inventions in metropolitan areas. However I'm not sure how much of that we can really attribute to causal effects that are unique to cities, especially today. Obviously, many universities are in metropolitan areas, but on the other hand, we have many tools for remote collaboration that we didn't have 200 years ago. So I'm not sure if cities are not an outdated concept.
They are useful for blocking the obnoxious sounds that modern life impose upon us. The largest consumer hardware chain in Australia, 'Bunnings', plays a notice over the store loudspeakers regularly (perhaps every 15-30 minutes) warning that violence against staff will not be tolerated.
I'm not in any way an anxious person, but for some reason, the constant suggestion that I'm in a place where violence is a risk makes me feel upset so much that I don't visit my local store without my noise-cancelling AirPods.
Is it just me or do places that have “no violence against staff” warnings tend to have the rudest staff? It’s starting to become a signal that the place is best avoided.
Unfortunately that avoidance doesn’t work too well for TSA or my local hospital.
Interesting .. when we first moved to my current house we knew it was a quiet neighbourhood, helped by being set back from the main road. What I wasn't prepared for was the absolute silence in the early morning - it was what I imagine deafness would be like, if earbuds can achieve something approaching that, then take my money.
I think ears adapt to silence the way eyes adapt to darkness. When camping on some land I have is SE Oklahoma it’s so quiet I eventually begin to hear the conversations of our neighbors on their porch maybe a 1/2 mile away.
As far as trade goes, we have birds of paradise in New Mexico, 320k year old obsidian tools and color pigments found in Kenya that came from hundreds of miles away. We know trading across thousands of miles has been happening for hundreds of thousands of years.
As for large celebrations, ceremonies, or just parties—well it seems silly for me to even spend time citing specific evidence. Of course this has been happening for hundreds of thousands of years as well
The (alleged) fact that there have been large celebrations does not necessarily imply that all humans of that time participated or enjoyed it, does it?
I live out in the countryside. If I run into someone in the road, I will nod my head, maybe introduce myself, and maybe chat, if the other person is interested. (To be fair, I know about 80% of the people I see in the road.) This is normal behavior. Sometimes, two cars will pass each other and stop to talk.
I have also lived in the city. If a stranger wants to talk to me in the city, either they're looking for directions (happy to help!), or they are deeply confused about appropriate social behavior in crowded spaces. In the latter case, I'm lucky if the stranger-with-no-boundaries merely wants to warn me about the dangers of the lizard people. So I've learned to ignore strangers.
> If a stranger wants to talk to me in the city, either they're looking for directions (happy to help!), or they are deeply confused about appropriate social behavior in crowded spaces
A neat summary of the article.
Talk to the old fogies in said city and they will saddle you with complaints of how people used to say good morning, how are you doing, etc. It didn’t used to be this way. Alas, we probably won’t be talking to the old fogies either.
We used to have a much more rigid system of social enforcement - for good and for bad. People used to feel bad when they did things society disliked. It had real consequences. People knew what you did and you wouldn't be invited to events or be hired. The downside was that people who lived alternative lifestyles (such as those who were gay) were also ostracised.
Unfortunately we threw the baby out with the bathwater, and decided that all actions are equally socially acceptable and there should be no social repercussions for living "differently."
This is why I prefer smaller, culturally homogenous communities. We all understand the rules and we generally abide.
> People knew what you did and you wouldn't be invited to events or be hired.
I feel like this has almost never been true in big cities: it's impossible to know everyone and unless they made the news for what they did word wouldn't travel very far.
Besides that, I also haven't observed what you're describing in both the smaller communities and the cities I've lived in. People absolutely do still get socially ostracized all the time in real life.
Isolating yourself in certain situations isn't the same as not having human interaction and sticking 10 million humans in a small area and expecting them to always interact with all of the others is in no way normal or natural. Sometimes interacting with ~100ish people (within an order of magnitude) over your month is natural. Too many is both exhausting and diluting of the meaning, too few is lonely and over isolating.
You're trying to follow an out-of-date map. Our technology-infused growth of the past 50 years has produced more widespread mental illness and psycopathy than someone in the 80's could have even imagined. At this point in our societal evolution, you cannot assume that HUMANS THEMSELVES are either normal or natural.
Human interaction, sure.
Human interaction with complete strangers, 10 inches away from you, enclosed in a metal tube you cannot escape from easily... not so much.
As they explain, living in such close proximity to thousands of strangers is also not how we evolved. The earphones are an adaptive strategy. Like masks on public transport during pandemics. We don't have to adapt to modern society, but we can make it more pleasant in various ways, depending on our preferences.
This is a very un-nuanced and combative take on a lot of people's lives. It reminds me of it being socially acceptable for the extrovert to say to the introvert, "Why don't you talk more?" while it is not acceptable for the introvert to say to the extrovert, "Why don't you talk less?"
I'd agree in general terms, but I don't think city life or existing in busy and noisy spaces is either. Isolating as described (by putting on noise-canceling earphones) is a way to manage and reduce sensory input to something within your own control.
Some people are comfortable with that, some people (say they) are used to it, but a lot of people find that blocking it out works better for them.
> (i.e. loud and busy environments with many strangers, often physically closer than comfortable) is unnatural to begin with.
What is unnatural about this? We have plenty of anthropological evidence that humans have been doing massive festivals for at least many thousands of years i.e. people voluntarily gathering together with strangers in loud and busy environments with all sorts of sounds and smells.
For one, when and where this was the case, it was probably once a year or so.* Not daily or weekly.
Furthermore, the "voluntarily" bit plays a big role as well. If I were to go to a big festival (as you can guess, I wouldn't), then I guess I would be fine with the people. But that's not the same as commuting IMHO, where I'm together with lots of people involuntarily.
* it's an interesting topic actually, so if you have any sources, I'd like to read them.
To be fair when you live in a big city and you have to take the subway all the time, it just feels physically nice to remove the background noise whether it's the noise of the train itself or the musicians or the people asking loudly for money. I don't even have airpods, I have good old earplugs because I often too lazy to choose the soundtrack of my own life.
It's not that don't want to talk to unknown people, it's that it's more important for me to avoid the unpleasantness of it all. It's all relative of course, I'd take a fast, crowded train any day rather than having to do the good old accelerate-and-stop of a traffic jam/city intersections.
I live in a country with somewhat solid social net so I'd actually be in favor or preventing people to ask for money (loudly and in a pathos-optimized voice) in the train. It's generally people who are 1. having other income 2. drug addicts 3. mental issues or a combination of all that. I don't blame them but I wish there was a cruelty-free way of preventing them to do that because I don't think the amount of money they make is worth the amount of inconvenience they cause. Of course they are other ways of making the service better (more trains, closer to each other) but I believe the subway company is already hard at work on that.
My point I guess is that it doesn't take much for something to become an unpleasant experience (as anyone who's ever had a significant dose of LSD will tell you) and that's it's easy to blame people (individualistic, selfish blablabla) but system-thinking is how you solve that kind of issue (and it's not easy)
That's kind of the point the article is making though, isn't it?
You're making a choice to insulate yourself from your surroundings. That choice has effects on both you and your environment. You see it as a simple salve, but the poor souls you're choosing to ignore see it as a just another bourgeoisie wall.
I used to live in a prison. Headphones were a huge fighting issue. People who couldn't afford them would borrow, rent, or steal them. I never saw the point. Humans are a part of nature. I can sleep, eat, shower, and meditate just as well in the middle of a deadly riot (I was once asked by an officer to leave the dining area as they'd maced several people and everyone else had fled while I sat there calmly eating my institutional cheesy cardboard because I was more hungry than bothered by the mace) as I can in a forest or a dead silent bed room.
Embracing or shunning the society you live in is a choice. Choosing either has consequences. My choice means that I am often driven to action to contribute to systemic solutions to the pain I see in life. It isn't easy, but I don't think I could live with sticking my fingers in my ears and pretending it isn't happening.
I worked in Manhattan often in the 00s and early 10s. Have people forgotten what big city life was like before? Commuters did not randomly strike up conversations. It was an unspoken code you left each other alone. Especially in rush hour commutes. Everyone is waking up or tired after a day of work. It is more about having some personal space in a crowded environment for many. Not everyone processes or experiences that the same way either.
> It was an unspoken code you left each other alone.
Adding to this, you never know in advance when your interlocutor's stop will come up. So subconsciously you know it's a bad idea to strike up a conversation. Plus it's a captive audience so the majority of people sense that it's wrong to "force" someone to talk.
And the trains are noisy. It's difficult and unnatural to talk above the ambient noise.
There was a point in my life that I couldn't do that.
To suggest that it is impossible for a given individual is different from suggesting that it is difficult which is different still from suggesting that it is suggested.
I have personally benefitted massively from deconstructing the walls that my parents and peers suggested I build as a child. It was work to do, and is work yet to be done, but I value it.
I am no longer angry in traffic when "the jackass can't see I'm late" or whatever other silliness. I no longer dread the stench and noise of public transportation. Both are natural. Just the way humans are. Being perturbed by it is a choice that I've decided I could do without.
Minus some socio-behavioral-mental deviation from the norm, and even then considering advances that can be made with therapy...I just don't see it. Why should I be bothered by people on the train when I know that it is possible to just...not?
> There was a point in my life that I couldn't do that.
At some point of my life, I realized I can’t assume or rely on the idea that other people will enjoy living their lives like I do. So, what I find admirable and something to thrive might not be the thing they’re looking for.
Surely the solution to this social problem, however, can't be "everyone should simply convert to my religion / achieve a higher state of mind where they're not bothered by any form of inconvenience, irritation, or interruption." If it comes to that, most people will continue to wear their AirPods. It's a non-answer.
I think you'll find that I never made any such claim. I only ever spoke of my own experience with the topic at hand. I've done so in good faith that others may find it a useful comparison to the original technique suggested.
Well, I suppose that's true strictly speaking. What I'm reacting to is your claim that this is a simple "choice" that everyone else is making:
> Embracing or shunning the society you live in is a choice.
When the reality is that it's more complicated. You're able to make this "choice" because you've spent years cultivating a quasi-religious attitude of equanimity toward things that are, from the perspective of most, annoying, troubling, or frightening. So what you're asking of most people is more than a choice (taking their AirPods out), it's more a matter of converting to a different way of life entirely.
> What I'm reacting to is your claim that this is a simple "choice" that everyone else is making:
Just because something is simple, does not mean it is easy.
This has been part of ancient philosophies: “Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.” — Epictetus
But also more recent writings:
* “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ― Viktor E. Frankl (someone who survived the Holocaust)
* “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.” ― Viktor E. Frankl
* “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning
> So what you're asking of most people is more than a choice (taking their AirPods out), it's more a matter of converting to a different way of life entirely.
Before making the effort to "convert" you first need to choose whether you want to continue to be vexed and frustrated by external events, or if you want to try to reduce your mental anguish by things you cannot control.
Do you want to continue to get pissed off by other drivers, or not? Do you want to get annoyed by other people on the train/bus, or not? Do you want more of an internal calm/peace, or not?
I actually made the decision long before I was ever capable of carrying out the act itself.
I was in a depressive suicidal hole, and had been for well over a decade. The first time I tried to kill my self, I was seven years old.
It began with the realization, while I was trying to drink myself to the courage to finally pull the trigger, that the common refrain "it's all my fault" meant just a bit more than I'd given it credit for.
I realized, huddle on the floor behind my recliner because it was the smallest place I could find and fit in to, that if the desperate quality of my life were truly entirely my own fault, then it could be possible that I could stop being the source of my own malcontent. That was enough to save me from that particular suicidal flare. That I could stop harming myself.
It's been many years from then, and it was many years from there to when I realized that I could even be a source of happiness for myself instead of merely not harming myself.
But it was a choice that I was making, to view myself as inept, beyond salvation, capable of and likely to ruin everything, hater of my fellow mankind, etc. I have found in the years since the last time I tried to kill my self that almost every single unhappiness in my life was a matter of perspective rather than a genuine immutable fact.
Consider the article. People are noisy. Do I have to be upset about that? I certainly used to be bothered by all sorts of rude and noisy people. On the train, at the library, in the grocery, etc. That anger contributed to my general dismay of humanity such that I used to feel that it was all hopeless, and that if everything were hopeless, I shouldn't persist in trying.
That posture was a choice. Choosing to make the effort to no longer adopt that posture was a choice. That I have continued to attempt to make the choice to be compassionate and equanimous towards others is a choice that I have struggled with, and have ultimately both struggled with and succeeded in pursuing.
It's a choice that I have ultimately benefitted from. I cannot possibly see going back to the world in which I elevate my own concerns so highly above others that I simply and outright refuse to observe their own suffering. The world's a bummer, for sure, but for me personally, I am happier observing the problems and contributing to their diminution than I ever was ignoring or pretending the problems didn't exist.
I'm sorry that you think I'm asking anything of anyone, and that you think I've got anything at all adjacent to a religious attitude. Neither could be further from the truth. I am merely sharing my own experience as a contrasting example to the phenomenon described. I know that many people associate certain words with religious activity, but I can assure you that I definitely do not practious any such thing, and would never advise anyone else to do any such thing.
I used to be a person who shut everyone and everything out. I used to do so because I believed that anyone and everything were the source of my suicidal ideation. When I chose to change my beliefs, to believe that perhaps I was the source of my own discontent, was the first moment that I had a glimpse of a future in which I was no longer suicidal.
I just figured this was an opportunity to be like "hey, listening to and talking to people is actually possibly a good thing because it was for me even though I used to think otherwise"
Well, sure, but the last time a suicidal person hears "it gets better" is probably the most impactful of any such event.
I know I'm no leader, that's why I've not condescended to offer any kind of a map. I took a messy, far longer than necessary route to achieve anything that could at all be described as succesful.
I just thought, hey, why not share a picture of the progress?
Living in filth is not natural. Animals and primitive humans know how to keep themselves reasonably clean, to avoid attracting predators if nothing else. We seem to be regressing.
I'm not particularly bothered by those things either, but I'm a large man and people don't tend to mess with me much. I can afford to be casual about it (within reason). Not everyone has that luxury.
Being able to do it in the middle of a riot is, absolutely, a hard-earned skill.
But it is, like so many of these things, a skill. You have to practice it.
I think that putting earbuds in and checking out of the world around you is a really awful thing to do as your default in life. As a "sometimes" thing it's fine, even healthy. There's a lot of talk of public transit in this thread. If people do it during riding transit, and not really at other times, I'm fine with that. But so many people have their earbuds in before they leave their front door, every day, every week, and they don't come back out.
And I think that's really, really unhealthy, for them and for the rest of us.
My son, for example, has sensory issues and cannot tune out anything. The "you have to practice it" is like telling a paraplegic that if they just exercise more they'd be able to walk. People are different and have different needs.
> And I think that's really, really unhealthy, for them and for the rest of us.
Or maybe it's not. Maybe the rest of the world is unhealthy and this is a way to reclaim some personal healthiness.
I think that's an unusual scenario, and I'd ask you to consider that that's probably not the argument I was making.
Most of the dozens and dozens of people I see in daily life sealed away in their earbud pockets do not appear in any way to need to do that. I am certainly not seeing the full picture of every single person's life, but I do not think that every last one of them is incapable of meaningfully engaging with the world.
The key word there is appear. How do you know? You're making a lot of assumptions about people and why do things and whether or not it's healthy. You see dozens and dozens people with earphones on at exactly the time when most people don't want to be engaging. Some women put on headphones, often playing nothing, to avoid harassment. But the reasons are endless.
You're assuming all this is "really really unhealthy" but what is the justification for that opinion?
The article is making the case that this is not healthy for society. It is the kind of thing that's fine if 5/100 do it, seriously worrying if 50/100 do, and basically fatal to civilized society if 99/100 people do.
And when I go to the park and have a run, of the 100 people I might see there and on the way, we're closer to 50/100 than 5 or 99. So I think we have a problem.
If you read the article you'll notice that it's all opinion. The main quote about research is "There is disappointingly little peer-reviewed research on the effects earphones have on our daily lives and interactions." Even the linked "studies" are all correlation and mixed in with COVID.
The flaw in the whole argument is that somehow people are having less "meaningful" conversations because they headphones on. I'm sorry but you're not going to have a meaningful conversation (or any at all) with the 100 people who are also actively running at the park whether or not they had headphones on. I still don't see it as a problem if 100% of the people running had headphones on; they are there to run! It's like saying there's a problem because 50 out of 100 people at the park having running shoes on. If you've pre-decided that running shoes are a problem then that's a big concern otherwise it's just nothing.
For me, if I didn't have headphones on I wouldn't be going for a walk/run at all. That one thing has drastically changed how I approach exercise in general and I would do less without them. That said, I do occasionally enjoy a nice walk/run without any headphones but as the exception rather than the rule.
Why is it grossly insensitive? Sensory issues are widely documented and studied. It's probably most well known as part of autism, but it's also seen in PTSD, schizophrenia, CTE, etc.
People with these conditions literally cannot learn to tune things out.
I suspect the parent commenter was intentionally vague to avoid derailing the thread into discussing their specifics (many of which are, unfortunately, currently politically charged).
I think if you're placing the ability to block out the world by force of will o a pedestal but judging people for wearing noise cancelling headphones, then you're just being a hypocrite.
You don't disagree with the need or the concept, just the means for irrelevant reasons.
Its like people attempting to shame for going on ozempic to lose weight.
You’re chastising the person above you for blocking out the world with headphones while bragging that you have honed skills over time to, due to desire and necessity, block out the world in your own head.
In any case, it doesn’t strike me as unreasonable to want to be unbothered, especially in particularly bothersome circumstances. You don’t owe anyone your attention, and the assumption that you do can and is weaponized by everyone from Zuckerberg to the fentanyl addict aggressively demanding your money.
I'm fairly mistaken you've mistaken me on two counts. I've chastised no one. I've merely observed aloud that the choices we all make have effects on both ourselves and others.
I also don't do any such thing as block the world out in my own head...not really sure where you could have gotten that except perhaps from a misunderstanding of meditation.
The meditation that I and many practice is about peaceful abiding or compassionate awareness. It's about changing our own judgement of reality as it is, not escaping from it.
In a way you're right, but what you can do comes from a significantly high spiritual development level. For an average Joe it's quite abstract and maybe even unattainable in this life.
OTOH, there are people who get sensory overstimulated more easily. Add to that a foreign place, lot of people and chaos around, and even a neurotypical individual can feel anxious.
Putting on headphones and playing Chopin is much more effective than breathing and telling yourself "everythings gonna be ok" in a loop. At least in my experience.
You will have to explain. Headphones in work or street environments definitely function to minimize interactions with surrounding humans. I literally think twice before engaging with people wearing headphones and am rather oblivious to people around me when I'm wearing them unless someone is using physical gestures to get my attention.
If general public habits shift to the extent that the majority of people with headphones end up only using them for noise cancelling then my behavior would also shift accordingly.
> That's kind of the point the article is making though, isn't it?
I think the article pays lip service to this in a paragraph ("social crutch") but otherwise falls into the trap of "societal" pieces (Soft "Why can't we talk to each other anymore ? What is wrong with our cvilisation?")
In my opinion make it a safe enjoyable non-crowded ride and you'll get plenty of interactions.
> just another bourgeoisie wall.
You are not wrong in a way. The base of a lot of the kind of interaction the author of the piece is thinking about is a relatively equal social standing, otherwise there's too much at stake, on both sides. For example, I, a lower middle class man, would have little patience for someone telling me about how much fun they are having taking helicopter rides in the summer and I don't think they'd enjoy my rant about how landlords are evil.
Of course I think there's a moral duty to lower yourself from your social standing to care for people who have it rougher than you but it's generally not exactly pleasant like a conversation with someone like-minded could be
Few who paid their debt to society and moved on are excited about random strangers wanting to do their own petty little performative mock show trials to sit in smug judgement over them. Please stop.
Almost as if there's a limit to how many demands strangers can reasonably place on a person before we as a society agree that the person should put up boundaries (like, say, putting on headphones and outright ignoring the demands) and even go out of our way to encourage strangers to respect those boundaries.
I'm not calling you out, IncandescentGas, you're right and you're doing a good thing. I'm just saying its ironic that you jump to the defense of somebody who has made it clear that they don't believe others deserve the same courtesy you are providing them.
No defence needed in my case. I made a mistake and paid my price. I feel bad for people who are so bored and miserable in their own lives that they feel the need to elevate themselves by trying to diminish me.
It's too bad that they don't live more fulfilling lives that don't require them to feel the need to attempt to insult people.
Noise canceling headphones is the only reason I’m able to use the bus in SF. The author writes from Germany, which has reasonable social etiquette in place in most cities. That social contract just doesn’t exist in large parts of America. In Chicago, they have a real problem with people smoking on public transportation. They don’t make noise canceling headphones for your lungs yet.
The people wearing headphones all day aren’t the ones “losing touch with their neighbors”… no, it’s just that their neighbors are assholes, and they just want to get through the day.
I wear my AirPods Pro on the train largely for hearing protection. The DC Metro is loud, with or without people making noise in the train. Different train systems have different levels of loud, but when the Metro is flying through a tunnel it is quite loud.
I also often have them in while walking around the city for this purpose as well. I usually have the noise canceling off, but if an ambulance or something is coming my way, I quickly click the AirPod to put them into noise canceling mode.
The metro is a much less stressful experience for me with noise cancellation on. Without them the noise in tunnels just makes me anxious. The outside tracks are all fine without them though.
And for walking around - it's the traffic noise that bothers me, not people. Traffic noise can just be so loud along some roads (and at certain times of day) that it makes me not want to walk at all.
Traffic and honking can be quite annoying. I find the AirPods Pro knock down quick a bit of noise even when off just because of their tips, but when I want it even quieter I use the noise canceling.
Some places aren’t loud but most U.S. cities are. I’m going to Paris this summer, and I probably won’t use AirPods while walking around.
> it just feels physically nice to remove the background noise whether it's the noise
I thought about it and I found that after so many years my mind can just fade the noise out and I doesn't bother me at all. It also helped me to hear selectively.
On the other hand, when I wear noise cancelling headphones it feels weird, like detached from the reality I am present.
Only place I prefer to wear them is open plan office. Too many conversations and many grab attention needlessly.
It's not just a social or class issue. A lot of women wear headphones to discourage creepy men from hitting on them or sexually harassing them. The HN crowd skews toward young men and I think many of you don't understand that some women get this constantly on public transit.
Headphones also give an 'excuse'. Some men become really pissy and unstable if they think you're ignoring them, but if you have visible headphones, then you have the excuse of not hearing them.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted, this is a real issue. I'm not a woman, but I'm a gay man and the same thing happens walking through Boystown or at the gym. Headphones have a near-100% success rate at deflecting unwanted advances.
Unwelcome attention is unwelcome attention. The only charitable exceptions might be children and adults with developmental disabilities, who allowably don’t know any better.
You're still hung up on this idea that violating boundaries and being a man are synonymous, and that what makes it creepy is how attractive you are.
Whether someone is attractive or not, they're perfectly capable of not bothering someone who doesn't want to be bothered.
You're basically saying "if an unattractive man who doesn't respect boundaries is creepy, but also an attractive man that doesn't respect boundaries is creepy, then that means all men are creepy."
Do you really think that the response to "hi, my name is Bob!" being attraction or repulsion is not related to how attractive the man is?
Also, men are expected to initiate the opening. Very few men are attractive enough to not need to do that.
I teased a friend of mine long ago that his pickup line was "ok". The women approached him one after the other. Yes, he was tall and handsome. What works for 1% of men doesn't work at all for the rest of us.
I don't remember any time in my life where it ever felt normal to me to randomly talk to strangers. I went to London when I was a teenager and was made uncomfortable by how chatty the cab drivers were. Later, I worked at a startup and my boss was preternaturally gifted at chatting up strangers, which he did habitually in every setting we were in when we traveled; on the plane, on the bus from the airport, &c. I remember feeling like he was a freak of nature.
And I'm not an introvert!
All of this long predates Airpods.
I think this is a cultural difference, not a technological shift.
> I don't remember any time in my life where it ever felt normal to me to randomly talk to strangers. [...] And I'm not an introvert!
Life's so interesting sometimes! I consider myself an introvert, and I don't remember any point in time where it ever felt abnormal to talk randomly to the humans ("strangers") around you, regardless if you know them or not. We're both humans, why not see who the other one right next to you are? :) Maybe I'm just "too curious".
It was kind of confusing growing up in Sweden, where most people don't share this idea, so of course it felt really isolating when almost zero strangers actually engage even a tiny bit. Luckily, I figured out I lived in the wrong country relatively quick, and now live in a country (Spain) much more aligned with my own mindset, and having the time of my life chatting with everyone and everything, and they even respond back!
I fit this description too. I consider myself an introvert (that is, more introverted than extroverted; very few people are exclusively one or the other) because I need to be alone to recharge. When my "social battery" is full, I eagerly start conversations with strangers, and even when it is drained I'm comfortable talking to people, though I might not desire to.
It all depends on the subject - I can talk about cooking, climate change, collapse, film for hours. As for sports, gossip, celebrities, I clam up. Ditto for any talk that's status seeking or not curious and bi-directional.
Introvert doesn't mean one doesn't enjoy socializing, just that one needs quiet down time to recharge from it. Extroverts tend to be energized by socialization. It's also not always so cleanly binary, either.
I really hate that introversion gets conflated with social anxiety or misanthropy on the internet.
well, and I dislike that people feel the need to desperately label themselves with some affliction. At some point you're just pretty close to the center of the bell curve.
I'm not sure if you're talking about me self-labeling myself as "introvert" earlier, or specifically about the comment you replied to and the "social anxiety or misanthropy" parts, but I don't see either "extrovert" or "introvert" as any sort of afflictions, more like preferences.
I'd agree "hate" is a strong word and maybe a bit exaggerated, I hope at least.
I get tired from talking too much with people, and need to rest by being by myself, I guess is the gist of it. Still enjoy it though, like swimming in the sea, tiresome but fun :)
I’ve strange news from the business world. That ability to talk to strangers and be conversational with various topics is actually making him a rather successful boss/business-person. Remember, not just talking, but the far better one is the ability to listen, and take genuine curiosity in the other person’s stories.
I learned, and am still learning, to start with very subtle conversations in contextual proximity to the person without shocking/surprising them. And then, I mostly try to listen more and try to guide them to talk more. You will be surprised at how many a lot are eager to talk to someone, if they are being listented to.
I'm sure that's true but not everyone is cut out to be a "business-person". I certainly am not. Same with boss, I'm not a team player at all.
I don't mind small talk sometimes but there has to be some kind of common ground. For example with conservative family-first suit types I have nothing to talk about and it feels awkward to make conversation, but with the leather/mesh/blue hair alt/goth types I can talk for hors.
>For example with conservative family-first suit types
"hey man, how're the kids?" "Is your wife recovering from [illness] you mentioned last week?" "man, have heard the music on the radio lately?" "what kind of music do you like?" "can I ask you a personal question, what was the hardest part of getting the success you have?" "did you know you wanted to be a boss/manager when you were a kid? No? Oh, you wanted to be an astronaut? Oh man, no way, have you seen the crazy stuff spacex is doing with re-useable rockets? We're getting so close to (relevant sci-fi from when he was a kid)"
You've just got to have an open mind, which you'd think you'd have given your conversational partner preferences.
"SpaceX is a fraud. Its all about control. That's why in the future you'll be eating bugs because it's Greta Thunberg".
I am only partly paraphrasing actual conversation with my father in-law.
I cannot stress enough that what you think will work here doesn't: literally every topic will be pivoted towards a rant about which groups are destroying the future (all of them), or how it's all a conspiracy or how they are plotting against you.
You've invented a conversation you think works. I have lived a damn decade of the list of "safe" topics endlessly shrinking, and the punchline is same: 30 damn minutes of alternately being told some half remembered conspiracy theory from Facebook or asking for agreement that group are bad.
That scifi concept from when they were kid? Well they are lying about that for money of course.
It is exhausting to deal with over and over again.
You can lean in to that though. I live in a rural county with 22k people in the entire county.
But you're painting two different pictures as if they are the same. The suited family type and the conspiracy theorist are different people.
Were I to know that I were dealing with a conspiracy theorist, the pivot is "I wish I could pay as little tax as rich people do (knowing fully well that they often pay far more than I do" or "yeah, it's crazy how the rich always abuse the little guy" or "what would you do if you were in their position (the same? ah well, at least it's understandable. Different, there, you see, there are good people like you and I left to fight the fight!) Or, hell, just for funsies you can play Conspiracy Olympics in which you try to outgun and outthink their own wild ideas. "Oh yeah, well 'spacex is a fraud' is exactly what a russian sleeper agent would say!"
I'll admit that there have been a small number of people that I simply could not connect with on any level, but working in non-profits and with volunteers, you get used to people's quirks and figure out how to work with them on their level. And what's more, you'll often end up being considered one of their few friends or even just "one of the good ones in their book" because so many people are just completely dismissive of them because they don't like their ideas.
You're engaging in exactly the kind of behavior that many of them complain about, their "no one cares, everyone's out to get me" mentality is only enforced by your "it is not possible for me to talk to or associate with these people". You are in fact one of the they that is plotting to remove this demographic from your own reality. It is not a stretch for them to imagine that you would prefer that they did not exist.
It's equally tiring hearing about how every problem in society is a result of capitalism and how conservatives are all facists and are scheming for a way to bring back concentration camps and want to deport everyone who doesn't have three generations of native-born ancestors.
There are fringe kooks at all edges of the spectrum and they are all tiring and boring.
But most guys on the train wearing a suit are just normal people who have to dress like that because their work requires it.
Good point but that's exactly what we in the LGBT community have had to deal with for years now. After a while the will to find a common ground just gets eroded. But that is a bad thing, I agree.
And the thing is a lot of MAGA people do want these things. Otherwise they wouldn't happen.
But yes part of the blame lies with me too. It is as you say very tiring.
I strongly feel that that's the thing that's mitigated modern queer integration into popular society.
I understand that being either loud and proud or even just unabashedly your own self can be trying at times. I know, by first hand experience (as a cis-ish passing transwoman if you squint), that embodying your own reality in public can be a difficult and damaging experience...
But it's just...necessary. Even on a completely selfish front, no one's going to accept me myself for who I am if I can't tell people who I am. And then there's the larger front that those who have come before me did some of the work to make my life easier, and that by my own work I can make the lives of those who come after me easier.
It's just...sad, you know? Like I know it's hard for us to keep banging our heads against the wall. It's hard to go out in public and recieve insult after insult. It is hard to visit an unfamiliar locale not knowing how we will be accepted. But we have to! Literally the only path to acceptance lies through exposure.
That's the real reason that I am so sociable. I know that the only way past the insults is past the insults. If I only ever hide in the closet...well, the closet isn't all that big is it? I believe that if I show up as myself in any and every interaction I can only have a positive effect. At worst, I find people so bigotted that they are beyond help, avoid them, and pray for those few. In the middle everyone lets me slide. At best, I find bigots who I can expose to reality as it is and help them to get over their fears and prejudices.
I have found through experience, that this reality is closer to the best of possible worlds I just described and far from the worst of the worlds I just described. I have been rewarded time and time again in my encounters, finding countless people that I am able to relieve of their fears and knowing that I have saved countless unknown queers from the vitriol that those I have helped would otherwise have spewed.
If someone wears a suit they have a reason for it, it's not something people do because they like the feel of it. Because they're really restrictive, expensive and feel horrible. They do it to impress others or to fit in in business. Or when they're trying to sell something.
You think the green haired folks are doing it because bleaching and dyeing their hair is just super duper fun? They're doing it for the same reasons: attention, approval, to fit in with their peers, trying to sell their identity to their peers.
Well yes I think so. It is fun and cool. I love my crazy outfits too. It's not really about the peers though it's nice getting compliments at parties. It's more about feeling good about myself and feeling like it matches who I am.
Also they feel really good due to the materials being very smooth. Latex in particular is really like a second skin.
I would never feel good in a business suit because it's not who I am. Even if the fabric wouldn't feel horrible I would still be miserable. They're all the same too, like a uniform.
And you can't see, at all, that the folks who choose to wear business suits feel precisely the same way?
That they like getting compliments from the people they interact with? That it makes them feel good about themselves and feel like it matches who they are?
That the suit feels good too them due to the materials being quality and expensive?
That they would never feel good in leather because it's not who they are? That even if the leather wasn't sweaty and sticky, they'd still feel horrible?
Both of y'all are doing the same shit. You're wearing what you want to wear because it feels good to you and it feels good to you because you get compliments on it and getting compliments on it means that you've been accepted by the group you wish to be accepted by.
The suit and the leather gimp suit are the same thing. The vest and the kapris are the same thing. The turtle neck and the neck tie are the same thing. They are all status symbols. They all say "I want to talk to people dressed like this" and probably "I don't want to talk to anyone who dresses like that"
It's not all about compliments. Those are not that important.
But if a business suit matches who they are then I'm not really interested in them. Which is what I said in the first place. I really hate business and the kind of people that spew PR bullshit on LinkedIn for example.
If your suits feel bad you’re probably not wearing the right suits. They are expensive though, that’s definitely true, so it does reveal some of their preferences.
Good point, but I'm very sensitive to clothing. I just can't wear them anymore, and I don't have one that fits. The only one I had was just bought in a store. But it was awful.
But really a job where I'd have to wear one means a job working with business people and I would be very bad at that anyway.
For weddings I just don't go if it's too formal, though most of my friends are very polyamorous. If they even marry it's not a huge deal.
How much money do I need to get a suit that’s not miserable in 90f+ humid heat where even stepping outside in shorts and a t-shirt has you sweating after a few minutes?
I don't think it's necessarily the suit in that case. As a Florida resident, however, I like my Tommy Bahama suit's breathability but it might not be formal enough for every occasion. There's also some "super breathable" suit that I see being advertised a lot, but I haven't tried one of those.
Talking to strangers is a skill. You can practice it! I've made a point of trying to practice, albeit halfheartedly, and even though it's difficult for me, because I like it when other people try to talk to me.
Earbuds stop this practice dead in its tracks. You can't deny that.
Probably an unpopular point on HN, but this is very gendered. There's a lot of women who don't want to be chatted up who wear headphones, and therefore a lot of men who are annoyed at this visible signal that the woman doesn't want to listen to them.
We can leave room for "not wearing headphones is a signal that you're open to talk" without having to pressure people who aren't.
> There's a lot of women who don't want to be chatted up who wear headphones
This is true, but so is the opposite! I think the most important thing is to be kind and receptive. It's fine to start a conversation with a women wearing headphones, just take it in stride and don't be weird about it if she isn't interested in talking. I do this (with men and women) a lot.
It is true that women are more likely to be approached by creeps, and due to the physical differences between the sexes women are at higher risk in such situations. That said, we shouldn't dismiss women as too delicate or whatever to chat with. They're people!
> It's fine to start a conversation with a women wearing headphones, just take it in stride and don't be weird about it if she isn't interested in talking. I do this (with men and women) a lot.
Not sure where you're from, but where I live, headphones are a well-understood signal that someone would rather not engage in conversation at the moment. Some have been conditioned to placate the kind of people who deliberately ignore these signals by engaging in brief small talk rather than risking a confrontation, but this shouldn't be misconstrued as an interest in talking.
> headphones are a well-understood signal that someone would rather not engage in conversation at the moment
I live in a big city in the US and for myself and probably most my friend group, this rarely true. Maybe it’s because we are a bit extroverted or do work that is social. For me it’s more that I like music or a book, and just want a distraction from my commute. You can start a convo just don’t be rude and realize I might be getting off my stop soon.
Eastern Canada, where people are generally easy going and friendly. I'd be surprised and disappointed to hear things are different elsewhere, but I don't have the lived experience to say one way or another.
I've lived in a few US cities, but the example of NYC comes to mind. New Yorkers are happy to lend a hand if you're lost, struggling with a stroller on the stairs, or something falls out of your bag. And they're happy to chat at a concert, club, farmer's market, sporting event, carnival, conference, convention, etc.
But a stranger gesturing for you to take off your headphones while you're walking briskly down the street or riding the subway just so they can make smalltalk does not seem socially acceptable whether it's packed at rush hour or mostly empty at 1:00 in the morning.
> therefore a lot of men who are annoyed at this visible signal that the woman doesn't want to listen to them
I mean I'm sure there's a guy somewhere who's annoyed by this, but "a lot of men who are annoyed" feels like making up a group of people to be angry at.
> Given how the media amplify things, it could perhaps be literally just one guy
If you go to popular tourist spots in Europe there’s usually that one guy who’s trying to scam everyone who passes by. It only takes one to be a huge nuisance.
yep. Just like it only takes a few prolific spammers to ruin email, it only takes a few antisocial con men to make "talking to strangers" seem like an imposition.
I don’t think it is unpopular as much as it might need clarification of culture and location. There are some countries where genders tend to talk their similar presenting gender in public setting like transportation.
Talking to strangers is a skill. You can practice it! I've made a point of trying to practice, albeit halfheartedly, and even though it's difficult for me, because I like it when other people try to talk to me.
It is definitely something one can learn. I also like it very much. Most people are just very nice and love chatting a bit as well (just be respectful of their time and know when to bow out).
There are also other functions that purely having a good time. E.g. when you are in a train with reserved seats, striking op a conversation is also a good way of gauging whether it's ok to leave your bags when you leave your seat to grab a drink or some food. Also, people feel more responsible looking after your stuff once you have socialized a bit.
For me it's not super-difficult. I came from a small village where it is normal to greet people and maybe chat, even if you don't know them.
> Most people are just very nice and love chatting a bit as well
In my experience, this depends on the context. Everywhere I've lived the only time strangers try to talk to me is to either a) ask for directions (1%) or b) beg for money (99%).
I see people in these comments suggesting we should just say no thanks I don't want to chat -- I'd have to repeat that a dozen times a day. It's exhausting and I don't gain anything from it. I figure these folks must live in totally different locations.
> I came from a small village where it is normal to greet people and maybe chat, even if you don't know them.
Yeah, I could see that. If my village/city wasn't plagued by petition beggars or money beggars or merchant beggars I'd probably be more interested in engaging.
Agree with the first part, very important!
Not the second, however.
I joined my local fitness gym some months ago and use it to connect to people in the small town I moved to.
Almost every time I'm there I manage to chat to someone briefly, and 50% of them have earpods in.
Most of them now look up and greet me when we pass and multiple have up to me on other days to chat afterwards.
It's a skill and part of that skill is being able to give people an out of the chat if they don't feel for it, not interrupting at a bad time (mid set in a gym setting).
My starter is usually a quick question with a "thank you so much, I'm new here" and if they reach for earpods to put back as they say you welcome, perfect you don't keep going.
For the ones who want to chat keep them off and respond or ask something in return.
So headphones/earpods can be a barrier but for me it's a useful barrier and a clear signal, which helps both parties.
> Earbuds stop this practice dead in its tracks. You can't deny that.
Yes it's a signal. For you to go find someone else to talk to :)
That doesn't mean I'm antisocial, there's just places where I go to be open to talk to people. Like bars, meetups, stuff like that. And places where I'm just to get from A to B and I don't want to. Usually when I'm in public transport I'm going to/from the office and I'm stressed because I deeply hate working in the office since Corona (no more fixed desks etc). So I need my space.
I just pretend I haven't noticed they have earbuds in and start talking to them. Virtually everyone seems happy to have an interaction, I get the feeling people are a bit starved for random friendly contact.
I don't wear AirPods/headphones of any sort in public but I don't like talking to strangers while out and about and get very uncomfortable since it's almost always someone trying to get something from me.
But every time someone does randomly talk to me, I smile and laugh and I'm very cordial. Because people who approach strangers generally get quite angry when they're outright shot down. That doesn't at all mean I'm happy to talk. A smile is often just a defensive response.
Why would you initiate talk with me in the first place, when we're in a situation where I have not explicitly chosen contact with you? (say on a train)
Also reading something would be a clear signal (also to me) that a person doesn't want to get disturbed.
When I have to tell you that I don't want to talk, you have already disturbed me. So, taking the cues here clearly is on you, not on me, at least in my
opinion.
Edit: To clarify a bit, I'm talking about places with involuntary social contact, like for example a train or a grocery store. I go on a train because I have to get somewhere, not because I want to interact with people. It would be a different scenario say in a bar.
This is actually very difficult for a significant number of people. Some people really struggle with saying "no" or enforcing boundaries, some people are very wary of negative interactions with strangers. If you are relying on people to explicitly push back on you, rather than reading more subtle queues, you are quite likely adding stress to someone's day.
I think most will pick up on subtle cues. That said, there is nothing wrong with being direct. And for those people who struggle with saying no, well, practice makes perfect.
You may like it, others may not. I hate when random strangers talk to me. Unless you are skilled to distinguish willing from not, you are training your skill at the expense of others.
Kind of black and white. I think everyone agrees to not chat up strangers sitting reading books, listening to music or whatever, but if you're idle, what's the harm in saying "No thanks, I don't want to chat" or something similar if someone asks you something?
And yes, of course don't try to speak with people who obviously don't want to be spoken to. Quick way to find out, is to ask "Can I ask you a question?" and then you leave space both for the people who don't want to chat, and the ones that do :)
I used to judge that based on people's faces, but the faces lie a lot, and some people basically default to looking pissed off, while they can be very warm people, and also vice-versa, so in the end asking up front seems to be the nicest way for everyone to be OK with it.
I don’t mind talking to strangers, I’m actually a very chatty and genial person. Some would even say that I don’t know how to shut up. I just don’t want people (strangers or otherwise) to interrupt me at times when I don’t want to talk.
My question is, why do you think you’re entitled to consume strangers’ time?
I think we see things differently. I view conversation as an offer, with no expectations either way. Whereas you seem to put more weight on it, I'd guess because the ADHD you mentioned in another comment means interruptions are more impactful for you. I'm not sure there is a way to bridge this gap, because for me (based both on my understanding of modern psychological research and personal experience), a world without talking to strangers is a much impoverished one emotionally and spiritually. I'm afraid I'm willing to throw your mental wellbeing out with the bathwater on this, though I feel bad about doing so.
> I'm willing to throw your mental wellbeing out with the bathwater on this, though I feel bad about doing so.
So what, disabled people should just stay home? That’s your answer, just make society hostile to people like me?
I bet there’s a middle road that you’re not considering, but because it’s not important to you, the disabled person should just accept a lower quality of life for your convenience.
I definitely think it's generational. Every person I know over 50 could talk to a brick wall for hours. The people I know 30-40 it's a struggle for at least half of them. Under 30 and it gets much worse.
Even the older introverted people I know, who I would characterise as quiet, would find it really rude to get in a taxi and not chat to the driver for the duration of the journey.
With people doing their entire careers remotely now I can only see this shift happening faster and more intensely. Small talk is a skill like any other and I think it's a sad skill to lose on a societal level. And I say this as a serious introvert that doesn't love to make small talk. Nine times out of ten, when I do make the effort to e.g. talk to a taxi driver I come away happier.
My take, is that this effect has removed a lot of the micro communications we make - not necessarily random conversations. It’s taken away random moments that may trigger a short small conversation with strangers.
In part it’s taking away the shared experience in public and making it “my” experience.
Completely anecdotal story, me and a friend had completely different experiences going to Portugal. We're both Brazilians so language, food, culture aren't barriers, he's very talkative and would joke and try to interact with random people in the street or restaurants. He had a terrible experience, hated the country, vowed to never come back, said he wasn't welcomed anywhere, people were rude, even waitresses.
I'm more of a "talk when talk is needed" person but still social. i don't really interact with strangers in the street and I assume business social interactions (like restaurants) are just that, business, so I'm polite but i'm not going to crack a joke with someone i've never seen before and will likely never see again. My experience was the complete opposite, loved Portugal, would easily move there if salaries weren't shit, people were nice, i felt welcomed anywhere i went, might have been the only place outside of Brazil i have really felt at home.
I think its important to NOT BE RUDE with the random people you meet in the street but I also see no reason so strike a conversation with them. If I happen to see something that picks up my interest, like a band shirt, book i like or something like that, i might bring it up if we're going to stay in the same place for long, but starting a conversation out of nowhere just isn't a thing for me.
Sure, but when the only reason I had those random moments with strangers were because they wanted them, and refusing to engage is considered "rude", I'd argue that it already was just someone else's "my" experience before, just "shared" because of societal peer pressure. What changed is that now I have a way to actually assert my boundaries without being the rude one.
I think it's a mistake to conflate passive signaling with asserting oneself, and whether you like the interaction you might have otherwise had or not (as long as it's not clearly harassment or something) it would be rude to ignore people in public whether that rudeness is delegated to technology or not. It's just another way of turning up one's nose, and it's a gross way to operate imo. If you don't like the people you'd interact with, it seems to me like it should be a personal goal to find a place to work or live that's more palatable from that perspective. If you go about life preferring to pre-emptively refuse interaction with people passively, I'm not aware of a better word than "rude".
You say “as long as it's not clearly harassment” as if that is uncommon. Outside of giving directions at train stations, the times when a stranger has started talking to me in public have been almost universally negative. Often times it starts as a friendly conversation before the harassment or begging for money or scamming starts. Other times the people just start out crazy or harassing.
I feel like your conception that “ignoring people either consciously or through technology is rude”
makes more sense in higher social trust situations. Like at a party or a bar, where bad actors are less dense and there is an expectation of socializing.
> I feel like your conception that “ignoring people either consciously or through technology is rude” makes more sense in higher social trust situations.
Yes, but I meant that the more people who block everyone out by default, passively and indiscriminately, contributes to social rust rather than trust. Ignoring or especially telling some people is not inherently rude or bad, but conducting yourself as though everyone is de-facto untrustworthy is a problem that doesn't seem likely to be solved by passively blocking the world out.
Like I added, I don't know why I'd pay to live somewhere where I'd prefer not to interact with anyone. If the place actually does suck, then I should do everything in my power to find somewhere that sucks less.
If you have social anxiety or ADHD, those are personal issues that need to be managed, but I still don't think it's generally a good idea to pick the easiest, least superficially confrontational method to signal that you don't want to talk to anyone.
> people who block everyone out by default, passively and indiscriminately, contributes to social rust rather than trust
I'll turn this around: when I see people wearing headphones on the train or the bus, I appreciate that they respect everyone around them. Silence is a commons, and the headphone people respect that not everyone wants to hear their TikToks, their phone calls, their hallucinations, or their small talk.
> conducting yourself as though everyone is de-facto untrustworthy is a problem that doesn't seem likely to be solved by passively blocking the world out
Actually it does. Dealing with touts and sales people by ignoring them is usually more effective at getting them to leave you alone. If you engage at all, they manipulate your sense of politeness to draw you into a longer conversation or get you to do what they want. This is also true of most types of grifters and assholes.
Every time I got drawn into a scam or harassment, I could have prevented it by simply not engaging in the first place.
> I don't know why I'd pay to live somewhere where I'd prefer not to interact with anyone. If the place actually does suck, then I should do everything in my power to find somewhere that sucks less.
I live in the SF Bay Area and frequently visit Boston and Japan. In this limited experience, I've had a great time meeting strangers in social situations like at bars. I have never had a positive result from giving a stranger the time of day in public places (outside of giving directions). Maybe these places suck and I should leave, idk, but don't judge me for taking a default deny stance after consistently having negative experiences.
And this is just my male perspective. My female friends have even stronger stances against engaging with random people in public.
Wow, it’s wild that you think you have a right to the attention of strangers with whom you have no business. How is it rude to wish to go about one’s day unbothered?
I think if you are in public, you can't expect to be in private. You can try, but it obviously doesn't always work and we are exposed to all types when out of the house.
Saying things like "it's rude to bother people who are in public" (paraphrased) is antisocial and reflective of our time, where people live increasingly isolated and atomistic lives, not of human nature. My point is people who are not open to experiencing the lives of others around them are, as social animals, unwell. It's also worth noting that I don't think this is the fault of any individual (although my initial comment was not clear on this point) but rather of modern society which so thoroughly devalues what is human in favour of what is material and saleable.
The problem is that you don’t know what the person that you randomly chat up is dealing with. You could be doing this kind of thing to anyone.
If I have earbuds in, I’m probably listening to classical music. It helps me self-regulate in busy environments. I’m not listening to podcasts (which everyone assumes now, I guess).
If you interrupt me, I’m going to be polite. You won’t know that you’re causing a problem because I don’t like to be a jerk to strangers. That could be happening every time you talk to a stranger for all you know.
People like to make talking to random strangers seem somehow romantic, but it’s actually just selfish. You’re not interrupting my focus for me, you’re doing it for you.
> You’re not interrupting my focus for me, you’re doing it for you.
While it may be selfish and pointless, it's the default expectation that in public space people can be spoken to, but it costs something to remove that possibility without also physically isolating oneself in some way. Not all public space is necessarily social, you can be alone in a wooded glen which creates a proximity barrier, but trying to preserve your whole private sphere while being in an otherwise potentially social space removes something from that space.
When I deliberately don't want to chat with anyone, I just take a side street or something. Not always possible, but it's rarely worth it; usually work is the semi-public space I'd prefer unbroken focus.
I do think it's overblown to make some grand statement about this behavior if it's only an occasional thing, but if the default expectation shifts to people hesitating to talk to people only because they might have headphones in, I think we've lost something.
> it's the default expectation that in public space people can be spoken to
It is not the social norm that anyone can be spoken to in public at any time, you are oversimplifying things. E.g. it is largely considered socially inappropriate to strike up a conversation with a stranger on public transit when you’re squeezed in like sardines; we don’t talk to each other to give the illusion of privacy and space. It’s also not considered socially acceptable to have a conversation with a stranger standing at a urinal. There are significant social rules about which adults and children can speak to each other in social spaces. Etc etc
There are and always have been situations where it is more or less socially acceptable to speak to a stranger in public. Headphones is not a new one, I knew in the 90s that headphones meant “don’t talk to me”.
I also have ADHD, but the onus is not on others to compensate for that; it wouldn't be labelled unless it prevented us from being compatible with the conplexities of daily life unaided by stimulants. People envy the way I can banter with randoms if I want to, but if I don't, I move on, and deliberately have to practice not getting too derailed.
Seems like a tragedy of the commons. People don't have a right to your attention necessarily, but you also don't have the right to be unbothered arbitrarily.
I think your attitude that going out in public is tacitly opting into interactions with strangers is a much more gross way to operate. The assumption that it's easy to just politely decline a conversation (and that not doing so in the form of a conversation itself) seems like an extremely narrow-minded point of view based on your own subjective experience. You're conflating social anxiety with the desire to "assert oneself", when it's closer the opposite; socially anxious people quite often don't want to assert themselves, which is exactly why the "just politely decline" strategy is misses the mark so badly. The fact that wearing the earbuds opts out of that passively rather than actively is the entire reason it's desirable.
In one of my other comments in this thread, I explicitly called out that this desire has nothing to do with like or dislike of the people who I might have social pressure to interact with. Some people find social interaction a net expenditure of energy even with people they like, and having to do that repeatedly throughout the day because I want to go to the doctor or something and society has decided that it's "rude" if I don't engage with literally anyone who happens to want to talk to me when I'm in public is honestly just silly. It's not like I'm keeping the earbuds in and refusing to talk to anyone when checking in at the waiting room; I just don't care to have to have a chat with my Uber driver or strangers on the subway while I'm out, and it's ridiculous to imply that I should just never go in public if I don't feel the way you do.
The place between my house and all of the other places I might need to go? Is your argument that people should just not go to the doctor or get driver's licenses unless they're willing to interact with every stranger who wants to talk to them lest they be "rude"? I don't understand how you can in good faith claim that needing to do something obligatory outside of their house or apartment is actively opting into social interaction with literally everyone else in public.
You can simply decline the conversation. It's not as big of a deal as you are making it out to be. I'm not saying you have to actively opt into social interaction, whatever that means. I'm saying its reasonable for others to offer social interaction if you're in public.
"You can simply decline the conversation" and "it's not a big deal" are entirely subjective and based on the assumption that being extroverted is normal. Your rules of etiquette are that I need to go out of my way to give people the opportunity to talk to me so that I can tell them not to rather than just signaling to them that I don't want to (which saves us both time and lets me quietly enjoy some music on the meantime), which is just bizarre.
Whether grocery shopping or an endurance running event (5K+) those with any kind of headphones in are simply less aware of the people trying to get around them.
> I don't remember any time in my life where it ever felt normal to me to randomly talk to strangers
> And I'm not an introvert!
See that's interesting, because I *am* an introvert, but I'm quite happy to sit and talk to strangers. I don't mind it at all.
One of the few cultural similarities that I feel like London has with Scotland (where I live) is that you can just talk to people. People will talk. If you go to Glasgow and you ask for directions, chances are that the person you ask will walk with you to where you're going and point out good places to eat and interesting things to see along the way. Boston people have just learned this in a big way.
My son is even more so, and at not-quite-six he already appears to know most of the people in the town of 14,000 people where we live, how their farms are doing, how are the cows, what weight of potatoes are they getting per hectare, what prices they're getting at market, how they're getting on with that gearbox problem with the van. It takes about an hour to walk the mile or so back from school because he's got to talk to all the old guys and ask how they're doing.
Social Networking at its finest. I suspect he won't be stuck for a job when he's older.
That's strange to me that you mention London as being similar to Glasgow. I've not had the chance to visit either, but my go-to on this topic has always been this faux news story on the Mash Report:
Maybe it depends on where you are and the cultural makeup of the part of London you're in, then?
As an aside, I used to work for the company in Glasgow that build The Daily Mash's website before they got all into the ad-heavy money-at-all-costs thing. It used to be much better and the guys behind are actually pretty decent.
Yeah the most unbelievable part of this is people randomly chatting in London.
I live in London, and I remember flying to Ireland at some point, and I was seated next to an Irish lady returning home from holiday who sparked up a conversation.
My initial reaction was "Why the fuck are you talking to me?" because I had lived in London so long I was thrown off by a random person sparking conversation. But turns out she was just a lovely Irish lady flying from from holiday
> It takes about an hour to walk the mile or so back from school because he's got to talk to all the old guys and ask how they're doing.
Wow, this really pushes back against the all might HN narrative that the world is now too dangerous to allow this. You have found a real gem of living. My guess: The farmers are probably all too happy to have a young curious lad to talk with a few times a week!
As someone who is often pretty introverted, I feel like wireless earbuds just give me a way to act like I already wanted to with less friction. I pretty rarely want to talk to random strangers, not because I have anything against them, but because I just find it takes a lot of energy for me to do so (probably not in small part from having to replicate a lot of what comes naturally from others in terms of social signal reading with extra effort). People seem to be a lot less likely to randomly initiate conversations with me when I'm out in public with my earbuds on, and that saves me from having to decide between feeling even more tired after going out or the awkwardness of trying to cut off the conversation short to avoid spending energy on it.
As someone from Chicago (actual Chicago, south side, not the suburbs), randomly talking to strangers is what we do.
We're talking to strangers at the bus stop, at the grocery check out, or just wherever. It's just phatic conversation, nothing needs to come of it. Chicagoans aren't just friendly, they actually love the art of the conversation -- every conversation is a chance to put in the reps.
But the minute you step into the suburbs, this habit disappears.
I grew up on the south side and lived for years in Lakeview; we moved back from Ann Arbor to Oak Park, much later, the only time I've lived "in the suburbs", and Oak Park is more urban than Beverly or Jeff Park are. And then, of course, even after we moved to Oak Park, I still worked in the city every day.
No, this doesn't track my experience of Chicago at all.
It's a class thing more than a geography thing. Culturally working-class urban Americans are chatty in almost every American city, save the most recently-urbanized ones (like PHX -- and even there there Latinos are chatty even if whitey ain't...)
Reading a bunch of these posts, a similar thought occurred to me. When I lived for a short time in Manhattan, I found the friendliest / most chatty were always working class types that ran small businesses or worked in the trades. I wonder if it is nothing more than these people are much more exposed to "strangers" through their professions. As a result, they are much less afraid to open a conversation.
My experience of Chicago (North side) was that it was full of polite but unfriendly people. This was jarring to my experience growing up in NY, where people tend to be more rude but friendly. I settled in Atlanta, where people are more polite but quite friendly.
> But the minute you step into the suburbs, this habit disappears.
This is exactly the feeling I get in the suburbs of most places, and I think the nature of car-centric suburbs serves as a decent analogy for the Airpodsification of otherwise more urban areas. Suburbanites want their palace that they can tightly control, and it rarely matters where it is as long as they can drive to anywhere they need to go, but they don't really like people and it feels like a deeply antisocial liminal space. There's rarely any specific reason anyone would want to be there, and even if they did, they'd have to drive, and if they chose not to, people there use their cars as tools for avoiding interactions with strangers. You wake up, get in your motorized comfort bubble / killing machine, and then drive from point A to B and then back to Point A. If you wanted to go hangout, oftentimes the act of driving that you've chosen sucks all that time away anyway. Drivers then get dogs so they have some sort of excuse to interact with other people who have dogs, or kids or whatever.
Then if they're lucky, they wake up one day and realize they don't see any real friends that aren't their immediate neighbors anymore, and they've lost the ability to understand how to meet people outside of work. Their old friends didn't come out for that bbq because it's dead boring and the bbq master is the only one that doesn't have a commute back. The bar in their basement sits empty because it turns out people actually want to go to the pub instead of sitting in the basement. The novelty was never the drinking itself, but the feeling of coming together in the same space and place as other people hanging out having a good time.
> Suburbanites want their palace that they can tightly control
Don't rich people do the same in big cities? That has been my experience. They live in enormous apartments or private homes and drive everywhere. The richest have a personal driver and assistant to do all the chores in their life. The difference with all the other people in that big city: They cannot afford to do the same. The suburbs allows the middle class a chance to get that (some) level of control that they can afford.
Yes, I experienced this a number of times in my life.
Growing up in a small Swiss village I wasn’t born in, I had to learn that you basically greeted everybody you passed in the road, under the assumption that you knew them or were supposed to know them (more conversations were not needed).
Moving to a large Swiss village, I had to learn that saying hi to random strangers was considered weird at best.
First time I visited Southern California, I was very uncomfortable with strangers striking up random conversations. Later in the trip in San Franciso, I felt that the slightly toned down form of this habit was more comfortable for me.
Moving back to Switzerland after having lived in CA for a few years, I had to relearn old habits.
Similar experience here. I grew up in rural Ireland in the 80s where you said hello to everyone but had a culture shock when I moved to Dublin for college. I quickly realised that you don’t greet everyone. I put it down to a being a matter of scale: in the countryside, it’s easy to say hello to everyone when you’ll usually encounter only a small number of people. It’d be impossible to say hello to everyone in a big city.
I still say hi to people when doing things like hiking a trail that’s off the beaten track: we’re sharing a similar experience and have that one thing in common. If it’s a popular trail or busy weekend, it’s more akin to being in a large town where you don’t say hello.
Another rural-urban division in Ireland is that in the countryside, car drivers greet oncoming drivers – whether they know each other or not – by subtly raising a finger or two while keeping their hands on the steering wheel. Since the 80/90s, this custom has been dying out in the counties near Dublin but I still see it in the West of Ireland. A few years ago, we were holidaying in West Cork and my wife was driving but hadn’t realised we were being greeted by the locals. As a Dubliner, she’d never even heard of this practice.
Edit: By the way, I just noticed your username. Seeing that you’re from Switzerland, I was wondering if it’s a reference to the Celtic Frost album?
Oh, I’d forgotten about this! I never drive much in Ireland but was in the car a lot with my dad as a kid. When he’d visit family in Longford this was happening all the time - I just assumed everyone knew him!
Years later, when I’ve been driving and visiting the country, I found myself on the receiving end of this and it all clicked.
How long do you think that's going to be true? The other "gotcha" is that some 26 percent of humans aren't on the Internet.
I'm sorry, the guidelines state that we should assume the strongest possible argument.
What part of the world could possibly reject the onslaught of an American advertising campaign? If you don't have TVs to see our ads on, well give them to ya!
The trick to talking to strangers, in my experience, is to find an opportune moment where you have a reason to talk to them (ie: you are both looking at the same departure timetable and you ask about a particular train/flight). The response will determine whether the stranger is open to carrying on a conversation. Of course, if their presence in the shared space is short, this makes it harder as these opportunities are not always present.
Smoking is probably the best lubricant (ie: borrowing a lighter, asking about a brand/vape, etc.) and people when they smoke are usually more open to strike a conversation. That's not an endorsement of smoking (and I've quit very recently).
My mom was one of those people that talked to people everywhere we went and seemed to know someone everywhere too. As a very shy kid I was constantly mortified but I had the startling realisation several years back that I'm that person now just starting conversations all over the place. Oddly enough seeing your comment I think the change happened when I moved to England in my late teens but I didn't recognise it until my 30s. I do wear my airpods a lot on walks these days but I always silence them as I approach people and regularly take them out if it seems like a conversation is about to start.
Agreed. These people seem to be panicking that our precious society is suffering because of choices people are making for themselves when that’s just what society is. If they benefit from talking to more people, go ahead and enjoy the benefits. They aren’t owed anything.
I’ll talk to strangers when it makes me feel good. But most of the time I try avoid inviting weirdos to complain about minorities or marginalized people from someone who has driven away anyone close to them.
>> I try avoid inviting weirdos to complain about minorities or marginalized people from someone who has driven away anyone close to them.
I would suggest that it's your avoidance of talking to strangers that makes you think this is how a lot of them think. And it kind of proves the point that society can suffer because of it. If you went out tomorrow and talked to 100 random strangers for 10mins I'd be surprised if any of them complained about minorities.
That is my experience as well -- most people are basically good.
But my personal experience has also been that the sort of people who ignore social cues and try and chat someone up who is wearing headphones while riding public transit or working out are generally less good.
> Agreed. These people seem to be panicking that our precious society is suffering because of choices people are making for themselves when that’s just what society is. If they benefit from talking to more people, go ahead and enjoy the benefits. They aren’t owed anything.
I hope you don't complain when people use social media or have LLM as their daddy to cope then :)
I don't like talking to strangers and I would consider myself rather introvert, although not extremely (I'm more of a misanthropist, maybe). That said, talking to strangers is really quite easy; I do it sometimes, esp. to entertain my friends while walking on a busy street. It's quite fun. It can happen that you plunge into deep conversations too, with someone you met just seconds ago!
Technology and culture evolve together - I don’t think it’s a dichotomy.
Teenagers today are probably more likely to share your disinclination towards social interaction because they grew up during a time when AirPods are so ubiquitous.
It's one thing to isolate against strangers in a subway. It's another thing to be goddamn oblivious in a shared space like a grocery store--to take a random (not) example. It's getting to the point that I have to body up to people to get them to take notice that they're blocking a half dozen of us.
I also do agree with the comment that airpods do seem to get in the way of the most basic of social etiquette. Simple "please" and "thank you" are increasingly rare since you can't recognize the cues when your ears are full of something else.
as someone who enjoys talking to strangers, while it is less common in some countries like China, and big cities in most countries, people tend to react mostly the same.
After reading about the default mode network here a few times recently, I think missing out on all that critical "daydreaming" time is a bigger problem. I've stopped listening to things while I'm out walking, and I've noticed a lot more solutions and ideas coming to me. The DMN seems to fall into a similar area as meditation (remember when that was all the rage among tech leaders?); the lowered input noise gives the brain time to clear things out.
I'm a big fan of having noise cancelling earphones in with no music or audio when going for a walk. It's amazing how it forces you to think as you say and brings a kind of clarity.
I am a big fan of walking around in nature (even parks) enjoying nature sounds. It positively affects my mood. Bird sounds are my favorite, but while in bed I love the rain outside.
No doubt this website has a better range of sounds, but this is also built into iOS/MacOS as an accessibility feature which means you can use it even when offline.
Everything has its moments :) Most of the times I like complete silence, so often I sit up until 3-4 so I can sit on the balcony for 10/15 minutes in complete silence. Other times walking in nature hearing the environment and animals brings a lot of mindfulness and introspection. I've been nostalgic for the sounds of a running train in the past too, or just the rumble of living next to a busy plaza, but too much of that would be annoying too.
I often put AirPods in and turn the noise cancellation on, but don't play any audio. Many other commenters mention the same thing.
Different people have different levels of ability to filter out background noise. Some people can focus and ignore the outside world so much that you have to wave a hand in front of their face if you need their attention. Other people can't help but parse background conversations and noises all around them.
Noise cancelling headphones level the playing field for people in the second category: It allows them to dial down the distractions and focus like the first group when their environment is fighting hard against it.
Even listening to background music has the same effect for many people. Music, especially familiar music, is not necessarily engaging enough to pull people out of their relaxed states and focus on the music.
I miss daydreaming too. In younger years, I often had boring, repetitive work but I could daydream the full day. Then as more you need the brain for work, as less time you have to daydream. Now I have really cool work, but I can't daydream at all.
Even I use mostly public transportation (train) and have my headphones with me, I rarely use they. I kind like to hear and feel the people around me.
In high school and college I worked at a Christmas tree farm, and eventually was also a landscaper/hardscaper, caring for, digging up and planting trees, and building retaining walls and patios. At the time it made for good motivation to keep doing well in school, as the hours were long, and while easy for a fit 18-22 year old, definitely back breaking kind of stuff.
However, looking back on it I miss those weeks and months on end of having 6+ hours a day to be outside, working my body, but doing tasks that let my mind wander all over. No doubt those years of daydreaming helped me become the person I am today, and everybody has to grow up at some point, but I do wish I could get more of that back into my daily life. In fact, I think a large part of my current path towards early retirement is just to have that sort of time back.
> After reading about the default mode network here a few times recently, I think missing out on all that critical "daydreaming" time is a bigger problem.
Part of the reason why I listen to music and scroll my phone is to get some peace from the default mode network.
I don't feel like I would do it as often if my mind didn't insist on being busy all the time.
> The DMN seems to fall into a similar area as meditation (remember when that was all the rage among tech leaders?); the lowered input noise gives the brain time to clear things out.
I am not skilled enough in that department to say anything with certainty. But formal meditation is about intentionally focusing the mind, and the talkative mind or whatever it is called in the buddhist traditions is probably this default mode network. Which is the first obstacle; being able to focus on the meditation object without having your attention hijacked because oh what's for dinner, did I send that email, but what about that other email, oh but I couldn't log in on my phone, oh by the way that phone is also annoying in terms of that related thing, but I should stop using my phone as much anyway what about getting one of those dual SIM cards that I read about on HN.
In my experience, it's probably healthier for the mind to have the DMN active more than someone who can distract themselves all the time do. But to me DMT looks to meditation like sunbathing looks to a day's hike (yeah you're outside for both of these activities but).
I'll take the opportunity to add that there are as many meditative goals and techniques as there are cultures.
What you are describing is likely closest to certain forms of zazen, in which one tries to focus on just one thing or no-thing in order to quiet the mind.
However, just as common, is the various vipassana schools in which one attempts to gain specific insight through specific observation.
In the former, enlightenment comes from still states, in the latter from evolving states.
Then of course there are many visualization and trance traditions, though those are more common the further west you go from SEA.
All that is to say that not all meditation is simple sitting. There are walking meditations, dancing meditations, chanting meditations, visualizations, prayer, etc. And while they differ in technique, they all have the goal of achieving some specific state of mind.
I wouldn't go so far as to say the DMN is akin to mediation. The DMN what activates when your brain is not focused on the outside world, eg when you're reflecting on the past, or contemplating the future. That's almost precisely the opposite of mindfulness, which is about the somatic experience of the present moment.
To give you another perspective, I think I suffer from far too much DMN activity. It's very easy for "reflection" to slide into rumination. Increase DMN activity is highly correlated with depression. And I found daily mindfulness meditation to be incredibly helpful at counterbalancing that, spending less time in my head and more time in my embodied experience.
I've done the exact same. I frequently take walks and walk places and often used that time for an audio book or podcast. A zen revelation has been taking these walks and not bringing my phone. It's my daily meditation.
> The DMN seems to fall into a similar area as meditation
I'm curious about the relationship between mind wandering as exploration leading to insight and mind wandering as rumination. It seems like DMN is more associated with the latter. Its association with meditation likely comes from studies like the below.
Meditation leads to reduced default mode network activity beyond an active task
ADHD + Airpods means that I'm often putting them in, and stepping out of the house and completely forgetting to put something on. I'll just walk around with the noise cancelling on and it's super nice in a busy city.
Yeah, I have noticed this as well. When I’m trying to solve a difficult problem, it seems that way more ideas arrive to me unprompted when I take a break from heavy listening.
In a really big and busy city it's emotionally exhausting and not reasonable to have an interaction with everyone near you. The only way a lot of people can tolerate being packed into busy public transit systems on a daily basis is to intentionally ignore each other to a certain degree.
It's essentially the same unspoken etiquette rule as what you're socially expected to do if riding a crowded elevator.
Go commute by NYC subway 10 times a week, M-F especially during peak tourist season and you'll understand.
I intentionally behave completely different if I'm in a small town of 3000 people or walking down the street, shopping, riding transit in a large city.
It's not. I really like public transport. It is cheap (I pay 22 euros a month unlimited), I can do something I like like reading or watching something. I don't have to worry about when my parking expires or having to return to a car. It's pretty ideal IMO.
You do have to ignore the people around yes but I don't find that a problem at all.
because it has other people on it? personally I find that sitting down and getting passively carried near to my destination is way less stressful than paying attention to the road that whole time - not to mention finding parking. You don't end up exactly at your destination, but a little bit of walking is good for you.
Assuming you live in a locale with a reasonably efficient system. I've heard some horror stories about north american public transport. Other countries tend to do much better with timetables and routes.
I've never caught a train nor a bus in my life and intend to never do so. I value my privacy and don't want to get stabbed or sit on a chair where someone has pissed all over.
Am European, at least in the big cities, public transport is mostly not worth using unless you are too poor to afford better options.
Too crowded, too hot, there’s a decent chance of arriving at your destination drenched in sweat. Not to mention how absolutely gross the people sitting next to you will often be.
I’ll happily take a few parking fines every day rather than getting in the tube.
I could afford a car and I also live in a big European city. But a car is a huge hassle here. Just trying to figure out where to park the thing every time is a huge stressor. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that anymore. Nor the fuel, the fines, the maintenance, the insurance, the road tax, the parking fees all that stuff. I could afford it but I'd rather spend it on something I actually enjoy.
Public transport here costs a fixed fee a month for which I couldn't even top up a quarter tank.
It sounds like a dream. Well air-conditioned public transport can certainly be a wonderful experience. I was a huge fan of the MTR when living in Hong Kong.
Unfortunately those implementations are far from the norm though, but of course all of these networks are seeing gradual upgrades.
How about in European big cities where that is not the case? Prague, London, Prague, Budapest, Zurich, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna…? So many people, especially not particularly poor people, use them to commute every single week. Notoriously, for some of these cities, it is slower to travel by car for your commute.
I live in London, temperatures in excess of 30C are frequent on the Tube. If I’m going to or coming from the gym, that’s fine. Otherwise it really isn’t.
The metro in Prague is indeed good, it’s just not a big city.
Zurich also has excellent public transport, but it’s really a village at best.
Madrid has Barcelona beat, but still occasionally suffers from a lack of air conditioning frequently leading to absurd temperatures.
I also live in London and never specified underground or trains only for any of these cities. Buses also cheap and air conditioned.
Also 2-4 months at best out of the year is not a great argument for public transportation not being the better option compared to cars and parking that don’t scale.
Side note, Elizabeth, District, Circle, Hammersmith & city, and Metropolitan lines where many people work are air conditioned. So are the trains to paddington and St. Pancras from any “village” outside of the London zones. This summer especially it’s been good for me.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s a plenty of good public transport in London. I’m just of the opinion that unless you happen to live on a particularly good route, the experience is too inconsistent.
I love the trains, Gatwick express is downright brilliant.
> Also 2-4 months at best out of the year is not a great argument for public transportation not being the better option compared to cars and parking that don’t scale.
Temperatures in packed tube carriages are very high no matter the time of the year, the bodies of the passengers alone put out sufficient heat.
When the AC works, that’s fine. My experience is that it fails far more often than I’m willing to accept.
high speed trains, that can go up to about 350kmph/200mph, are the norm in Europe if you're going a long distance across France or Germany, but they're not daily public transit for most people just like flying isn't.
You've never tried it but are still convinced it's a hellhole? I took a bus and train downtown yesterday and it was a perfectly smooth experience. And at least as far as I noticed, nobody stabbed anyone or pissed in any seats.
It really depends, I would much rather travel by NYC subway or Vancouver SkyTrain or Seattle light rail if my origin and destination are within walking distance. It's the least horrible option in many cases. Good luck to anyone's stress level and pocketbook trying to commute by car in much of NYC and pay $550 a month for parking.
I have a hot take about commuting by car from the suburbs into midtown Manhattan (the densest part). The trick is time of day. If you are a gov't bond trader, it it is pretty normal to get to the office around 6AM. You can easily beat morning traffic arriving that early. Also, your day ends very early, so the return commute is also easy.
This is a classic myopic HN reply. I will be downvoted for this harsh response: You fuckin' dummy, "bond trader" was an example profession that is (1) high income and (2) needs to arrive early to work. Probably most lawyers and many medical doctors would be simliar. Also, if you own multiple pizza stores that need to get started early, the same rules would apply.
It was an intentionally myopic reply. Most jobs have fixed start times that people can't change around to avoid traffic unless you want to add an extra hour of dawdling before and after work. When someone complains about commute traffic, do you suggest they switch profession to lawyer?
There's no "trick" here. Its just a repackaged form of what literally every commuter knows that leaving early can beat traffic.
Right, I could have written that much more pessimistically with 850/mo parking, insurance, congestion charges 5 days a week x 2, cost of car insurance, maintenance, fuel, cost of the car itself, etc.
The insurance in NYC is at least twice the rest of the country and then there is the likelihood your car will be hit or stolen while you're away, meaning at the very least it will be in the shop for a while. People I know who had cars in Manhattan or Brooklyn still took the train most of the time, leaving the car in the garage.
I remember in the 70s and 80s people on buses and subways reading magazines and newspapers. The idea that electronic devices have ushered in some age where humans want to interact with each other less is a myth I think.
There seems to be an overall, “I’m just now aware of this phenomenon, technology must be to blame” when the phenomenon has stayed constant and the tech has shifted under it.
The other related phenomenon is "I dont believe culture and society can change, so I pick something I am vaguely aware of existing in the past. The people who are old enough to be there know the comparison makes no sense, but it allow me to stop the discussion about change".
Like, there was some reading of newspapers and magazines, but not that much. They were large, you know. Most people stared silently out of the window. Multiple people reading newspapers on the bus would be rare occurrence. And it was NOT noisy unlike tiktok video.
I don't think that's it. I think highly anti-social behavior is often deliberate, looking for someone to challenge you. An exertion of power. That's why pretty much everyone learns to ignore the behavior and not say anything.
If you can't or won't illustrate why the two are similar, avoid making the analogy. It just invites a fork in the conversation where people are going to argue "actually it's like a homeless guy taking a shit in my glove box," and other spurious diversions.
The point is that just because two things are used to avoid a third thing doesn't mean they're comparable when one of them is much less disruptive to those around you. There are people who don't think being forced into interactions because there didn't happen to be a way to decline without being considered rude is a better state that allowing people to opt out. Framing it as "both are examples of the same problem" is based on the (in my opinion flawed) premise that it's an objective problem in the first place rather than the previous social norm that was tilted towards extroverts now having more accomodations for those who aren't as extroverted.
Coincidentally, the latter increases the number of the former. Most people are going to avoid confrontation and instead opt for their personal noise cancelation.
>> As a GenYer I find this rude and I'll take them out any time I interact with someone.
Interesting point. Airpods actually work great as hearing aids and I personally use that in loud environments, but I find myself cringing when I do because exactly of what you say. So maybe normalizing their use even when interacting is fine? Still, I can't shake off the idea that I'm not fully connected with you if I'm talking to you and I'm wearing something in my ears...
Yeah, to me personally it just seems like treating the other person (e.g. a cashier or waiter) like a tool or utility rather than a human being. Even if your music is paused (which they can't know)
Have you asked an actual cashier what they think? They handle hundreds of people every day, do you really think they consider it rude if people don't chat them up? You can smile and say hello and thank you with or without headphones. This once again seems like a cultural divide, as a German I'm happy if noone talks to me outside of smiles and hello/goodbye, this might be different in the anglosphere.
Yeah I take them out too. The only exception is ear protectors (loops) which I wear in discoteques/parties. When I talk to people I don't usually take them out because I wear them for protection. If they notice I will explain and they don't mind.
In fact it's easier to hear them with those in anyway. I'm just very sensitive to sound and I have already damaged my hearing a bit when I was young.
Reasonable enough. I kind of assume when I step out my front door that my attention will be hijacked more or less continuously by various things and people until I reach wherever I’m going.
> > They keep them in while ordering and paying for things in stores and supermarkets.
> As a GenYer I find this rude and I'll take them out any time I interact with someone.
I don't take my headphones off while paying for things in a supermarket - because you aren't really expected to talk or listen in this scenario, and the cashier doesn't want to interact with you either. But for anything more involved, like ordering something in a coffeeshop - yeah, absolutely.
Agree, it definitely is rude. Saying hello, good afternoon, responding to a question about cash/card also involves communication, and with earbuds it is simply rude to the other person.
If you don't want to talk to anyone, go to self-checkout or a vending machine, but cashiers are humans and not just robots scanning items.
I see nobody saying "good afternoon" in a grocery store, that's the one place where you keep interactions to a minimum.
Also, self-checkouts are not always an option because at least the ones at grocery stores here never accept cash.
Lived in DC and this is very true, lived in London and would be thinking about it all day if I ignored a cashier. London it is polite to say please, thank you, good afternoon, and all other verbal mannerisms.
The author is from Germany and still complaining about Americans interacting with each other less in public? I've been to Germany so many times and almost never seen anyone speaking to strangers on trains/buses/trams. Once I was on a train from Cologne to Frankfurt with a colleague and we were talking nonstop. After a while we realized it was just us talking and probably disturbing everyone else!
People go to extreme lengths to avoid talking to strangers on public transport even in developing countries. Earphones are just so effective.
Oh god I love how quiet European trains are. I used to take trains a lot in my childhood and until my 20s in Ukraine. Sometimes trains were buzzing with voices during the day, especially if someone was drinking. Not all rides were like this, of course, but in general I remember a lot of noise. German trains are so soothing in comparison!
> Heavy headphone use makes people feel lonelier, the survey found.
Correlation for sure, I’m less sure about causation though. It seems equally likely to me that other factors are driving increased social anxiety/isolation which in turn drives people to wear headphones to avoid social interactions.
I'll chuck autism and overstimulation in there too. There's a reason that there's the stereotype of the autist wearing their noise-cancelling headphones.
Yeah, I'm surprised this isn't highlighted more in these comments. "A small study" and "an article" and such seems to be the basis for this article, and yet there's seemingly no work done to identify if it's actually that people's attitudes have changed, and they're adopting headphones because of that.
It's not as if there's been major, literal earth-changing events that happened in incredibly recent memory that might have changed how people socialize or interact or anything, right? Let's just blame a specific brand of a piece of technology that has existed for decades, instead.
>> It seems equally likely to me that other factors are driving increased social anxiety
Social anxiety thrives on avoidance. It's a feedback loop. So likely it's correlation + causation. Your anxious so you wear the headphones to block out the world which only breeds more anxiety.
The thought of intentionally deafening myself to the outside world, even partially, is unnerving, because I can't stand the thought of nerfing my own situational awareness to that degree. Especially in fast-paced environments, like city streets, where sounds can carry such important signal.
Even watching someone else walk around a city with headphones/earbuds in is something that makes me uncomfortable by proxy. It's like someone deciding that walking around with beer goggles is a good idea
I live in cities, and I usually walk around 15-20k steps every day for the last decade in cities. I listen to music or podcasts in my earbuds, and often I read stuff on chat on my phone as I walk. I have never run into anything, and never had any issue bumping into people or cyclists. It's perfectly possible for some people to navigate just fine in their environment while dealing with multiple stimuli, and in fact that's exactly why I love walking so much more than sitting. Having earbuds or using my phone at the same time for me is certainly nothing like being intoxicated while walking. It's important to not project one's experience as how it must also be for everyone else.
No I also dodge, because I glance around the entire time I do things. I have ADHD. I feel more comfortable having continual tasks and stimuli, so looking both way, glancing at who's around, pressing the button for crossing the street, these are part of the background pleasure.
You don't have to share my experience, but the difference is that you deny mine can exist, whereas I am perfectly fine understanding e.g. the autistic person who also posted about how they wear earbuds to use ANC because noise disturbs them. You are not granting the same consideration about how other people experience things differently.
You can turn most of them into transparency mode too. I do that sometimes when I'm in an area where I feel unsafe. So I can hear people sneaking up on me.
Transparency mode is better, but it isn't perfect. The simple fact that you have something else producing noise in close proximity to your ears is enough to disrupt your ability to hear other things, even if they're also making it to your ears with high fidelity.
I mean, noise cancelling works by producing more noise, not less; and there will be plenty of times when what's outside with destructively interfere with what you're listening to, or vice versa.
This may be hard to do in a city, but a good test is to go outside on a quiet night, wearing only on one ear, and then turn your head back and forth to alternate ears while trying to listen to specific distant sounds. It'll really highlight just how many things are still being filtered out.
Or it'll demonstrate how much more deaf you might be in one ear :P
I was in college when the first iPod came out. As an early adopter that was super into my music that first year or so, wearing white headphones around campus actually came with more social interaction. It felt like everyone was staring at me and usually people constantly interrupted my jam sessions to ask me about them. The novelty quickly wore off for me, I realized I preferred a more private speakered environment for my jams. I also did and still suffer from massive pain caused from most in ear headphones, even the recent AirPods with adjustable silicone tips I use sparingly and never more than a hour or so.
What was weird was about 2 years later it completely flipped. I had written off my iPod in public while the entire world adopted them. I went from being the only one on a bus with white corded buds, usually recipient of people’s gazes, I was being antisocial and everyone’s eyes were telling about it. To suddenly, I was the only one engaged. Everyone else was being antisocial. This was well before the iPhone but people still just stared at their play list and stopped interacting. A quiet bus full of college students was a strange thing to witness but it took over as the social norm.
That's my memory as well. Early '00s, I was also in college and seemingly one year campus went from a broadly friendly, social place to one with a lot of people, headphones in, focused on their own little world.
There were Walkmans and disc Walkmans before that, of course, but MP3 players were a step change in social isolation, from my perspective. Bluetooth earbuds + a wave of streaming audio content have been another.
The time after I left campus life in mid00s was relatively normal until the AirPods came out then everyone everywhere started again with the headphones in most of the time, it’s been that way since.
What I find interesting is how there seems to be some people that also are just always on the phone talking in public. It’s either a headphone call or often complimented with the handheld FaceTime. The forced eavesdropping I am subjected to makes it sound like nothing important is being discussed. Reminds me of my land line calls as a pre/teen where we just spent hours on the phone with a friend and basically had nothing to say, maybe we watched TV together and commented about the show.
The phenomenon seems much more prevalent in certain demographic groups from my totally nonscientific observations and I find that interesting as well. From what I can tell, in jest, black women are not capable of grocery shopping without being on the phone with another person (and not talking about shopping list items).
> I also did and still suffer from massive pain caused from most in ear headphones, even the recent AirPods with adjustable silicone tips I use sparingly and never more than a hour or so.
Yes, I feel like I’ve tried everything and usually just use over the ear when I need them. More than anything, I just optimize for not needing them. I have a dedicated office so I can use speakers. I use the AirPods on flights under 3 hours which is my majority. I just have sore ears after and live with it. But I don’t wear headphones anywhere around town like what the article is talking about it. I see it and decided not to participate way back because of the antisocial part that was obvious so long ago.
Is this a primary preference or something you do because of your environment (busy coworking space/ cubicles/etc)? I use over the ear headphones when I need to but am thankful that I’ve almost always had a dedicated office and can use speakers and a microphone without disrupting anyone else. I also like the speakers because I can listen to voice/music while muting OS sounds or control volume separately pretty easily. The mic is just part of my camera, but it’s also a peripheral as my work laptop builtin is pretty crappy and I usually am docked with laptop closed.
I do think over the ear is so much better at anything else at noise canceling and blocking out the outside noises in general. On a flight it’s leaps and bounds better at blocking the dull humming of the plain. I have to really crank up the volume on AirPods to be able to hear a movie or podcast. It ends up feeling like I’ve actually done more harm than good to my ear health. Although the compact carry is a huge benefit
I only use them for zoom calls. Just what I had in the drawer with a microphone during covid and they have yet to break. I think the mic is better than the laptop mic since it is closer to the mouth. For any other audio I break out over ear monitors.
The modern world is funny. I have a hearing impairment, tinnitus, and use both AirPods and less visible hearing aids to hear people better. I only wear the AirPods around people who know me well enough to know that I am wearing them so that I can better hear them. I don’t want strangers to think I don’t want to hear them or that I am being rude. When I am out among strangers, I wear the less visible hearing aids.
But a funny consequence is that because my modern, less visible, hearing aids are connected to my phone, I am often listening to podcasts or news and nobody can tell. So sometimes a stranger will say something and I have to pause the audio and ask them to repeat themselves.
I am wondering what social norms will be like once everyone has less visible electronics in their ears.
A brief ring buffer is a fairly privacy-respecting implementation, as opposed to long-term capture and storage.
Demonstrating that such a capability is in fact a brief ring buffer to the average Joe or Josephina on the street might prove more challenging, and numerous similar technologies have rapidly acquired a highly pejorative taint, e.g., "glassholes".
No, it never occurred to me. This has prompted a fun discussion with my wife. I suggested I could grow some stem cells into a skin that would match the color of my ears. She suggests that I should not have these ideas.
The author is a "Firm believer that humankind took a wrong turn with the invention of the smartphone." and has a new book coming out, so naturally he is trying to push some anti-tech narrative.
No, headphones don't make people antisocial. If someone is wearing headphones, respect their privacy and just leave them alone.
Some people just don't like to chat to random people on the subway or at the supermarket. Some people just don't see the value of mundane conversations with strangers.
It depends on the culture and personality. Some people like it, some don't.
In the US, people are more inclined to chat to strangers, and in Germany for example they aren't. These differences are actually what make us "human", so it's not a binary decision of: talking to strangers == good, and headphones == bad.
I don't think the author presents it as such a binary decision though.
The fact is that in practice, it's either headphones in or out when in public. Meaning wearing them all the time effectively means IRL Do Not Disturb.
> I think we need regular doses of real human contact — not just with close friends, but with acquaintances, and even with strangers — to counterbalance all the negativity we encounter in the news and online, and to remind us that, on the whole, people are kind and well-meaning.
I think the author may have a point here, but he'll be hard pressed to convince anyone to give up the benefits of 'sonic isolation' through music and noise cancelation that people seem to have discovered.
> I think we need regular doses of real human contact — not just with close friends, but with acquaintances, and even with strangers — to counterbalance all the negativity we encounter in the news and online, and to remind us that, on the whole, people are kind and well-meaning.
Well how about cut all the negative bs so there’s nothing to counter-balance? Nobody forces you to read news if they affect you so much.
On a gut level I agree 100% as I'm feeling the same feelings and prefer no contact. But on a biological level it's definitely better to have more social interactions and talking to strangers specifically has many benefits to both you as an individual and for creating a better society.
I mean what do you want the author to write, cooking recipes? Where is he "pushing" it? Writing a substack related to the theme of the book you're writing is, apparently .. bad? Even if true, are we we not supposed to market things at all. Sure, there's a line after which shilling becomes distasteful, is that really the case here or is it an overreaction?
I can image that because of motivation to sell his ideas and writing, he is in incentivized to sensationalize the research he refers too. Not that the author claims to be a scientific writer but many people find it intellectually dishonest to try to push your opinion and often clever but, ultimately, anecdotal observations about the world via “scientific” language.
I live in a big city and notice this a lot as well. I’m starting to reduce my headphone usage. My hearing is getting worse at a young age.
I don’t think the default should be needing to have a soundtrack to your life. I’m a long distance runner and often run 15-20+ miles without music or headphones. It’s nice
Yeah, great article. But it should get to the point.
The reason you need to physically remove yourself is because of the insane lunatics that blast trash music and do a dance while aggressively panhandling or screaming at you for trying to commute quitely on the train to work. A hallmark of daily life when I worked in SF and in NYC.
A great way to fix the fake problem would be to aggressively enforce the existing laws, starting with tickets, and if that doesn't work, incarceration. Apparently it's not politically correct to do that though so I guess we are all second class citizens who need to live in a low trust society where people are increasingly isolated.
Coming back to the states after traveling abroad is always astonishing. For all our wealth, it genuinely feels worse than somewhere like Brazil in many of our big cities
The Brazilian government keeps the crime contained to specific areas, where it gets extremely bad. In the US, a generalized lack of enforcement means small amounts of nuisance crime spread around.
This reply is perfect. The anger encapsulated in it captures the exact crux of the post. The point, of course, is that advances in personal technology have coincided with a cultural shift where people feel entitled to personal isolation in public spaces.
When I moved to NYC 30 years ago, one of the things that made me fall in love with the city was the way that living in such close proximity to so many others seemed to create so much more empathy. The same effect, I now see working in reverse, minimizing contact with others with by disappearing into technology has the effect of making people less empathetic. Instead of reaching into their pocket for a subway performance, or a homeless person, people might prefer to see them arrested for the crime of violating their all important personal barriers.
My home is now a place where people are mortified by the homeless, and literally give them things off of themselves, or offer ways to existentially assist, on-sight.
Maybe it’s the crushing disproportionate volume and nature of the poverty that each effective individual is confronted with that’s to blame - I still believe people are inherently good, but they do give up pretty easily if you make it socially acceptable to ignore.
I will no longer choose to live in places it’s socially acceptable to ignore.
I don't feel entitled to personal isolation from people who might want to strike up a conversation. If I'm not in the mood, I'll just say so.
I feel entitled to personal isolation from schizophrenics, who have a good chance of assaulting me if I look at them wrong. (And did you think screaming and playing loud music was disruptive just to quiet, and not to the aforementioned conversation too?)
You are the problem, not the person you're replying to. When you say 'you must exhibit infinite tolerance of antisocial disruption', the easy response is 'or I could always just leave'.
While commuting can be chaotic, I don't think what you're calling out is the central point of the article.
Spaces that are less chaotic - coffee shops, gyms, even elevators - are places that people used to be able to strike up random short conversations with each other. Sometimes these would become longer. Sometimes they even turned into friendships.
It still happens of course, but I, like the author, am saddened that casual socialization seems to be on the decline.
I like to say Hi to people in elevators. Some reciprocate. Some find it awkward. But I don't even bother saying Hi to those wearing AirPods since that would be rude, interrupting them. Could an interaction have brightened our mutual days? Could we have become friends? Who knows, AirPods preempted it from the start.
I’ll add onto this the PA system & noise from the trains themselves. BART isn’t exactly a quiet train system, and MUNI is far too comfortable blasting announcements & propaganda through its PA system telling you not to commit crimes.
Those speakers by the way are an ADA requirement, and the only information that should be coming out of them are the stop announcements & any comms from the driver that may be necessary. Anything else in four different languages is not required, including the track telling you not to stand too close to the doors on the bus.
There's a easier solution by crime caused by poor people: they stop being poor. The fact that nobody tried is the thing that should be studied instead.
I grew up poor and that was never an inducement to commit crime. I took plenty of "food I didn't want" off my friends' hands at lunch in middle and high school, but never even thought of crime.
Although my parents weren't rich they still tried to teach right from wrong, respect for others and all the rest.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but there's plenty of examples of rich assholes who act as if money makes them immune from justice.
* Lottery winners do not commit less crime than those who do not win the lottery: https://www.nber.org/papers/w31962
* Studies of identical twins adopted and raised apart shows that crime is more correlated with genetics than environment: 45% nature vs 18-27% nurture https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25936380/
* "While individual study estimates vary, meta-analyses have suggested the level of heritability of antisocial behavior is approximately 40–60%. Shared environmental factors have been estimated to explain approximately 11–14% of the variance in antisocial/criminal behavior and non-shared environmental influences approximately 31–37%" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6640871/
* “Black men raised in the top 1 percent – by millionaires – were as likely to be incarcerated as white men raised in households earning about $36,000.” https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2018/03/19/race-class-debate/
I'm hearing this high pitched sound, does anyone else hear that?
I clicked and scrolled through several of those studies, and those snippets are incredibly misleading. I would recommend not using these in debates, unless you want to come across as a poor researcher acting in bad faith.
The very last one says nothing about genetics at all, that's saying the justice system is biased.
The second to last is part of a much more nuanced section talking about environmental impacts and the role that can play in biological expression. It literally says:
> Thus, just as biological mechanisms can influence environmental responses, environmental stressors can affect biological expressions.
The poor are impacted by lawlessness far more than the rich. No private security or fancy neighbourhoods. Cutting down on actually harmful bad behaviour (and by this I mean dealers and muggers, not broken taillights) is the best thing you can do for poor people.
You also see the behavior in the middle of the woods on a hike, or as the article mentions at upscale cafes. The whole point of the article is the near universality of wearing airpods. So a comment dwelling on US urban subways tells you more about the comment-writer's preoccupations then any sociological insight. And a top comment tells you mainly something about the preoccupations/demographics of the site.
Pretty sure my commute of 12 years had exactly zero aggressive panhandling (or unaggressive panhandling), yet just about every single person on it was wearing some flavour of them.
I've also just been in Japan, where nobody's commute has panhandling of any kind, and guess what, everyone there is tuning the world out with their headphones, too. Despite it being kind of verbotten to make noise on the subway, and the few conversations that were happening on it were very quiet.
I wasn't wearing mine during that trip. Because a relatively quiet space was actually pleasant for me to be in. American cities are so fucking noisy, and as a consequence, even people respectful of their surroundings tend to be loud.
No, it’s because city politics in the US are dominated by naive bleeding-heart type leftists who are willing to overlook any and all forms of antisocial behavior if it’s committed by a poor and/minority individual.
Considering that's where all the people and money are in this country, it's clearly not a problem for most folk. You're entitled to your outlier opinion, of course.
Eh I don't think so. Commutes are as clean and peaceful as they can be in the Netherlands or Switzerland and people are no less buried in their phones with noise-cancelling earbuds on.
The Netherlands has plenty of crazies using public transport. Every other window on the train has the emergency number on it for a reason. I refuse to travel in second class, hate being close to people that blast music, use drugs, puke or eat a broodje pindakaas.
The Netherlands even has segregated busses for asylum seekers because there was too much violence. Dutch people have their own busses and asylum seekers are required to use a separate bus with extra security. Upside is that asylum seekers don’t have to pay for a ticket.
You make it sound like it's an absolute warzone (your demographic certainly likes to push that narrative even in the most uneventful of places!). Yes I've taken trains back home from nights out at 4:30 in the morning where there were drunk girls talking loudly and (gasp!) trash on the floor. There's certainly no-one "blasting loud music" in the average train and definitely not "doing drugs".
Ofc there's a non-zero number of crazies, violent people, sexual harassers, etc. That's a certainty in a system with 400 million trips a year! But then please don't leave your home, there can be an ax murderer lying in wait at any corner!
Can confirm. Traveling via public transport in Switzerland is remarkably uneventful. It's a stark contrast to my Eastern European home country, where it is a gamble due to a certain demographic's anti-social behavior.
I commute every day in Switzerland, and we have people blasting music, shouting, putting feet on seats, taking 3 seats etc, including in 1st. I actually stopped traveling in 1st, it could be more noisy and chaotic than 2nd and the price difference wasn't worth it.
I haven't seen showtime on the subway here in NYC in a long time. And even when it happened more often, they generally would dance for all of one stop before moving to the next train car. So, what, like ~3 minutes of your commute?
Much more annoying to me these days are all the people that have decided it's acceptable to stare at their phone and zombie walk out of the train and up the stairs, completely oblivious to the world around them. They're not even making noise, just walking straight into other humans in a busy station while scrolling tiktok.
I have come to the conclusion that until I am part of the landed gentry, the erratic homeless are a positive impact on my life. They may be a nuisance and cost me a stolen package here and there but when the “let them eat cake” types move into the neighborhood is when I get priced out. That is to say like inflammation is a symptom of something being wrong in the body, their plight is emblematic of the struggle that affects everybody but the upper crusts of society. You can try to treat the symptom in either case but there are much deeper structural problems.
I’m not saying that we need to regress further as a society. I was merely providing a counterpoint to the argument that the homeless need to have their agency stripped because they’re a negative value to “productive” society.
Their negative value isn't to productivity, but to your personal safety and quality of life, and frankly their safety and quality of life too. Accepting that people who cannot look after themselves need to be looked after by the community rather than left outside to die, I personally feel, should not be a controversial position.
Wildly unfriendly and standoffish, but also extremely unaccepting of dinguses blasting music without headphones on trains and buses. You win some, you lose some. I’ll embrace the silence and make my friends outside of transit and elevators, I think. (Bias disclaimer: PNW dweller for the past 9 years)
> The reason you need to physically remove yourself is because of the insane lunatics that blast trash music and do a dance while aggressively panhandling or screaming at you for trying to commute quitely on the train to work.
I've lived (and commuted on public transit) for years in many metros including SF, NYC, Boston and DC and can't recall even a single such interaction.
I'm sure it happens, I'm also sure it happens far less often than your competing anecdote suggests.
What's interesting is how the culture of the homeless people seems to differ across SF. Civic Center to 6th & Market is consistently the worst in my experience in terms of volatile people.
Tenderloin these days is relatively peaceful (plenty of people on the streets but they're just getting high with their friends).
Mission is chaotic, extra poop on the sidewalk, sometimes masses of people 50+ deep. But also the people on the street seem to mostly know and take care of each other. Higher density of people selling stolen goods. If I take Muni bus 14 home at 3AM it's a bunch of people shuttling to shelters but being polite (although not always lucid), exchanging cans of soda, etc. However I've heard quite a few stories from 38 with people being threatening or worse.
Threatening to revoke the rights and freedoms of your fellow citizens and put them in a hellhole is pretty antisocial and sociopathic behavior, my
dude. That makes me suuuuper uncomfortable.
Oh no, better throw you in jail so I don't have to think about you. Don't mind the moldy bugs in your food, that's just extra protein.
It is an amazing piece of technology that allows you to ignore people at will by pretending you're not hearing what they're saying if they insist.
AirPods for sure do not make you more lonely. It's about your personality. Either you are an introvert or not.
> “No one talks on the bus. No one greets the barista. Even in class, students are choosing to listen to music instead of their professors,”
Why? Bother them for no good reason? I am incredibly annoyed when people come to me to make small talk. Same with classes... if the topic is interesting or the professor is good at its job people will listen. If the professor has a very non-interesting class or is a boring person, why bother listing to it? You read the notes, get a the lowest passing grade possible and go on with your life. Before tablets people would read their newspapers and be very annoyed if you bothered them. Now they have AirPods instead of tablets or newspapers. Same thing: no everybody wants to talk to everybody.
>> “No one talks on the bus. No one greets the barista ...
> Why? Bother them for no good reason?
Those 2 examples for the article are not the same situation at all... in many cultures:
"No one talks on the bus" --> very good, people are here to commute and want quiet.
"No one greets the barista" --> Wow, you're a POS human being. It's basic human dignity to greet the people you interact with.
Try the latter in a country like France for instance, skipping the "Bonjour", which is the expected cultural greeting (You're not expected to do small talk, just "Bonjour"), keep your airpods on and just place your order ... and see how the person on the other side reacts :)
> It's basic human dignity to greet the people you interact with.
No. While it might be nice, it is not mandatory. And no, no one is a POS just because it doesn’t say hi first. You have to be very entitled to think it is required or that you deserve it.
Baristas in NYC don't care about being greeted specifically. They want to take your order so they can move the line along. You will get a very strange look if you try to small talk in a busy cafe.
> They keep them in while ordering and paying for things in stores and supermarkets.
This hit me. I often use headphones during chores, including going grocery shopping. I love human interaction, but not while pickings things into my shopping basket. For years I'd also leave them in when paying (audio paused, of course). It took a cashier tell me I was being rude before I realized. She was absolutely right, of course. I do make an effort to visibly remove my headphones when expecting human interaction now. A big thanks to that cashier, and my apologies!
I’m reasonably skilled talking to strangers (can last about 3-4 hours in planes/trains/buses if the other party is up to it, after that I usually dry out of conversation), and do that frequently.
However after several years of heavy traveling and hundreds of people talked to, you realize how similar everyone is. It is always the same issues, wife/husband, the kids, the parents…
And it all starts to become a bit superficial. Sure, you can talk, but to what avail? You realize how shallow the situation is because the common ingredient in all stories is that everyone only ever care about their closed ones, which you and them will never be.
And you reassess the book option whose insight or knowledge may very well impact your life much more than yet another seconds to hours long chitchat.
That’s sad man - I also talk a lot to strangers and yeah most of the time you get average people, but then you meet that one in a million person and learn something truly fascinating or expand your sphere of knowledge or emotion or art or whatever. I’m always on the lookout for the next brilliant engineer, sensitive artist, or just a well read janitor.
Wouldn’t you consult a book or a video and practice a skill if you really wanted to expand your knowledge? And a “well-read janitor”, while certainly possible, is a trope more often seen in works of fiction. And what does “expanding your emotion or art” even mean?
Conversation tends to be a less-curated alternative. You're going to read something you've elected to read, and have expectations of, whether that's a topic of interest, favourite author, recommendation by an acquaintance, current best-seller or well-reviewed work, something hunted down through references or footnotes, etc.
The people you encounter daily may well also represent selection biases, but they're probably going to be at the very least along a different axis, and you might be surprised at what comes up. I like to have a balance of intentional and serendipitous feeds in my life, whether technically-mediated or organic. Keeps things interested.
Having the book or a podcast on tap as needed isn't a bad backup. But talking, even briefly, to strangers may prove provocative.
It means expanding your empathy. If you don’t do art, I highly recommend it. I talk to random people and learn more about the human condition and incorporate it into my songwriting.
I swear my tinnitus is a result of use of AirPods.
I never wore any type of earphones ever. Then started using AirPods for calls, during workouts or on a plane. A year later I developed tinnitus and the only thing that changed in my life was wearing AirPods.
I’m no doctor, and who knows what caused my tinnitus. But it’s irreversible. I constantly hear a humming ring now and it’s super distracting, especially trying to go to bed.
I’m no doctor. But heads up for those who haven’t used inner ear headphones.
Did you happen to get covid or had a really heavy reaction to a inoculation around that time? That's what triggered mine; but it's actually been getting a lot better and (pure anecdotal) but I think 6 months or so of a b complex vitamin pill in the mornings have helped. Apparently, it can promote nerve repair, there's absolutely no money in studying this effect however so research is scant. I think you have very little to lose by trying it, though.
It's still there, but I routinely go weeks without noticing it now.
I've had some tinnitus for very long time (decades) -- usually, it was quiet enough to ignore and sometimes it seemed like it disappeared completely. It got way worse near the beginning of 2020. It became bad enough to hear all of the time. Even a rock concert doesn't really drown it out (yeah, I tend to wear earplugs for those -- but not quite at 100%).
Also near the beginning of 2020: I was sick AF for over a month with respiratory problems and fever and intense feelings of being unwell in ways I didn't know a person could experience. (Covid? Maybe. No way to tell, as far as I know. All I know is that I was in bad shape for a long time, that it came on very quickly, and that I tested negative for flu.)
Anyway, which b complex vitamin pills might you suggest? I'm game to try just about any low-impact way to turn down the noise.
I know that these things can be bad, but it gets better. I have had some form of tinnitus since I was a kid. I never realized this until I talked to my wife one day and she says that no, she doesn't have a persistent beep that she can tune into.
It may have been caught be ear infections when I was a kid. I also had eardrum tubes as a kid, twice.
I don't notice it during the day or at night, though I can tune into it (like, when typing this I hear it). It's only more noticeable when I'm very tired or have a fever.
I think the brain learns to ignore/block the signal, similar to how you can be aware of breathing or hearing your heart beat, but you don't hear it all day because your brain will just not attend to it.
I swear my tinnitus is a result of use of AirPods.
This comes up every now and then, similarly people say it is caused by noise cancellation. I have looked into this once out of interest, but there doesn't seem to be much scientific evidence for this. Unless you put them at a far too loud volume of course (or presumably block your ear canal all the time and it causes infections).
A high percentage of the western population switched to noise cancelling headphones and earbuds the last ten years or so. There is also a base rate of developing tinnitus in the population. So, it is more likely to just be a coincidence.
I've been wearing Airpod Pro 2s for 5 years and had no increase in my tinnitus (caused by many years of playing guitar and drums). I only wore Airpod Pro 3s for 3 days and my tinnitus increased by 3-5x. Thankfully, it went back to normal or almost normal after a few weeks. I now have a brand new pair of airpods I can't use.
Googling reveals others with the same issue with Airpod Pro 3s.
You should look into notch therapy apps—I have some very mild tinnitus that flared up into moderate tinnitus for a couple of months last year, so I was looking for options and found that there were some that looked promising.
Tangentially related, but it's interesting to use airpods in hyper-busy train stations in Japan like Shinjuku station, where you have a huge mass of people, and a large majority of people using bluetooth earbuds of some sort. A train rolls up and the sheer amount of 2.4GHz traffic can jam your own audio for a bit. It's an interesting stress test of radio interference.
The author hit the nail on the head with this piece.
I purchased bone conduction headphones this year to serve as sleep headphones that work with my custom molded earplugs for sleeping. The headphones work as intended for this purpose, but I was not ready for how greatly they would change the way I move throughout the world.
These let me clearly hear music AND my surroundings. No longer do I need to decide whether I want to socialize with others or enjoy music that I love. The headphones let me do both! (While AirPods have outstanding noise transparency capabilities, speech can get muddied depending on the environment.)
Over time, I became SLIGHTLY more willing to engage in small talk with strangers. This combined with taking public transit to my co-working space (not the norm here in Houston; our transit system is criminally underrated) has improved my life much much more than I ever could have expected. (In fact, taking the bus and train in opened my eyes to how isolating driving really is. Between driving and WFH, you can go months without interacting with another human if desired. That can't be healthy. AI will make this worse.)
That definitely applies to me, but I'm not sure everyone is the same.
Some people have the TV on every waking minute of the day, no matter what else they're doing. Some listen to music or podcasts in the same way. Others scroll through social media whilst eating or walking or even during conversations with other people.
It's not a new thing, either - constant background TV was definitely a thing at my grandparents' house when I was a child in the 1980s. Personally, I find the idea horrifying but I accept that I'm a bit of an outlier!
When I'm doing a task, whether it's going to the grocery store or heading to work, the last thing I want to do is talk to someone. And in my personal experience, people don't randomly try to speak to me with or without headphones, unless it's someone wanting to pass out a pamphlet or a story employee asking if I need something.
If I can make my social outtings in this regard easier and less stressfree, that far outweidghs any anti-social stigma.
The noise levels everywhere in our cities overwhelms me. The constant chatter of people all around, e.g., a loud conversation in close proximity, people blasting some TikTok garbage on the train, or someone approaching me trying to sell me something when I'm simply walking - I'd rather avoid all of this.
I'm usually playing dark noise on noise cancelling earphones most of the time, and that helps me tune out the constant, stress inducing bombardment of unwelcome auditory inputs.
You make a very good point I didn't yet think of. Usually if someone tries to talk to me on the street it's something bad. A scammer, a thief, someone with those stupid clipboards trying to collect money for a cause. Some political campaign. It's rarely something positive.
"Some said it was a sign of a continued rise of Reagan- and Thatcher-style individualism. Cultural critic Allan Bloom deemed the Walkman “a nonstop…masturbational fantasy” in his 1987 book “The Closing of the American Mind.” Neo-Luddite John Zerzan saw the Walkman as part of a modern trend that encouraged a “protective sort of withdrawal from social connections.” Thomas Lipscomb, chief of the Center for the Digital Future, equated it with the euphoric drug “soma,” from Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” creating, as he put it, “an airtight bubble of sound” that was nothing but a “sensory depressant.”
...
The Walkman, critics claimed, was more than just music to one’s ears. It was a tool of societal disconnect ... "
Personally i wear AirPods only in one ear - don't want to be struck by anything i didn't hear coming, and that also doubles the battery time.
As someone who lived in New York for over a decade and grew up in the general area, there is not a single person who would think its normal if you're trying to strike up a conversation on the subway or even really when walking down the street.
The etiquette is to keep to yourself, airpods aren't creating that dynamic. The normal assumption if you don't know the person in most contexts them interacting with you in NYC is they're up to something and that's just normal US city dynamics with > 10 million people on a busy day.
The dynamic changes when you're hanging out in front of your apartment for say a cigarette or something or at a bar or sitting in the park but even then its not wrong to signal you're not open to interaction in those situations its simply more normal to chat with neighbors or other people hanging out.
I'm old enough to remember an earlier, but not the first, generation of portable recording/playback devices, the Sony Walkman (1979). Note that there had already been about two decades of such devices dating to the first transistor radios (and headphones) of the 1950s. Arguably a crystal radio set (easily hand-carried or wearable, and functioning without batteries) might also meet that definition.
I don't know about earlier options, but the Walkman did become truly ubiquitous, and a large fraction of my peers had or wore these fairly constantly, with discussions at the time of isolation, as well as, fairly presciently, potential hearing damage. Another factor is that the soft foam over-the-ear headphones tended to leak a tinny resonance into the immediate area, and "sound leakage" was commented on and tsked about.
There were also concerns about the antisocial nature of the devices ... or the intimacy of sharing headphones (one speaker apiece for singe-head sets, or for couples, dual-headset options).
I also remember from the late 1990s the first time I encountered someone walking down the street, talking apparently to themselves, using an early corded single-ear headphone with a mic. Mobiles were becoming more common, but were usually held to the ear. This behaviour struck me as much like what one might see from rough sleepers, though this man was far better dressed than most. The experience is of course now ubiquitous.
I didn't fight a culture change in our work dynamic as we went from an extroverted office to a mostly headphones-on culture where people would even sometimes type instead of talk in certain meetings. In the end, I don't think it mattered except that resisting change and insisting on my way could have (would have) backfired.
Didn't see any data in the article, not that I disagree, yet what if AirPods allow a return to normality for those who wish to have some distance?
Maybe everyone's just had to put up with extroverted norms until AirPods and mobile phones came along.
Q: Do you consider yourself more introverted or more extroverted?
9% Completely introverted
29% More introverted than extroverted
31% About an equal mix of extroverted and introverted
I wear over-ear headphones almost all the time when I'm out on my own using public transportation, grocery shopping etc.
I listen to audio books (fiction) and it's great. I'm an introvert and this actually helps me keep high energy levels all day long. Another plus is I'm usually immersed in the story and not using my phone (well apart from it being a playback device) when sitting down or waiting somewhere.
And it's precisely this extra energy I can use to have more meaningful interactions with other human beings. I don't wear headphones when I go climbing for example and interact with random strangers quite a bit when I do.
I also don't appreciate the stereotypes that are flung about in the article. I'm also German, plenty of interactions as described in his Jalapeno-Story all day every day.
I actually use AirPods to assist my hearing in loud environments, but this aside...
I think there's also the consideration of: how often have you really wanted a stranger to talk to you on the bus. I've talked to a few women about this, and they don't leave home without headphones because it gives them an excuse to ignore strangers hitting on them in public.
I have a family member who works substantially on some of the main design/components of the AirPods who might have a different take. He wears them all the time but, as this article fails to mention, with transparency mode on. Thanks in large part to my family member, we are able to hear the outside world through the AirPods just fine and our brains are able to process the audio coming in as real time and not disorienting.
Thanks to this mode the AirPods have now been certified as hearing aids and many other friends and family members have said the same thing: that the AirPods are better hearing aids than actual prescription hearing aids (which usually cost absurd prices)
I talk to those people with those AirPods in as if they have no AirPods in at all, and thanks to those AirPods they are able to hear me better.
This is all a matter of perspective and comfort ability with adopting new paradigms and technologies. You need not see everything from the perspective of “technology bad”.
This struck a chord with me because when our 9mth old was born, I leant heavily on airpods during night feeds and still do wear them when it's just me and her hanging out; we interact constantly and chat away but I always have them in.
I also wear them listening to podcasts doing chores in the evening while my wife is on the couch; whenever she says something I have to ask her to repeat herself and its just not nice.
I also agree with the lack of idle thought; my brain is constantly tied into some content stream.
I need to be more deliberate - maybe I'll only use them for work (I work from home so use the for meetings and to hear notifications when away from my desk) and when running.
Kinda funny but I think this situation is less bad than it was a year ago.
For a while it seemed like young people were hard of hearing like the elderly, somebody would be camped in a weight machine at the gym resting for 30 minutes and I’d have to stick my hand in their face to get their attention or they’d be walking down the street and I couldn’t warn them about hazards on the sidewalk.
Maybe it just doesn’t bother me anymore or maybe they’ve wised up.
This article definitely doesn't account for those of us who are neurodiverse. My airpods buy me precious energy I can spend in social circles that I would otherwise not have. Force me out of them on a train or bus, expect me to be asocial for an hour when I get home.
Nothing is more unwelcome than casual conversation with strangers. It's very difficult to know what to say and how to act. I don't have a machine built for interacting with this person, so every conversation is simultaneous developing and operating a machine. No thank you!
And I'm not lonely nor isolated. I've curated the relationships I want. They are high quality, free from social media, and very active. I don't need someone sticking a spanner in my mental machinery on the bus.
For many onsens, this rule died in the last five years of the tourism boom. Also, many young Japanese people in big cities now have tatoos. As along as your tats don't look "too Yakuza", you will be fine. Also, many conservative ones have changed to allow you to wear a small elastic band of material to cover them. Also, many onsens have the option of a private bath that you can rent for an extra fee. Even the conservative ones don't care if you have big tatoos in a private onsen.
If you want that warmth, you have to invite it in. It has nothing to do with the airpods.
Do you ever sit somewhere in public fully relaxed without a care in the world? Do you ever poke your head up to see who else is looking at what you're looking at? Is your expression neutral or natural?
There's always someone nearby doing the same. What happens when you spot them? Don't overthink it.
One thing I find concerning is the amount of people I see driving these days with AirPods. Don’t think they can hear emergency sirens or honks very well that way. I think it it’s even illegal in some locations. I assume they do this in older cars without a way to connect their phone or just like immersive sound.
I didn't realize that research on this topic was so sparse, I just took it as a fact that people wearing airpods don't socialize in public.
When I was in college, the line "he can't hear you, he has airpods in" was a meme. It was used as a jab at someone who wasn't paying attention because they had wireless earbuds in. So I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.
Do you apply this rule in reverse? If you need to speak to someone who isn't wearing earphones, do you wave at them first or do you just start talking to them?
I use a verbal cue to get their attention before diving into my question, because their ears can hear me. In any case, you need to wait for people to register that they need to change contexts before engaging them.
Where did you find the three dollar discrepancy?
vs.
Hey, Barb. <wait for acknowledgement> Where did you find the three dollar discrepancy?
With earbuds or headphones, the method of attention getting has to change: something they can see (wave), or something they can feel (tap the desk, no touching them.)
Ultimately the point is you get their attention, then you engage with the subject. If you're oblivious to the fact that there's an audio barrier sticking out of their ear, don't be surprised when you get no response.
One can hear, the other can't. So not sure how that's a reverse rule at all, it's actually the same rule applied to the reverse situation. The reverse of the rule would indeed be talking to someone without earbuds in.
> This habit of using headphones to dodge uncomfortable interactions may be especially common among younger adults, for whom social unease and feelings of isolation are well-documented problems that have become more common in recent decades.
Earphones (not specifically apple ones) are great for this. My city has become a touristy hotspot in the recent years, and you can't walk 50 meters through the city center without some homeless guy, or a romanian woman with a baby asking you for money, some "finnish" guys trying to sell your their music cd (that you have nowhere to insert anymore), some scammer offering you a flower or someone trying to sell you a boat tour of a city you've lived in your whole life.
Earphones in and you don't even have to reply, just ignore everyone.
The biggest effect of AirPods was that people stopped asking you to pull out the earphones when they talk to you.
At early college age I was dealing with stress that I for some reason had in a crowded city, and my main help was listening to rhythmic music all the time.
What annoyed me a lot that people from a coffee shop workers to beggars were making me more stressed by insisting that I must get my headphones out before the conversation began.
With release of wireless Apple EarPods this behavior completely disappeared in a following year.
I did notice the self-isolation effect of wearing any headphones a long time ago. Now, after a few years of using AirPods and finally switching back to cheap cable headphones only for work calls, it actually helps a lot for my brain to register context changes much more easily. And if you have adhd I highly recommend trying to do the same.
While I can see the point author is making, it’s weird how it is pinpointed to “headphone use”. I’ve been listening to music on the go for almost 30 years, starting with cassette players, then CD players, then mp3/ipods. Taking a bus/metro and listening to some new album or old favorite was very formative experience as a teen music lover. I have a sense that the important moment with regards to the issues described in the article was mobile internet becoming widely available and development of easy/good wireless headphones (AirPods). Social media and algorithmic streaming is a big part of this too, not just “headphones”.
100% this. People used to read newspapers and books on mas transit and Walkmans have been with us since the early 80s.
I think it comes down to people not _wanting_ to interact with anyone outside of their circle. I pull out my earbuds _constantly_ when I'm out in order to greet people, interact with retail staff, and hear things around me.
It’s a funny comparing commutes back then to commutes now. But it does not take a lot of imagination to see that back then people did not isolate themselves with newspapers while buying food at the grocery store, standing on the crosswalk or in a myriad of their situations where we have opportunity for micro interactions with other people. In other words, looking only at commutes is nit picking.
A lot of women wear headphones / earpods without playing anything on them. It is a great way to stop men from trying to flirt to you, as you've got a convenient excuse to just completely ignore them!
And the lack of music is for the same reason: you need to be aware of the men trying to harass you.
I think an angle the author misses is the degree to which we've all become intolerant of boredom. Moments of stillness and boredom have all but been erased from our daily lives, the daily commute being a great example. Airpods give us an easy way to not have to grapple with the prospect of not being entertained during every waking second of our conscious experience.
But boredom is _really_ important – that's the DMN activity you want. Boredom gives your mind the chance to reveal things to you that you need to know, and may be actively avoiding.
Phones/Screens and headphones are being optimized to blind you and deafen you from the real world. You dont care though because it creates a pseudo-safe-zone through social status signaling (look at my expensive headphones in my ears, I look so cool and technologically advanced!).
I see people walking around with airpods in and all I see is that dude from 2010 with the shaved head, Oakley sunglasses, and one of those Jabra single-ear Bluetooth things.
Anecdotally, when it comes to talking to strangers I've often felt it's easier to converse with older people than those my own age. For example, the conversations feel more genuine and less "forced" on both sides, and overall I feel more comfortable being myself.
The reason might be because they grew up in a world where social media was non-existent, so interacting with strangers was more common. As a result, they tend to be more socially intelligent than the younger generations.
Will be thinking about this article the next time I reach for my AirPods as I'm about to leave the house.
To me it's easier to talk to older people because it is a given that being old past a given threshold generally lowers your social status in modern societies and they tend to be more lonely on average. We have all met someone who is old and is desperate to establish contact about anything. This means that their whole demeanor is inviting conversation, establishing eye contact and smiling and all that
I happily "take the bait" cause I am a quite patient person but sadly, people who are lonely have such an urge to talking that they are totally incapable of listening. I consider myself a good listener, competent at signaling than what they are talking about is actually going through but a lot of the time they might as well be talking to a tree.
Totally relatable. It's not just earphones. Put your phone and headphones away and then observe people. Every one except the 70 plus will be hooked on their phones. That 20 second wait between getting up to get off the train and waiting for the doors to open? Pull out your phone
Every desire for entertainment, education, distraction is filled by the phone. You're obselete.
You can spend hours in an extremely crowded city constantly bumping into people and feel the most alone you've ever felt in your life
> Americans are speaking less and less to one another. The number of spoken words uttered by the average person fell by 28% between 2005 and 2019.
Is it just me or does anyone else turn skeptical when seeing these precise numbers given to something that seems essentially impossible to measure with this accuracy?
I am autistic. I can’t even count the number of times I got into dangerous situations because of my crappy social skills when strangers chatted me up. I don’t know, maybe strangers are well-meaning and kind to neurotypical people, or maybe people with good social skills can understand the intentions of strangers fast and cut off suspicious interactions before they are harassed or conned while I realize what’s happening only when it’s already happening, or maybe shitty people can sense my chronic social confusion and target me specifically… but I personally quite enjoy modern headphones etiquette where I live and the norm being not having random interactions. It feels way safer than in pre-headphones era (I grew up in a relatively low tech environment in a small town).
Plus, processing spoken language is physically exhausting even when I am having an enjoyable conversation with someone I love.
Other people already commented on the overstimulation aspect.
Not suggesting that the world should be remade to accommodate my needs, of course, just wanted to share my experience, I guess.
Noise is a big problem but this is a terrible solution. People clearly hate noise. Rich neighbourhoods are always quiet. It's basically the point. We need to go hard on noise. I think it's one of the biggest sources of unhappiness today. We can start with motor vehicles which are easily the biggest single source of noise. People shouldn't have to disable their ears to deal with this constant assault.
I wish I could walk around NYC without airpods in. Someone mentioned the lunatics and others blasting music but the main issue honking.
The honking in NYC is unbearable. Add to that the noise that the subways make and the constant construction and you're risking actual hearing damage if you don't wear some noise cancelling headphones.
What I would really love is an option to have a small indicator light or visible signal on my earpiece that means “there’s no sound playing”. And if I’m using them just for noise cancellation but want to appear approachable, I can turn it on. Honestly would be great for sound my home, as sometimes I keep them in when doing chores just because I don’t have a free hand, but I would like my wife to know she can talk to and I’ll hear her.
Sometimes I’m washing dishes and she walks into the room and doesn’t immediately know if there’s sound in my ears. It’d just be a nice little affordance to be able to proactively signal that.
The most jarring thing to me is seeing how kids (high school and college age) use Airpods now. I will see a group of friends hanging out in public and none of them take their Airpods out! They are talking and socializing, but they feel no need to remove the Airpods from their ears when nothing is playing. They're frictionlessly moving between real life conversation and content on their phones. This includes situations where you really think you'd want to take the Airpods out, like playing pickup basketball.
I don't know how to feel about this. I guess I'm happy that they're out of their house at all, but it does feel very sci-fi. In sci-fi books a common trope is for characters in the future to have neural implants that seamlessly and permanently connect them to some mega-internet. 24/7 Airpods is like the caveman version of that.
The author has clearly never tried to leg press 300+ pounds in the gym to Madonna's "Like a Virgin". Sometimes the biggest sell of earbuds is noise REDUCTION, not what sounds they can make.
I do agree that there are "social interactions" that are greatly devalued by people wishing not to be interacted with. But for me the earbuds are usually in to block annoyances, not avoid human contact.
This is talking about the second order effects of using the earbuds to avoid annoyances. It might not be the conscious reason you do things, but it is an effect that it has. The question worth exploring is what is the second order effect when people grow up where being isolated acoustically, or doing the social signal of having earbuds in even without something playing, is the norm for all interactions?
Back home in the UK I find I need to always have my airpods with me because of the number of shops, supermarkets and cafes that blast out irritating pop music.
I’m… sensitive to music I don’t like and find the experience almost painful otherwise. Small pocket, noise cancelling headphones have been a real game changer for me.
To me it’s just a proxy for the amount of economic activity in a place.
Every time I go to Melbourne airport in Australia, I’m shocked that nobody - nobody - has their laptop out. In Sydney a few people do. But go to any airport in the US and if not a majority are on laptops at least a large minority seem to be..
So yes - airpods in ears, laptops in airports, city lights at night. Just a sign of how plugged in everyone is to “something” that’s happening.
It's totally incorrect to state that the area served by either Sydney or Melbourne airport has less economic activity than the area served by "any airport in the US", or even the vast majority of US airports, so whatever laptops-at-airport (and I suppose airpods-in-ears) is a proxy for it sure isn't economic activity.
Reading the comments and debate about whether or not AirPods use is rude or not when others are around, it seems like the uproar over Meta glasses but in a minor key.
This is not new. AirPods are newish, but this is not new. People have been wearing headphones in public spaces since the Walkman, if not before, in large numbers. You can probably find opinion columns bemoaning this shortly after the introduction of the Walkman.
I stopped listening to music on my walks and bike rides years ago. I sit at home listening to music all day while I work, so to me it's a nice respite to enjoy the world around me.
There's a pretty big difference between AirPods and AirPods Pro. The former just sort of loosely sit in the outer part of your ear. The latter form a pretty good seal in your ear canal. That's how you get good noise cancelling with Airpods Pro.
The loose fit of the regular AirPods and the wired EarPods never made any sense to me.
This is actually the exact opposite for me. Rubber tipped buds will not stay put in my ears when I move around, while the original airpods models sit within my ears and don't fall out unless I'm doing cartwheels.
The AirPods Pro do come with buds in a few different sizes—have you had the opportunity to try both the small and the large types?
I've also heard that the most recent AirPods Pro fit much better for people who have had problems in the past—I think because their rubber buds also have some foam in them, to help them create a better seal.
my $9 wired earbuds from Sony also form a good ear seal by the way. No need to buy the $250 (!) thing from Apple. Unless you don't have a headphone jack.
I've used these to sleep to podcasts or quiet music at music festivals, and they block out the music from outside pretty well. This is because of the flexible rubber seal. My wireless earbuds are hard plastic all the way around and sit (securely) in my earlobes while my wired ones actually go inside my ear canal.
It also depends on the person and the model of Pros, strangely enough. The first generation stayed in my ears perfectly, but the second generation does not.
This sounds sad to say, but I went on a walk outside, my AirPods died and realized I hadn’t listened to the outside world in a long time. Was a nice reminder to take a breath sometimes and enjoy the world. I think we all forget that
Noise pollution has always been a problem, especially in public transit. We finally have a decent solution. I don't think it's much more complicated than that.
Same article was written about the proliferation of the Sony Walkman back in the 80s. Same article was written about newspapers on trains. File under “new thing is bad.”
Like huge SUV and pickup trucks in urban environments, guns and the like; their usage - and the perceived need for them - is a strong code smell of inhumane environments.
A friend of mine from back home mentioned he hadn't heard anything about the White House UFC fight because he's solely focused on himself right now. Honestly, I think that’s becoming ubiquitous; all of us are navel-gazing and trying to "optimize" looks, diet, exercise, Ai skills, supplements. We can sit through four hours of a Joe Rogan podcast, there are so many long form podcasts! We are all just living inside our own little bubbles now.
All my co-workers wear those and I hate it. Any attempt to talk to them about work or personal subjects means they have to hit their ear and pause it. It just makes me want to say nothing.
That could be an advantage if your work requires some kind of sustained concentration, for the other party at least.
I like using by headphones (which are big and over the ears) as a way to signal when I’m on concentration mode and don’t want to talk, but I do that maybe 30-40% of the time.
i've been wearing headphones in public since the 90s (walkman > discman), i have no idea how the author thinks headphones is a new phenomenon. I'm not particularly interested in unsolicited advice or conversation, so that's a plus for me.
New is relative. 90s is still new for a lot of things. At any rate, the pervasiveness of it is new, and having a generation of people that know being isolated acoustically as the default state is also new.
‘please mind the platform gap
please do not eat or drink on the railway premises
wear a mask
don't lean against the door
hold onto the handrails on escalator
give way to alighting passengers
don't leave your belongings unattended
take out your travel card and tap for quicker entry and exit
don't board if lights are flashing
Molestation and taking upskirt photos is a serious offense
do not meddle with the rail equipment
its not a matter of if but when, our response matters, SG SECURE!
in the event of an emergency take cover call 999, and wait for the authorities
take the lift if you have bulky items
This train has stop here because the train ahead is still at the station,
"Your attention please. Please do not leave your belongings unattended. If you see any suspicious looking person or article, please inform our staff or call nine, nine, nine."
etc, etc.
Now repeat the whole thing in English, MandarinMelayu then Tamil and blast that record on repeat.
sila berhati-hati di ruang platform, ombothu, ombothu, ombothu
Very similar experience in England with ridiculously excessive announcements on trains. It's the verbal equivalent of being constantly slapped in the face.
"And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind. The room was indeed empty. Every night the waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward morning. There had been no night in the last two years that Mildred had not swum that sea, had not gladly gone down in it for the third time."
Different public spaces have wildly different expectations with regard to social interaction.
Most people know better than to strike up a conversation with a stranger who is watching a theater performance, reading in a library, or walking briskly to work. Whereas chatting with people at a club, sporting event, carnival, conference, convention, etc is socially acceptable.
But many places are ambiguous like public transit, gyms, shops, airplanes, etc. Assessing whether someone in those contexts would welcome interaction with strangers requires social awareness.
Unfortunately, some people overlook or deliberately ignore these cues, so folks who aren't interested in social interaction have taken to wearing headphones in those contexts to make it as obvious as possible. If you're the kind of person who is surprised by how many people are now wearing headphones, it may be because you were missing their more subtle cues before.
we all have a choice to use or not and the depending of the context we live in there could be more or less benefits overall (metro city vs bucolic small European village). But what this article capture for me is something more philosophic, anthropologically as Aristotle told us we are social animal, and for about at least the past 5k years we benefited a lot as a group by contamination, etc.. now we live in more bubbles, bubbles are more diffused than previously and we must at least acknowledge what we are missing in the process. It's the same difference between old generalist medias, tv shows, books culture, and the more different possibilities and bubbles we live (more importantly grow, sometimes without touching the "local" "proverbial" grass). It's interesting to observe a social phenomenon that is mostly recent:
+ walkman 80s but diffused as today the Bluetooth headset only years later but not comparable
+ mp3 player 2000s not comparable as capabilities and more of a young adopt early technology
+ smartphones 2010s mass adoption but at least you hear mostly people around you.
+ air pods 10y ago on September -> in 10 years are adopted more than any of the previous tech. Adoption rate is hug (i consider also other brands)
and to be honest there is another topic correlated -> most young people have lived the covid pandemic and interiorizited some behavior
also grown up in some white collar sector live with headset after the pandemic, cause of smartwarking but also the more diffused use of team/zoom/meet in the workplace
now there is also ai (and it's a matter of time we will want a constant access to it that can also be headset related) and smart glasses are near than ever.
there could be consequences in less than 10y.
It's a social science matter nobody taking seriously.
Eh. I'm autistic and audio overstimulation is very real for me. When out at a restaurant or similar public place, I often have my AirPods in with nothing playing, just noise cancellation. I can still chat with my wife or whomever is with me and hear them, albeit muffled, but it keeps everything else down and manageable. Perhaps I could get some of those Loops, which I understand are less obtrusive.
I don't know that I'm autistic but I've grown very sensitive to nuisances over the years, which is why I wear them any time I'm not with someone I know.
I use the Background Sounds feature on the iPhone, set to Dark Noise, in public transit if there are loud people nearby that my music isn't drowning out. Recommend trying it out. There's a Control Centre shortcut for it too (with an ear icon).
> Heavy headphone use makes people feel lonelier, the survey found. It also makes people less likely to have a meaningful conversation with someone new. Many of those interviewed for the survey said they wore headphones in part to avoid having to talk to other people.
Well that sounds like correlation might not equal causation if i ever heard it.
Wearing on public transport: meh, the chances I chat with a total stranger is quite small.
Wearing on walks around my neighborhood: yes, totally see how this nudges away from spontaneous chats with neighbors / acquaintances as we pass each other and wave, but don't stop perhaps due to the friction of removing airpods and sense we may be interrupting each other.
Sometimes if I see a neighbor I know up ahead, I will preemptively remove my airpods to open the possibility of a chat. Most of the time just a hello, but sometimes a nice catch up. With the airpods, very unlikely to chat.
Really I see it as the exact opposite. A walk around the neighborhood is highly unlikely to strike up random conversation with a stranger. Might run into a friend or someone friendly but they are likely going to approach with or without airpods
Interesting that your experience is so different. I didn't mean strangers in my neighborhood though, just acquaintances / neighbors who I talk to sometimes - and airpods nudge the decision towards smile / wave keep walking over stop and chat.
Sorry but this “people aren’t the same because headphones” (or podcasts or <insert here>) is just too convenient a narrative especially when your pull quotes are from random college newspapers and small scale studies.
Having some music or a podcast to listen to on your commute is the new “I have a giant newspaper in front of my face”.
If you want to have a random conversation you totally can! But like all things in life - the other person may not want to have that conversation at that time.
Who are these people who keep complaining about this supposed isolation and such? It's a complaint that periodically makes it on to Hacker News, but the more I think about it the more I feel like we're listening to a complaint made by a vanishing fraction of the population and giving them a more credence then they deserve because a few of them write with great pathos and drama.
But I'm old enough to have ridden the bus not just before AirPods but before really practical and widespread headphones in general. (Headphones have been available for a long time, but people did not routinely carry them around because they did not generally fit conveniently in a normal-sized pocket.) I've spent probably hundreds of hours on busses, much of that on a college campus where we were probably about as similar a social situation as we can be.
And busses were never rolling conversation hubs. They weren't tomb-silent but the conversations were almost always between parties who clearly knew each other. They weren't some sort of daily forum for the debate of politics, nor a reliable source of small talk.
The only one that I will agree is something I used to do was small talk with the checkout clerk, because the transaction takes long enough to be socially awkward to be standing in silence, but again, inconsequential small talk.
Every time I read one of these articles moaning about how we're all behind headphones and how impersonal the shopping experience has become, I become more convinced we're not listening to Important Social Commentary by Thoughtful Individuals... I think we're reading articles from that tiny minority of super-socially-aggressive people who used to incessently bother those around them with their overly intrusive attempts to converse with us in that distant past pissing and moaning about the fact that we now have the social ability to block them in a way that doesn't exceed our politeness threshold. The people that we've all met that we wish would just shut up, where we're sending them social signals and body language to please stop, and they just continue on.
Now this is what they write in response to that.
Now, I'll cop to being reasonably on the end of the "let me get in and out and accomplish my goal without your contribution", but I've spent plenty of time in contexts where I got to see other people in those contexts, especially as a child, and I just don't recognize the wonderland of social interaction these people seem to be missing out on. There was never a time where these random encounters (ignoring cases where you run into people you already know) were ever anything more than the briefest, most transient touch of humanity, and if someone is in a situation where they are starved for that, perhaps their problems are deeper and lie elsewhere and the solutions are something other than trying to convince everyone else to change for them.
First generation of AirPods Pro were the only in-canal earphones that didn't fall out of my ears (rare shape of ear canal and yes, I tried different sizes, they all fall out or don't fit).
Only have over-ears headphones, so I keep borrowing pods from my wife when I'm cleaning/exercising.
Was very disappointed when she lost them and the replacement - pro v3 - had fixed the rare shape and they started falling out like any other earbuds.
> The number of spoken words uttered by the average person fell by 28% between 2005 and 2019
This effect started well before Airods and even smart phones became ubiquitous.
The airpods were released in Dec of 2016. Before Blackberries and Iphones, people on the subway all had daily newspapers in their face. In DC we had a free abridged version called the Express.
> Americans are speaking to one another far less than they used to. According to that study, the number of spoken words uttered by the average person fell by 28% between 2005 and 2019. Each year during that time period, the number of words people spoke in an average day declined.
I wonder what the difference is between this, and culture in EU where small talk isn't really a thing.
The EU is large and most importantly very diverse. Pretty much all the West and South of Europe has a very strong small talk culture. You shall not stereotype a country, and even less so a political and economical union of countries.
The US is larger than Europe and importantly very diverse, a melting pot you could say. You will find people in the South are far more talkative than people in the Northwest. The “Seattle Freeze” is real and I believe that it does not exist to the same extent in the South.
They all talk or at least understand English. The cultural exchange between Spain and Hungary is much smaller. Or France and Poland. And historical shaping is much different - they did not went through the same dictatorships and same wars.
And within those regions it differs a lot too. Here in a big Spanish city you would find very little too, especially in summer when there's so many tourists.
TLDR: "I think AirPods increase social isolation, I don't have much good evidence for it, and although I started the article by observing how many MORE Americans use AirPods, I completely contradicted myself at the end by pointing out how Germans, who apparently use AirPods less, are still less friendly/warm to strangers than Americans."
I started using them recently but I already wasn't talking to strangers for a long time before that.
I suspect the constant stimulation suppresses the default-mode network, the idle wandering your mind normally experiences when you're doing nothing.
Before that, I'd sometimes hold my phone up to my ear to listen to a podcast (even on the subway at minimum volume) but it was awkward so not ubiquitous. I think buying a paid of wireless earbuds was one of those decisions that made my life subtly worse overall, like eating a whole tub of ice cream.
While crass, I’m likely going to think about your comment for a long time as someone who typically doesn’t enjoy surface-level interactions or doesn’t enjoy engaging with people who I know the relationship will never move from acquaintance/coworker levels.
Your comment will likely make me leave my AirPods in their charging case more as I go about my day to day activities, or at least think about using them more intentionally than I do now, which is having them in basically 24/7.
> Put your phone away, don't wear your airpods and live in real life- or continue with your airpods and your neck cranked down into your phone- you don't need friends anymore, AI will be your friend.
I have had decent conversations with strangers on planes and trains while my headphones were in. I paused the music to talk for a bit.
It doesn’t have to be either-or. Headphones don’t make you antisocial - being antisocial makes you antisocial.
Meh. When I was young the old people complained that everyone was wearing walkmans (with those metal band orange foam headphones lol). It's just old man shouting at cloud. And no, I don't want to talk to everyone. Piss off and leave me alone.
I also hate noise and I really love wearing my earbuds (I don't use Apple) with no audio but just the noise cancelling on when I'm on public transport or walking. Sometimes with nature sounds like rain if the coverage is not strong enough.
I never listen to podcasts by the way, I truly hate them. Same with youtube videos, I just don't have patience to consume content at someone else's pace.
I stopped chit-chatting at the water cooler because I have a specific sense of humor that not everybody likes. And by "not likes", I mean the feminist women in my department get offended. Very easily. And because they're women, they hold special power wrt HR. So I just quietly spend my day now.
So you literally cannot hold a conversation at work without making offensive and misogynist jokes in front of female coworkers? Is this something you need to see a doctor about?
In America, I am _much_ less likely to encounter a friendly exchange with a a stranger than I am to be accosted for spare change by people for whom our obscenely wealthy systems have failed and/or decided are not worthy of assistance, so even small cities around rural areas have huge populations of unhoused people with a variety of deep-seated and untreated conditions.
Also, although I live in a medium-sized metro area with >8M people, it’s in the South, and I have zero access to public transportation. I prefer to use AirPods for music/podcasts/radio in my car, where I’m alone either way, so that I can more easily answer hands-free calls (which is necessary for my job).
Our society’s problem isn’t with AirPods, they’re just a symptom of the broader social decay that 80-years of inequality and deregulation has brought us.
What I find interesting is that the article seems to imply that wearing earbuds to isolate is somewhat "unnatural" (for lack of a better term).
However it does not take into account that the kind of social interactions where people wear earbuds (i.e. loud and busy environments with many strangers, often physically closer than comfortable) is unnatural to begin with.
For me, isolating myself acoustically is a way to normalize such environments back to a more "natural" setting.
Funny how new technology is unnatural but old technology, (that existed before we were born, like cars, streets, subways) are “natural”.
Douglas Adams summed it up eloquently:
“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
I’d like a special exemption for social media, with it being in category 3 always.
Or you are just old (me too)
Yes! When walking along busy streets, I put my airpods on without music just to remove some of the car noise.
I do the same when visiting large metropolitan areas! I don't want to be completely deaf, but reducing all the high-pitched noises and rumbling really makes my perception see/hear the environment more calmly.
Whenever I try to do that, the noise canceling amplifies the wind noise so much it winds up being louder and less comfortable than not wearing them at all.
Exactly.
Noise cancelling is a treasure.
And what I really like about them is the ease of use.
The moment I start talking to someone, automagically the NC is paused as well as any audio you were listening to.
It sounds so easy but is really running smoothly. Over time Apple really perfected the workings.
This blend is what makes them so valuable for me. I don’t have to manually do anything, simply speak and interact without having to touch them.
This is what bothered me really well, especially at work. Headset on, headset off - not anymore.
And people now don’t feel neglected when you keep the Pods in your ear.
Social reconditioning was part of the problem so to say. This tool is now accepted.
Well deserved. I am buying another pair of the AirPods Pro. I want a bit of safety after I temporarily lost one ear pod - I felt so disturbed, suddenly not being able to enjoy freedom acoustically anymore. Just to make sure and switch between them.
> And people now don’t feel neglected when you keep the Pods in your ear.
I disagree with this. Pods in ears are essentially a "do not disturb" sign for most people. Being around people who regularly have the "do not disturb" sign feels neglecting. People who might initiate conversation don't know if they will even be heard if they try to talk, so why bother. I would rather be alone than in a room of people who are actively ignoring each other.
I dislike the NC pause because it often awkwardly unpauses when someone is replying to you. I just pop the earbuds out when I start talking. To me, speaking with earbuds in is rude, and I want to show the courtesy to the person I'm talking to that they have my attention.
The automatic switching from noise canceling to transparency mode really does work incredibly, and I'm still shocked at how well it works, but it still feels ridiculous to speak to someone with AirPods in my ears. Even if I know that transparency mode is on (and on the newest Pros, it's so good that I can barely hear a difference between it and not wearing them), it still feels rude to speak to someone with them in.
I always take one AirPod out if I have to say literally anything to anyone, and both come out if it's going to be more than one sentence. Just feels rude. We've someone created a technical marvel: the world becomes silent all around you, and then the world comes back immediately when you start speaking, and then it slowly evaporates around you when you stop speaking for a few moments.
And yet it still feels ridiculous! And rude!
This is how I interpret headphones in/on people's ears. I live in a mid-sized town in the US and I swear it's over 80% of people I see walking through the forest trail system have headphones in. I wave and say hello to everyone without headphones. I find it bizarre how many people go outside and walk in the forest just to block out the natural sounds. Or how everyone in the grocery store has them in. I feel like I'm surrounded by androids without an interest in human interaction. Or maybe more generally, I'm suspicious of the impulse to always have something to listen to, like music, a podcast, or an audiobook. Oh well, I suspect I'm just being an old man. I'm glad they have found a way to make going out more enjoyable.
I go to forrest to listen to podcasts while not sitting. The purpose is walking and it is more pleasant experience then walking on streets - ground is softer, there is shade, it is cooler, it looks better.
Keep in mind that some AirPods are now certified hearing aids.
So before calling someone rude for talking to you with their AirPods on, make sure they don't need them on to hear you in the first place.
I myself always put at least one down when talking to someone, but I've learned to make the distinction between someone that is actually involved in the discussion, and someone that's still listening to what's coming from their connected device.
I don't call people rude for doing it. Maybe I should. I consider it rude. Maybe I should inquire if the earbuds are for hearing assistance then mention they are rude if they say no. Not really my style, but at least it would be direct. I don't know what percentage of earbud users depend on the earbuds for hearing assistance, but I would wager it is a small percent of the total of people who use earbuds. I doubt that I'm the only person who considers people who leave their earbuds while talking rude.
There's at least one person in this situation in the comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48599384
I suspect the numbers will grow given how much cheaper they are compared to the standard medical devices.
My point was: I understand where you're coming from, I used to feel the same, but a shift is in the making, and you could consider someone's attitude rude when they are actually impaired.
So starting from: "this person is wearing AirPods as hearing aids" to realize that they're just being rude, is probably better than starting from "they're being rude for wearing AirPods" only to realize you've made a mistake.
I never take public transport because the noises drive me crazy. Earbuds help, but not enough to make it bearable.
>> The moment I start talking to someone, automagically the NC is paused as well as any audio you were listening to.
This is one of those features I thought would be great and unfortunately had to disable in minutes. If you ever listen to music and sing along, even for a few seconds, the volume cuts because it thinks you're talking to someone. It's a shame. There's so many really great AirPods features and I feel like I've had to disable almost all of them for one reason or another.
>> And people now don’t feel neglected when you keep the Pods in your ear. Social reconditioning was part of the problem so to say. This tool is now accepted.
I think it'll get there eventually but it's still far from accepted in my opinion. Maybe if you're ordering at a Starbucks or something but if someone was trying to have a conversation with my with AirPods in I'd consider it rude. And even if it's becomes widely accepted I think it'll still have some mild stigma (equivalent to wearing sunglasses when having a conversation unless the sun is in your eyes).
>If you ever listen to music and sing along, even for a few seconds, the volume cuts because it thinks you're talking to someone. It's a shame.
This became such a huge problem when watching Jeopardy with my AirPods. I keep mumbling answers every 30-ish seconds, and when I do that, the show pauses and the world suddenly becomes audible and I have to remember to disable that feature.
> The moment I start talking to someone, automagically the NC is paused as well as any audio you were listening to.
When I'm listening to music, the music helps form my sense of time. It is deeply jarring to have the music pause for a few minutes and then start as though in 'music-land' no time had passed.
I'd be happier if the music volume went to zero but the song/track kept progressing.
> If you ever listen to music and sing along, even for a few seconds, the volume cuts
Yup, and I also have this problem when I laugh out loud listening to comedy podcasts.
I work from home alone and frequently talk to my cats (I'm not crazy). Had to turn the feature off as well because of it.
>frequently talk to my cats (I'm not crazy)
Chuffed to find a kindred spirit here!
They seem to have done so much work on the magic behaviors of the airpods (most of which I don’t have occasions to use) but they still work worse than a $35 pair of Ankers when it comes to just connecting, staying connected, and playing music without issue.
They’re especially flaky if you’re using them with apples watch.
I spent a few bucks on the pros, and the phone, and the watch, and the mini, and the tv, and the laptops. I shouldn’t be leaving that ecosystems ear buds in the drawer because the borderline disposable ones off amazon are the pair that “just work”.
The "always works" is the only reason I am using Airpods.
I have never had earbuds that are consistent in the way they connect in any circumstances. I have had Bose, high end Sony, Anker, and there are often times when you need it to connect in a rush and it forces you to shut down the device, the bluetooth on the phone, and waste 30 seconds that feel like 5 minutes.
It works especially well when switching between devices, from iPhone to iPad to Mac and so on. I’ve never had the same seamless experience with other brands which often require you to re-pair just to switch.
I used to be a huge Audio Technica fan but I can’t go back anymore.
My wired Etymotics work 100% of the time without issue.
It still feels (to me) that in many cases Bluetooth earbuds are solving an issue that doesn't exist.
Complete opposite experience. Moved to the Apple ecosystem including the watch, and the seamlessness of how airpods work with them all had me give away all my other earbuds - even though the airpods do not have the best sound quality. The convenience of everything just working had me never reaching for anything else.
I have plenty of complaints about Apple, but the Airpods experience is one the stickiest user experiences they have and would be one of the harder things to give up if I moved back to Android.
Same.
Are you sure you haven't got a faulty pair? Mine switch seamlessly between devices. I bought a bluetooth speaker recently and using it is hell on earth comparatively. The number of times I have to find the device it last connected to and disconnect before I can connect the one I actually want is absurd.
Agreed. Unrelated pro-tip: wearing them while riding a motorcycle. Reduces fatigue and transforms a rough experience into almost luxurious. Highly recommended.
Stupidly dangerous and (in my country) illegal.
Please retract your comment and don't encourage such stupidity.
EDIT: Since this is being misinterpreted... Earplugs that deaden sound are fine and encouraged on a motorbike, playing music in your ears is what masks other sound and is both stupid and illegal.
Really depends on how they are being worn. If they are on without any sound being played its fine. Ear plugs are highly encouraged while riding a motorcycle and after a decade plus of riding I have never thought ear plugs along with a headset prevented me from hearing whats going on around me.
Maybe it is your own misinterpretation as the parent never said they were playing music on them. You might not realize just how loud the wind noise is on a bike, you are not exactly hearing your surroundings music or not. Most if not all of your awareness on a motorcycle is coming from your eyes not ears, so hard to really say its stupid.
There's just a tiny step from wearing noise canceling earphones with no music playing, to pressing a button and blaring Bat out of Hell while you speed down the mountainside.
In any case, it's irrelevant - as far as I know, wearing headphones or earphones while driving a motorcycle is illegal whether or not you happen to be playing music in them, because how would anyone else know? If you get in an accident and get charged with distracted driving, that's on you. If you want earplugs, just wear them. They're much cheaper and more effective than sound cancelling headphones if you genuinely just want to block noise.
Not sure what your trying to a argue but it simply depends on the local laws but from a safety perspective I cannot think of many opportunities the sound would save you as it’s already loud enough from wind noise alone. I ride with a comm system that I play media over and trying to be reflective of my past and I don’t see it. Not really advocating one way or the other like yourself, I don’t have that strong of a feeling about that law but from purely a safety aspect I don’t fully agree with the opinion. If you don’t want to wear ear protection just don’t wear it. It’s your ears.
> I ride with a comm system that I play media over and trying to be reflective of my past and I don’t see it.
One risk is your focus going from what's on the road to what's coming into your ears.
This may have some useful mental aspects if you're doing a long-distance drudgery ride down Route 66 with nothing much happening in between pitstops, but it's another thing on I-5 or I-95 with all sorts of chaotic lane changes going on.
Visual awareness is much more important for safety than sound especially once your at speed. Distracted driving is completely different and can happen anywhere. We should be arguing that cars should not have any speakers if that’s the case.
> We should be arguing that cars should not have any speakers if that’s the case.
Even speaking with passengers has been shown to increase traffic incidents:
* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13698...
* https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3141/1899-15
* https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
It's a debate spectrum / sliding scale on how society wants to go, but at the very least one should be aware of the risk factors and be mindful of where your attention is.
> I cannot think of many opportunities the sound would save you as it’s already loud enough from wind noise alone
I am a bit stunned reading this.. Is this a common perspective of motorcyclists?
What is the stunning part? It’s not so much a perspective but pretty common safety advice, visual awareness is much more important than sound while operating a motorcycle. I suspect the gap is from folks who have only driven a car so there can be a sense of shock.
Like all things it does depend on where you ride and the general driving culture. In America that’s how I ride but in Vietnam it’s very different. Road rules are not as often followed and honking is common to make yourself known, usually while there I wear lower db reduction ear protection.
I am also not saying that there is zero opportunity to hear a horn but already on a motorcycle you have to have so much more awareness that I don’t find that sounds are all that helpful. It absolutely applies to driving a car too, after driving a motorcycle for a while I am as shocked as you just how unaware drivers are of their surroundings.
Keep in mind at around 35mph you can easily hit 85-90db from the wind. I do think ear protection actually helps identifying sounds but I still argue the hearing part is not that helpful.
I am not trying to say you have to follow my methods but folks calling for criminal punishment and shaming are a bit too far as the safety benefit from hearing is quite minimal depending on the driving culture.
> I am a bit stunned reading this.. Is this a common perspective of motorcyclists?
No.
For example, every beginner-advice thread in /r/motorcycle has a highly-upvoted comment(s) recommending ear protection, including many folks stating they wish they had started using it earlier.
And even if it is conceded that sound may not save you from other vehicles, ear pro(tection) reduces the health risk of hearing loss that would effect other aspects of your life.
Have you sat on a mktorcycle? The motor and air noise drowns out pretty much everything else anyway - I ride with good earplugs because I don't want to become (more) deaf.
When you learn to ride a motorcycle you learn to look - look behind you when changing lanes, look in your mirrors, basically stay aware of whatever is happening at all times by looking. Because you're sure as hell not hearing a lot.
At highway speeds, the wind is loud. The engine is often loud even with a factory exhaust. The only audible signal that's likely to matter is a car horn, and those are loud enough to hear over music at reasonable volume.
Cars are quieter, and hearing other vehicles is more likely. If anyone shouldn't listen to music, it's car drivers, not motorcyclists.
Deaf people manage to get licenses with no problem. My hearing was never tested to get my license, unlike my eyesight.
Deaf people have a lifetime of training (hopefully) and experience dealing with things like this in ways the are appropriate for their situation
> Deaf people have a lifetime of training (hopefully) and experience
Not every deaf person is born that way, mate.
Since the advent of EVs, its not a safety issue imo. When Tesla's first came out, and the first adopters were all people that wanted to drive FAST, I was often surprised by them, especially since I always rode slightly faster than traffic as a safety mitigation technique. I quickly learned to use my eyes more.
My eyes are my ears and you cannot rely on sound to know who or what might be coming up from behind you. Mirrors and head on a swivel are way more important.
It’s been a thing since the Prius allowed driving with the engine off with parents complaining that the Prius is a silent killer of kids because they couldn’t hear them coming.
Now, with the noises EVs have to make below a certain speed, they are louder than ICE cars. One person on my street has an electric Chevy, maybe a Cadillac, and it’s the only vehicle I can always hear from inside the house. It’s drives me insane.
I hoped electric cars would make for quieter cities, but instead they seem to make them worse, imo. All due to this noise making requirement. Then, at higher speeds, tire noise overtakes engine noise at a certain point, so the drivetrain becomes a moot point.
My earbuds have a setting to allow for outside noises. Wearing them while walking, I often hear cars and other people well before I see them. Even with louder music, I still hear them. I can hold a conversation with people without taking them out. I don't wear them without music, though, because my own breathing is also louder and irritating.
If I have the noise cancelling turned on, it would be downright unsafe.
While it is likely illegal in many places, it isn't everywhere and the safety risk depends on what sort of equipment you have.
It is not illegal in every country. Further, wind noise and exhaust are too loud to hear anything anyway, so having music on and navigation is a bonus.
That's completely untrue, speaking as someone who drives a motorcycle every day, at least if you're not driving some horrible (to everyone around you) 500cc beast, you can hear things just fine. Especially horns, trucks, busses etc.
Speaking as someone who has raced, commuted and has run multiple iron butts. Only really true at low speeds and if you are not wearing ear protection (which is a choice). Once earpro is in and you are going a decent speed there is really not much to be heard. Have never found hearing to save me from situations. If someone is honking that I am in danger I am probably already in it.
Absolutely your choice not to wear hearing protection though. Eventually you will get naturally immune to it.
> If someone is honking that I am in danger I am probably already in it.
This is an incredibly dumb and dangerous attitude to hold and you need to rethink things if you've become so overconfident in your driving because you've raced or done "iron butts", whatever those are. Driving on real roads isn't like racing and you need to separate your attitudes and driving styles in each situation before your arrogance causes an accident. Remember that it's not just your life on the line but the other innocent people around you too.
No need to take that kind of tone. It’s condescending when you have not even defended your position beyond talking down to me.
As I said elsewhere, it depends on driving culture and where you are located in the world. It’s not a hard and fast rule. In America sound serves little safety though I can still hear car horns generally speaking with earpro on. In Vietnam because of the culture, organized chaos and usage of horns I will usually opt for low db ear protection. Semis will absolutely honk and run you over there. Since you consider a 500cc a beast I can generally pinpoint your location and understandable why you think like you do.
In both situations though, most of your safety is still from strong visual awareness.
You’re failing the shibboleths though. You don’t drive a motorcycle, you ride one. A 500cc bike is low mid range, not a beast. You can’t hear rolling or engine noise of cars, trucks or busses over 50kph if you’re wearing a helmet.
Further, sound deadened cars with the stereo on an appreciable level also aren’t conducive to perceiving what’s around you.
Speaking as someone who commuted on 600 twins and 300 singles for years, if you’re wearing hearing protection and listening to some tunes and navigation hints you’re fine. Just ride defensively like you should, and make sure you’re not over doing it on the volume.
Have you driven a 500cc? Modern supersport and adventure bikes have very quiet exhausts. Any loud exhaust you hear on your commute is usually somebody who put an aftermarket muffler on their 125cc bike.
When I got my motorcycle license, state training was required. The thing they drilled into our heads - over and over - is: loud bikes save lives.
I wear earplugs and play music via Cardo while riding nearly every single day. It's fine.
Let's be realistic - noise cancelling isn't a perfect technology. I rode with my AirPods for a short period of time and could still hear everything I needed to. The only reason I switched is because they're uncomfortable in a helmet.
Is using headphones on a bike with music on or not somehow different from driving in a Lexus with music on or not?
Yeah, it’s definitely higher risk.
When riding a motorcycle, you’ll encounter people that don’t see you almost every trip. The same is not true in a car.
Riding a bike is just a 100% engagement thing with higher risks and lower margins for error, for all kinds of reasons. And it’s not just traffic, minor pavement imperfections become relevant, the necessary skill floor is also higher. It just demands more attention, straight up.
In a car, you shouldn’t, and it’s not without risk, but you CAN occasionally get away with minor distractions: adjusting the radio, seat, etc. That just doesn’t work on a bike as well. I’m failing to properly articulate the why, but it really is fundamentally different in some ways. I’ve spent many years doing both, and the bike just demands more of your attention resources, independent of your vulnerability in the event of an accident.
I’ve been over handlebars a couple of times. The last time was riding a bicycle no faster than 10 mph, I hit some loose sand, the rear wheel swerved and I panicked. My MIPS saved my scull but I still looked beat up 2 weeks later, cheeks, chest, shoulders .
This is to say - I am aware of the dangers:) My state doesn’t even have a helmet law for motorcyclists.
Driving a car is a higher net risk than riding a motorcycle. The problem is that drivers externalize much more of the risk. People die riding motorcycles all the time - way more than people driving cars. But you know what people driving cars do? Blow holes into buildings. Smash cars. Kill pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and other drivers.
A motorcycle demands your attention because the risk is mostly on the rider. Drivers are pacified by how externalized their very existent risk is.
Noise cancellation headphones that will block out loud things or ambulances approaching you, sitting exposed on a motor strapped to two wheels at a high speed? Yes. That is different from driving in a Lexus.
They don't block out loud things or ambulances approaching you. They block out constant loud background noise. This is why they're good for airplanes, lawn mowers, motorcycles and being out in public, and not good for shooting or as industrial hearing protection.
As I mentioned in another comment, on an airplane, my airpods in ANC mode make it easier for me to hear announcements.
I drive a car and ride a bicycle and an e-bike in Miami. The ANC isn’t that magical, I hear plenty of out of the algorithm noises (ambulances, etc). Head on a swivel and look straight.
+1, but add a motorcycle to that list too. Not Miami, but a large city, and now a smaller city.
All the assertions I'm seeing in this thread are bizarre to me. One can easily hear a siren over noise cancellation and over wind noise, and it's even easier to hear if you have noise cancellation for that wind noise.
As a related example, when I'm on an airplane and I have noise-cancelling headphones on, the pilot announcements are easier to hear than without them.
The ambulance with the bright flashing lights? ANC doesn't dim your eyes. This is absolute nonsense.
Sure, if you keep the eyes in the back of your head peeled, you’ll be fine
well, one comes with a pretty strong safety cage, so there is that difference.
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No it isn't. Presumably you're trying to ban radios in cars as well?
£50 to a spat out smartie says you've never ridden a motorbike in your life, let alone in city traffic.
If that's illegal than cars with closed windows would be illegal too. Even more so if they have the radio on. As a cyclist I keep having issues with car drivers not hearing anything happening outside of their vehicle (not a bell, not yelling, not a bicycle hooter). That's like wearing headphones or earplugs and still is considered normal. I'd love if everyone would be required to drive a cabrio.
Agreed. The people who complain about earphones while riding/driving/cycling are older and grew up in an era where they had advertisements on television warning people not to do that. The actual risk is fairly minimal. As you point out: modern cars are designed to be super quiet. Just use some common sense.
Cars are much more safe in a crash (surrounded with a steel frame, airbags, safety belt...) and also safer while driving (better mirrors, bigger and easier to see).
I use the bike, and I know for a fact that almost any crash with a car means me in a coffin. I need all my senses at 100%, can't afford the luxury of listening to music or wear shorts for example.
Cars are only safer in a crash if you are inside the car. They are a big problem for anyone they crash into. That's why it's so very important that you see and hear everything happening around you. Why should the once with more mass and speed have the luxury of listening to music?
hence the term ‘cager’ - once you experience the phenomena from a bicycle or motorcycle it becomes obvious.
It's been decades since I've ridden motorcyles but as I recall the helmet usually had foam padding over the ears and that was adequate for wind and noise reduction.
At least in Germany I think wearing headphones in ANY vehicle is against the law, even a bicycle, and even if you’re not listening to music (IANAL).
That’s wrong. Wearing headphones is not banned. Isolating yourself to a degree where you cannot hear warning signals (emergency vehicles, car horns) is (10 € fine), though that’s not the same as being able to hear all traffic sounds (which would be non-sensical, given that cars are and have been for a very long time quite sound isolating. Horns and emergency vehicles are two of the only things that really get through.)
In practice this means that police won’t do anything about people wearing headphones. Wearing them is totally fine. However, if you get into an accident you might get a larger part of the blame if it’s determined that you not hearing so well contributed to the accident. (The rules of the road do have a general clause that you need to pay sufficient attention – so anything distracting might get you to shoulder more of a blame in case of an accident, even if it isn’t explicitly banned. Use common sense …)
As I said, cars are inherently quite isolating, so car-centric maniacs better try not to legislate my right to wear headphones while riding the bike aways while they sit in their sound dampened boxes, casually overtaking me with too little distance.
(I strongly suggest to never turn on noise isolation while riding the human powered kind of bike and I also recommend either turning on the pass-through mode or just putting in the earphone on the side away from the road.)
I stand corrected! I was stopped once by police on my bicycle and asked to not wear headphones (wired, Apple’s basic ones).
I’m also somewhat shocked the fine is that minor. Not hearing a honk or bicycle bell can be quite dangerous.
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In your opinion, how hard should somebody beat their wife to deserve an extremely painful death or being mutilated for a lifetime?
If this is what you fancy, your local emergency services will probably welcome you to come along with them for a day, so that you can laugh and jeer at people while they are dying or dead.
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In Europe it's strictly forbidden to wear headphones under the helmet. In case of a fall the in-ear device could cause grave injuries. Wearing a recent helmet and protective gloves with hardened knuckles is of course mandatory. But many helmets are equipped with bluetooth speakers and mike, of course.
> In Europe it's strictly forbidden to wear headphones under the helmet.
No it's not.
> protective gloves with hardened knuckles is of course mandatory
No it's not.
When I got my (admittedly car) license they made it clear that's illegal. Hasn't stopped people from doing it but yeah don't. Maybe get a quieter exhaust
It's illegal in a few places in the US, but not everywhere. It's definitely not illegal to put in a few kW of amplifiers and a few square feet of speakers, and often not even a problem to turn them all the way up and stop whole areas from hearing anything.
Those loudspeakers on wheels at volume are illegal in many places -what’s not happening is police caring enough to make arrests. Maybe other jurisdictions will take a cue from Las Vegas and begin enforcing laws to protect normal people from teenagers and adult idiots who still think they’re teenagers taking over streets.
Arrests seem like overkill. Ask them to stop, issue a fine, whatever. Sure I get you're asking for any enforcement at all. But hyperbole has a polarizing effect on discourse we should try to avoid, IMHO.
Yes, I agree, but really we shouldn't even be comparing "arrests" and "fine". The latter is a punishment, and the former is a practical measure to prevent a future crime (such as destruction of evidence) or to prevent someone from evading justice (by destroying evidence, hiding or leaving the country, for example). Obviously some police forces do use arrests and searches and confiscation of "evidence" as a form of extrajudicial punishment but that shouldn't be allowed.
Arrest? No, but if you've done illegal modifications to your ride then being forced to get it from the impound lot seems fairer to me compared to a ticket you can pay at your convenience.
In this case, it's not the modification that is potentially illegal, but instead the noise that it can make.
A big-honking stereo system isn't illegal to have at home or in a car in any jurisdiction I'm aware of, but there can be limits on how loudly it is used.
A stereo is a lot like a hammer in this way: Anyone can have a hammer. There's plenty of legal things a person can use a hammer for, and also plenty of illegal things as well. But the hammer itself, of any size, is A-OK.
There can even be time limits on when hammering is allowed[1].
[1]: I was involved in fire remediation after a friend's house burned. There was a lot of work to do, and we were working very late. The police showed up and politely told us that we'd need to keep it quiet until morning and suggested that they would find some way to make us quiet down if we didn't. We stopped hammering and tossing things into the dumpster at 11PM after that incident.
Earplugs are pretty common on a motorcycle. The issue is not the exhaust, its the wind which gets to damaging levels at pretty low speeds.
wouldnt the helmet prevent that ?
The helmet protects the ears from direct airflow noise, but it also extends out into the high-speed airflow much more than ears do.
The overall picture is that a helmet’s thick material blocks high frequencies. But it exacerbates and amplifies low frequency sound and white noise. As well, a helmet confuses the ear’s capabilities for identifying direction of sound that’s incoming
If a helmet is helpful is a question of how fast the motorcycle is moving and what kinds of sounds the rider needs to hear.
It’s complicated, but wearing no helmet might be safer at low speeds because the driver is more aware. No helmet, is undoubtedly not safer at high speed because brains are fragile
Edit: a simple experiment for anyone is to put on a full size motorcycle helmet anywhere, and then you can understand how much your hearing is dampened by it. But I guess it’s probably no worse than the experience of someone driving a car, which is soundproof by design
Not at all. 30-40mph you can hit around 90 db inside the helmet. You’re not that much better with a helmet off either. Air moving over surfaces is loud, if not the helmet you are going to get it from the wind hitting your ears.
There are certainly helmets that try to optimize for noise but there is no single one fix beyond ear plugs.
You're revealing that you have never rode a motorbike with your comment.
Riders need to use ear protection within the helmet unless they want to become deaf in the future, because of the wind noise.
It can be bad on a bicycle too, especially if wearing AirPods (in transparency mode).
Fully agree that its dumb but even on my electric motorcycle at sub-highway speeds, the wind noise was the only thing I could hear.
Curious, which model of electric motorcycle?
> Agreed. Unrelated pro-tip: wearing them while riding a motorcycle. Reduces fatigue and transforms a rough experience into almost luxurious. Highly recommended.
What kind of NRR rating, active or passive, do they have?
I wear disposable foam plugs when riding, and haven't ever considered using the AirPods I have. I find the sound of the machine part of the experience of riding and wouldn't really want to get rid of it; I treat the moto sound as a kind of white noise that's different that everything else in my life (though this is with a short-ish commute, and not long-distance drudgery).
If I wanted music or comms I would probably lean more towards ear plugs plus a Cardo/Sena unit. Or perhaps something with an official ANSI/CSA NRR rating, like Isotunes.
The reason they don't (and won't) have an NRR rating is that they're only useful for constant noise, and not for impulse sounds. There's no question that Airpods are not industrial PPE, for instance.
But I also ride with foamies most of the time (laser lites) and airpods occasionally, and I'd guess that the bike and wind are maybe 10-15% louder with airpods. The foamies win out for actually staying in my ears when I put my helmet on, but if I can get it on then the airpods stay in place fine.
Surprisingly, when I was looking for a rough equivalent to NRR for Airpods, I discovered that Apple does advertise their ANC as hearing protection[1], which I'll assume the FDA has now permitted, because Apple didn't used to make that claim because the FDA wouldn't permit it. They don't offer an NRR and they do warn against impulse sounds, but that KB article suggests a 20dB drop, which is nothing compared to foamies but is in the same range as musicians' earplugs or hardhat earmuffs, and probably better than Loops.
[1] https://support.apple.com/en-ca/120850
Use a model of in-ear phones which let you still hear the low frequency rumbling of the motor. That's the pleasant part of the noise anyway.
You should be wearing ear protection in any case. The fact that the AirPods have a published SNL is a bonus.
So you're making noise for everyone else, while enjoying silence yourself?
There’s this thing called wind that makes noise and also other vehicles on the road as well. Did you ever consider that?
You're right, my comment is unfair. In my defense, I've had my sleep interrupted several times recently by motorcyclists trying to make as much noise as possible, so I'm a little ornery ;)
Do you ride for economic reasons?
Sorry but no! On my corner of the world it's not allowed but more importantly it's dangerous. When riding your bike you must have all your senses fully engaged. First day I got on my new ride my dad gave me a piece of biker wisdom: You are the weakest and smallest vehicle () on the road, watch out and drive like nobody can see you or cares about you.
() Bicycles and other light vehicles excluded
I ride with AirPods on, no content playing, just transparency mode. It cuts harsh wind noise, maintains 3D acoustics, and keeps me safer as a result. They’re a hearing aid for me in this case.
You may want to get some passive ear protection though, active noise canceling is not the same as noise protection.
Unless you drive slowly, I find that driving at 60 kph max is still comfortable on the ears.
> cuts harsh wind noise
They look a little silly but cat-ears work surprisingly well.
No, riding for a long time without ear protection will damage your ears. Ear plugs at least are recommended. I am not hearing anything over the wind and engine noise anyway.
Being able to hear your surroundings on a motorcycle or bicycle seems very important for safety to me. Filtering that out feels dangerous.
In the Netherlands they banned wearing earplugs/headphones on bicycles for this reason (as well as using your device). Whether that's enforced / enforceable is another matter though.
On a motorcycle you need hearing protection due to wind noise, but good plugs will filter out the louder noises, not so much important ones.
On a pedal bike, it's very important because you are most likely to be hit by cars from behind. Motorcycles move much faster, and most riders wear helmets as well, already impacting hearing. The road noise and wind is very loud, try rolling down the window in a car on the freeway and imagine that on .your whole body.
Had a close call with a cyclist going the same direction as me. She veered over in my direction as I was overtaking and was rather startled to see me, as she was wearing Airpods.
Ah yes, the unintentionally suicidal, scariest part of being on the road.
> On a pedal bike, it's very important because you are most likely to be hit by cars from behind.
If anyone hasn’t tried a bike radar, they are a massive help. Eg Garmin Varia. Take care with the new model, the light is insane, on 5% you have the eye of Sauron blinding the rider behind you.
>you are most likely to be hit by cars from behind
Do you have a source for this info? It contradicts what I've read about the subject.
Just personal and anecdotal experience, and also that bike lanes usually move with traffic rather than against it.
As a cyclist, I find sound such a poor signal I'd consider it optional. Too many threats are silent and sound is too late, misleadingly bounces of other surfaces and generally poorly correlated with significance.
Safe cycling is all about vision. If you can't see it's safe, it's not. It isn't simply seeing imminent threats but predicting them e.g. identifying drivers that aren't paying attention and where a car could suddenly emerge like blind turnings, car doors, pedestrians and such, and countering with appropriate caution / road position.
If you find noise useful, IMHO it means you aren't sufficiently aware of your environment.
I cycle every day, and sound is definitely important; you need to plan ahead when you hear an ambulance approaching, for example. Plus, your brain processes things you see much better if there's a sound it can correlate the movement with.
There is practically nothing to hear that matters for your safety on a motorcycle at highway speeds. An ambulance you will hear even with headphones.
Ear plugs are recommended while riding a motorcycle.
> (i.e. loud and busy environments with many strangers, often physically closer than comfortable) is unnatural to begin with.
That's very natural when it comes to life in an urban setting. Love it or hate it, we wouldn't have been here now (I'm talking from a civilizational pov) without us humans moving into the cities.
I think the argument is that the urban setting itself is ancestrally unnatural. Only a tiny proportion of humans lived in areas full of strangers in close proximity until the last hundred or two hundred years, which is not long enough for any related changes to spread widely given generation length.
> I think the argument is that the urban setting itself is ancestrally unnatural.
That was my point, yes.
I would even argue that being surrounded by people is a natural state. Being isolated in a suburban home or an automobile is probably just as unnatural as being “surrounded by strangers”.
Our ancient ancestors probably did all of the following within eyesight and earshot of around 40 people:
Privacy and isolation are a very modern phenomenon. Even in the 19th century social norms around fornication and defecation and the privacy expected are much different than today.Edit: I’m also deeply fascinated by the ability of historical sociolinguistics to give us insight into cultural attitudes towards different topics. Consider the evolution of and the attitude towards the expletives “fuck” and “Jesus Christ!”
But those 40 people were likely more or less consistent and known to you and you also had direct or implied trust built up with them.
That's fundamentally different from an anonymous mass of people in a city. I've seen and heard much more than 40 people (many of them different every day) before I even reach the office in the morning.
> you also had direct or implied trust built up with them
This part is definitely not true. By all I read about the history, the abusive or hostile "I cant escape" situation was simple fact of life. They get less prevalent when you can leave easily, more prevalent when you are dependent.
> But those 40 people were likely more or less consistent
Not necessarily, people started to organize into larger groups basically whenever they could.
Two extremes, equally unnatural, was simply my point.
Either you have to trick your mind that the people who are going about the same rituals with you shoulder-to-shoulder are part of the same tribe as you: using the same bus, coffee shop, elevator.
Or you have to trick your mind that being completely alone and going hours, sometimes days, without opening your mouth to communicate with someone or exercise the part of your brain that reads facial cues or even smell the hormones of another human (good or bad) is also somehow okay.
Having done both (2 major metros, as well as suburban and WFH life), I’ve found the former to be easier for me, personally. I also find suburban and rural people to be generally more misanthropic than urban people, which of course has some selection bias. Exurban people seem to be the most misanthropic, by far (shout out Dallas-Fort Worth).
But the point is, being surrounded by people day-in and day-out doesn’t seem to me to make people misanthropic on aggregate - otherwise cities would be an even worse place to exist. It’s the humans that make it bearable.
> we wouldn't have been here now (I'm talking from a civilizational pov) without us humans moving into the cities.
What do you have in mind specifically?
Edit: I'm aware that statistically, there's more inventions in metropolitan areas. However I'm not sure how much of that we can really attribute to causal effects that are unique to cities, especially today. Obviously, many universities are in metropolitan areas, but on the other hand, we have many tools for remote collaboration that we didn't have 200 years ago. So I'm not sure if cities are not an outdated concept.
They are useful for blocking the obnoxious sounds that modern life impose upon us. The largest consumer hardware chain in Australia, 'Bunnings', plays a notice over the store loudspeakers regularly (perhaps every 15-30 minutes) warning that violence against staff will not be tolerated.
I'm not in any way an anxious person, but for some reason, the constant suggestion that I'm in a place where violence is a risk makes me feel upset so much that I don't visit my local store without my noise-cancelling AirPods.
Is it just me or do places that have “no violence against staff” warnings tend to have the rudest staff? It’s starting to become a signal that the place is best avoided.
Unfortunately that avoidance doesn’t work too well for TSA or my local hospital.
They have even more utility for folks on the spectrum who can struggle with sensory overload.
Interesting .. when we first moved to my current house we knew it was a quiet neighbourhood, helped by being set back from the main road. What I wasn't prepared for was the absolute silence in the early morning - it was what I imagine deafness would be like, if earbuds can achieve something approaching that, then take my money.
I think ears adapt to silence the way eyes adapt to darkness. When camping on some land I have is SE Oklahoma it’s so quiet I eventually begin to hear the conversations of our neighbors on their porch maybe a 1/2 mile away.
Humans have always crowded in busy markets, gone to large and loud parties, etc.
Is this sarcasm?
Not at all.
As far as trade goes, we have birds of paradise in New Mexico, 320k year old obsidian tools and color pigments found in Kenya that came from hundreds of miles away. We know trading across thousands of miles has been happening for hundreds of thousands of years.
As for large celebrations, ceremonies, or just parties—well it seems silly for me to even spend time citing specific evidence. Of course this has been happening for hundreds of thousands of years as well
The (alleged) fact that there have been large celebrations does not necessarily imply that all humans of that time participated or enjoyed it, does it?
> 320k year old obsidian tools and color pigments found in Kenya that came from hundreds of miles away.
Might have been contactless drop off.
Most times when I wear them (or any other Bluetooth headphones) they are turned off, just so no one talk to me.
Strongly feeling a need to isolate yourself is not healthy and unnatural.
This varies enormously by where you live.
I live out in the countryside. If I run into someone in the road, I will nod my head, maybe introduce myself, and maybe chat, if the other person is interested. (To be fair, I know about 80% of the people I see in the road.) This is normal behavior. Sometimes, two cars will pass each other and stop to talk.
I have also lived in the city. If a stranger wants to talk to me in the city, either they're looking for directions (happy to help!), or they are deeply confused about appropriate social behavior in crowded spaces. In the latter case, I'm lucky if the stranger-with-no-boundaries merely wants to warn me about the dangers of the lizard people. So I've learned to ignore strangers.
> If a stranger wants to talk to me in the city, either they're looking for directions (happy to help!), or they are deeply confused about appropriate social behavior in crowded spaces
A neat summary of the article.
Talk to the old fogies in said city and they will saddle you with complaints of how people used to say good morning, how are you doing, etc. It didn’t used to be this way. Alas, we probably won’t be talking to the old fogies either.
We used to have a much more rigid system of social enforcement - for good and for bad. People used to feel bad when they did things society disliked. It had real consequences. People knew what you did and you wouldn't be invited to events or be hired. The downside was that people who lived alternative lifestyles (such as those who were gay) were also ostracised.
Unfortunately we threw the baby out with the bathwater, and decided that all actions are equally socially acceptable and there should be no social repercussions for living "differently."
This is why I prefer smaller, culturally homogenous communities. We all understand the rules and we generally abide.
> People knew what you did and you wouldn't be invited to events or be hired.
I feel like this has almost never been true in big cities: it's impossible to know everyone and unless they made the news for what they did word wouldn't travel very far.
Besides that, I also haven't observed what you're describing in both the smaller communities and the cities I've lived in. People absolutely do still get socially ostracized all the time in real life.
You're just taking the Western code of social conduct as "normal". Human interaction is completely normal and natural.
Isolating yourself in certain situations isn't the same as not having human interaction and sticking 10 million humans in a small area and expecting them to always interact with all of the others is in no way normal or natural. Sometimes interacting with ~100ish people (within an order of magnitude) over your month is natural. Too many is both exhausting and diluting of the meaning, too few is lonely and over isolating.
You're trying to follow an out-of-date map. Our technology-infused growth of the past 50 years has produced more widespread mental illness and psycopathy than someone in the 80's could have even imagined. At this point in our societal evolution, you cannot assume that HUMANS THEMSELVES are either normal or natural.
Human interaction, sure. Human interaction with complete strangers, 10 inches away from you, enclosed in a metal tube you cannot escape from easily... not so much.
Just because you personally disagree with something does not make it a universal wrong.
Thinking so is immature and unwise behavior.
For a non-solitary species that requires almost 2 decades for self-sufficiency, isolation is not a question of personal opinion, it is fundamental.
But we are talking about a temporary and situational isolation here. I'm not wearing Airpods when I meet family or friends.
Well, let's just say my needs changed a bit over the next two decades.. yours did not?
As they explain, living in such close proximity to thousands of strangers is also not how we evolved. The earphones are an adaptive strategy. Like masks on public transport during pandemics. We don't have to adapt to modern society, but we can make it more pleasant in various ways, depending on our preferences.
This is a very un-nuanced and combative take on a lot of people's lives. It reminds me of it being socially acceptable for the extrovert to say to the introvert, "Why don't you talk more?" while it is not acceptable for the introvert to say to the extrovert, "Why don't you talk less?"
I'd agree in general terms, but I don't think city life or existing in busy and noisy spaces is either. Isolating as described (by putting on noise-canceling earphones) is a way to manage and reduce sensory input to something within your own control.
Some people are comfortable with that, some people (say they) are used to it, but a lot of people find that blocking it out works better for them.
Writing comments on HN is also completely unnatural.
> …not healthy and unnatural
I don’t think you can say this categorically without taking context and a myriad of facets of one’s socio-emotional situation into consideration.
> (i.e. loud and busy environments with many strangers, often physically closer than comfortable) is unnatural to begin with.
What is unnatural about this? We have plenty of anthropological evidence that humans have been doing massive festivals for at least many thousands of years i.e. people voluntarily gathering together with strangers in loud and busy environments with all sorts of sounds and smells.
We still have festival type experiences: concerts, street festivals, gatherings in a park, church, etc. None of them particularly look like the bus.
For one, when and where this was the case, it was probably once a year or so.* Not daily or weekly.
Furthermore, the "voluntarily" bit plays a big role as well. If I were to go to a big festival (as you can guess, I wouldn't), then I guess I would be fine with the people. But that's not the same as commuting IMHO, where I'm together with lots of people involuntarily.
* it's an interesting topic actually, so if you have any sources, I'd like to read them.
We have anthropological evidence that humans lived like sardines in a can 24/7? Where?
Ah yes, that natural many-thousand-year-old massive festival tradition we all know and love: the twice-daily subway ride. Good comparison.
To be fair when you live in a big city and you have to take the subway all the time, it just feels physically nice to remove the background noise whether it's the noise of the train itself or the musicians or the people asking loudly for money. I don't even have airpods, I have good old earplugs because I often too lazy to choose the soundtrack of my own life.
It's not that don't want to talk to unknown people, it's that it's more important for me to avoid the unpleasantness of it all. It's all relative of course, I'd take a fast, crowded train any day rather than having to do the good old accelerate-and-stop of a traffic jam/city intersections.
I live in a country with somewhat solid social net so I'd actually be in favor or preventing people to ask for money (loudly and in a pathos-optimized voice) in the train. It's generally people who are 1. having other income 2. drug addicts 3. mental issues or a combination of all that. I don't blame them but I wish there was a cruelty-free way of preventing them to do that because I don't think the amount of money they make is worth the amount of inconvenience they cause. Of course they are other ways of making the service better (more trains, closer to each other) but I believe the subway company is already hard at work on that.
My point I guess is that it doesn't take much for something to become an unpleasant experience (as anyone who's ever had a significant dose of LSD will tell you) and that's it's easy to blame people (individualistic, selfish blablabla) but system-thinking is how you solve that kind of issue (and it's not easy)
That's kind of the point the article is making though, isn't it?
You're making a choice to insulate yourself from your surroundings. That choice has effects on both you and your environment. You see it as a simple salve, but the poor souls you're choosing to ignore see it as a just another bourgeoisie wall.
I used to live in a prison. Headphones were a huge fighting issue. People who couldn't afford them would borrow, rent, or steal them. I never saw the point. Humans are a part of nature. I can sleep, eat, shower, and meditate just as well in the middle of a deadly riot (I was once asked by an officer to leave the dining area as they'd maced several people and everyone else had fled while I sat there calmly eating my institutional cheesy cardboard because I was more hungry than bothered by the mace) as I can in a forest or a dead silent bed room.
Embracing or shunning the society you live in is a choice. Choosing either has consequences. My choice means that I am often driven to action to contribute to systemic solutions to the pain I see in life. It isn't easy, but I don't think I could live with sticking my fingers in my ears and pretending it isn't happening.
I worked in Manhattan often in the 00s and early 10s. Have people forgotten what big city life was like before? Commuters did not randomly strike up conversations. It was an unspoken code you left each other alone. Especially in rush hour commutes. Everyone is waking up or tired after a day of work. It is more about having some personal space in a crowded environment for many. Not everyone processes or experiences that the same way either.
> It was an unspoken code you left each other alone.
Adding to this, you never know in advance when your interlocutor's stop will come up. So subconsciously you know it's a bad idea to strike up a conversation. Plus it's a captive audience so the majority of people sense that it's wrong to "force" someone to talk.
And the trains are noisy. It's difficult and unnatural to talk above the ambient noise.
> I can sleep, eat, shower, and meditate just as well in the middle of a deadly riot ... as I can in a forest or a dead silent bed room.
You should realize that there are people who can't do that.
There was a point in my life that I couldn't do that.
To suggest that it is impossible for a given individual is different from suggesting that it is difficult which is different still from suggesting that it is suggested.
I have personally benefitted massively from deconstructing the walls that my parents and peers suggested I build as a child. It was work to do, and is work yet to be done, but I value it.
I am no longer angry in traffic when "the jackass can't see I'm late" or whatever other silliness. I no longer dread the stench and noise of public transportation. Both are natural. Just the way humans are. Being perturbed by it is a choice that I've decided I could do without.
Minus some socio-behavioral-mental deviation from the norm, and even then considering advances that can be made with therapy...I just don't see it. Why should I be bothered by people on the train when I know that it is possible to just...not?
> There was a point in my life that I couldn't do that.
At some point of my life, I realized I can’t assume or rely on the idea that other people will enjoy living their lives like I do. So, what I find admirable and something to thrive might not be the thing they’re looking for.
Surely the solution to this social problem, however, can't be "everyone should simply convert to my religion / achieve a higher state of mind where they're not bothered by any form of inconvenience, irritation, or interruption." If it comes to that, most people will continue to wear their AirPods. It's a non-answer.
I think you'll find that I never made any such claim. I only ever spoke of my own experience with the topic at hand. I've done so in good faith that others may find it a useful comparison to the original technique suggested.
Well, I suppose that's true strictly speaking. What I'm reacting to is your claim that this is a simple "choice" that everyone else is making:
> Embracing or shunning the society you live in is a choice.
When the reality is that it's more complicated. You're able to make this "choice" because you've spent years cultivating a quasi-religious attitude of equanimity toward things that are, from the perspective of most, annoying, troubling, or frightening. So what you're asking of most people is more than a choice (taking their AirPods out), it's more a matter of converting to a different way of life entirely.
> What I'm reacting to is your claim that this is a simple "choice" that everyone else is making:
Just because something is simple, does not mean it is easy.
This has been part of ancient philosophies: “Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.” — Epictetus
But also more recent writings:
* “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ― Viktor E. Frankl (someone who survived the Holocaust)
* “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.” ― Viktor E. Frankl
* “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ― Viktor E. Frankl, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning
> So what you're asking of most people is more than a choice (taking their AirPods out), it's more a matter of converting to a different way of life entirely.
Before making the effort to "convert" you first need to choose whether you want to continue to be vexed and frustrated by external events, or if you want to try to reduce your mental anguish by things you cannot control.
Do you want to continue to get pissed off by other drivers, or not? Do you want to get annoyed by other people on the train/bus, or not? Do you want more of an internal calm/peace, or not?
I don't know why my comment made the commenter respond as if I were suggesting to an alcoholic that "they should just stop drinking."
It's clearly a difficult thing or else there would not be many many many individuals and groups dedicating their time to such an effort...
> It's clearly a difficult thing or else there would not be many many many individuals and groups dedicating their time to such an effort...
Yes, as I said: simple ≠ easy.
I actually made the decision long before I was ever capable of carrying out the act itself.
I was in a depressive suicidal hole, and had been for well over a decade. The first time I tried to kill my self, I was seven years old.
It began with the realization, while I was trying to drink myself to the courage to finally pull the trigger, that the common refrain "it's all my fault" meant just a bit more than I'd given it credit for.
I realized, huddle on the floor behind my recliner because it was the smallest place I could find and fit in to, that if the desperate quality of my life were truly entirely my own fault, then it could be possible that I could stop being the source of my own malcontent. That was enough to save me from that particular suicidal flare. That I could stop harming myself.
It's been many years from then, and it was many years from there to when I realized that I could even be a source of happiness for myself instead of merely not harming myself.
But it was a choice that I was making, to view myself as inept, beyond salvation, capable of and likely to ruin everything, hater of my fellow mankind, etc. I have found in the years since the last time I tried to kill my self that almost every single unhappiness in my life was a matter of perspective rather than a genuine immutable fact.
Consider the article. People are noisy. Do I have to be upset about that? I certainly used to be bothered by all sorts of rude and noisy people. On the train, at the library, in the grocery, etc. That anger contributed to my general dismay of humanity such that I used to feel that it was all hopeless, and that if everything were hopeless, I shouldn't persist in trying.
That posture was a choice. Choosing to make the effort to no longer adopt that posture was a choice. That I have continued to attempt to make the choice to be compassionate and equanimous towards others is a choice that I have struggled with, and have ultimately both struggled with and succeeded in pursuing.
It's a choice that I have ultimately benefitted from. I cannot possibly see going back to the world in which I elevate my own concerns so highly above others that I simply and outright refuse to observe their own suffering. The world's a bummer, for sure, but for me personally, I am happier observing the problems and contributing to their diminution than I ever was ignoring or pretending the problems didn't exist.
I'm sorry that you think I'm asking anything of anyone, and that you think I've got anything at all adjacent to a religious attitude. Neither could be further from the truth. I am merely sharing my own experience as a contrasting example to the phenomenon described. I know that many people associate certain words with religious activity, but I can assure you that I definitely do not practious any such thing, and would never advise anyone else to do any such thing.
I used to be a person who shut everyone and everything out. I used to do so because I believed that anyone and everything were the source of my suicidal ideation. When I chose to change my beliefs, to believe that perhaps I was the source of my own discontent, was the first moment that I had a glimpse of a future in which I was no longer suicidal.
I just figured this was an opportunity to be like "hey, listening to and talking to people is actually possibly a good thing because it was for me even though I used to think otherwise"
Comparison is also a source for suffering.
Unfortunately, you can't lead most people to this place you've found; they have to find it on their own in order for it to work for them.
Well, sure, but the last time a suicidal person hears "it gets better" is probably the most impactful of any such event.
I know I'm no leader, that's why I've not condescended to offer any kind of a map. I took a messy, far longer than necessary route to achieve anything that could at all be described as succesful.
I just thought, hey, why not share a picture of the progress?
Living in filth is not natural. Animals and primitive humans know how to keep themselves reasonably clean, to avoid attracting predators if nothing else. We seem to be regressing.
I'm not particularly bothered by those things either, but I'm a large man and people don't tend to mess with me much. I can afford to be casual about it (within reason). Not everyone has that luxury.
Why should you be bothered by people ignoring you with headphones when you simply could just...not?
Why should you assume that I am bothered by people ignoring me with headphones?
I certainly never said any such thing as it simply isn't true.
Being able to do it in the middle of a riot is, absolutely, a hard-earned skill.
But it is, like so many of these things, a skill. You have to practice it.
I think that putting earbuds in and checking out of the world around you is a really awful thing to do as your default in life. As a "sometimes" thing it's fine, even healthy. There's a lot of talk of public transit in this thread. If people do it during riding transit, and not really at other times, I'm fine with that. But so many people have their earbuds in before they leave their front door, every day, every week, and they don't come back out.
And I think that's really, really unhealthy, for them and for the rest of us.
My son, for example, has sensory issues and cannot tune out anything. The "you have to practice it" is like telling a paraplegic that if they just exercise more they'd be able to walk. People are different and have different needs.
> And I think that's really, really unhealthy, for them and for the rest of us.
Or maybe it's not. Maybe the rest of the world is unhealthy and this is a way to reclaim some personal healthiness.
I think that's an unusual scenario, and I'd ask you to consider that that's probably not the argument I was making.
Most of the dozens and dozens of people I see in daily life sealed away in their earbud pockets do not appear in any way to need to do that. I am certainly not seeing the full picture of every single person's life, but I do not think that every last one of them is incapable of meaningfully engaging with the world.
The key word there is appear. How do you know? You're making a lot of assumptions about people and why do things and whether or not it's healthy. You see dozens and dozens people with earphones on at exactly the time when most people don't want to be engaging. Some women put on headphones, often playing nothing, to avoid harassment. But the reasons are endless.
You're assuming all this is "really really unhealthy" but what is the justification for that opinion?
The article is making the case that this is not healthy for society. It is the kind of thing that's fine if 5/100 do it, seriously worrying if 50/100 do, and basically fatal to civilized society if 99/100 people do.
And when I go to the park and have a run, of the 100 people I might see there and on the way, we're closer to 50/100 than 5 or 99. So I think we have a problem.
If you read the article you'll notice that it's all opinion. The main quote about research is "There is disappointingly little peer-reviewed research on the effects earphones have on our daily lives and interactions." Even the linked "studies" are all correlation and mixed in with COVID.
The flaw in the whole argument is that somehow people are having less "meaningful" conversations because they headphones on. I'm sorry but you're not going to have a meaningful conversation (or any at all) with the 100 people who are also actively running at the park whether or not they had headphones on. I still don't see it as a problem if 100% of the people running had headphones on; they are there to run! It's like saying there's a problem because 50 out of 100 people at the park having running shoes on. If you've pre-decided that running shoes are a problem then that's a big concern otherwise it's just nothing.
For me, if I didn't have headphones on I wouldn't be going for a walk/run at all. That one thing has drastically changed how I approach exercise in general and I would do less without them. That said, I do occasionally enjoy a nice walk/run without any headphones but as the exception rather than the rule.
"When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them."
-- Evelyn Waugh
Paraplegics don't have the use of their limbs. Acting as if "sensory issues" are in the same category is grossly insensitive.
Why is it grossly insensitive? Sensory issues are widely documented and studied. It's probably most well known as part of autism, but it's also seen in PTSD, schizophrenia, CTE, etc.
People with these conditions literally cannot learn to tune things out.
I suspect the parent commenter was intentionally vague to avoid derailing the thread into discussing their specifics (many of which are, unfortunately, currently politically charged).
Suggesting you can just practice your way out of biological sensory issues is also grossly insensitive; that's why I made that comparison.
Stating that using this kind of technology is "unhealthy" both for a person and society is a pretty bold claim that I think is pretty ridiculous.
I think if you're placing the ability to block out the world by force of will o a pedestal but judging people for wearing noise cancelling headphones, then you're just being a hypocrite.
You don't disagree with the need or the concept, just the means for irrelevant reasons.
Its like people attempting to shame for going on ozempic to lose weight.
You’re chastising the person above you for blocking out the world with headphones while bragging that you have honed skills over time to, due to desire and necessity, block out the world in your own head.
In any case, it doesn’t strike me as unreasonable to want to be unbothered, especially in particularly bothersome circumstances. You don’t owe anyone your attention, and the assumption that you do can and is weaponized by everyone from Zuckerberg to the fentanyl addict aggressively demanding your money.
I'm fairly mistaken you've mistaken me on two counts. I've chastised no one. I've merely observed aloud that the choices we all make have effects on both ourselves and others.
I also don't do any such thing as block the world out in my own head...not really sure where you could have gotten that except perhaps from a misunderstanding of meditation.
The meditation that I and many practice is about peaceful abiding or compassionate awareness. It's about changing our own judgement of reality as it is, not escaping from it.
Our comments speak for themselves, readers can decide for themselves
In a way you're right, but what you can do comes from a significantly high spiritual development level. For an average Joe it's quite abstract and maybe even unattainable in this life.
OTOH, there are people who get sensory overstimulated more easily. Add to that a foreign place, lot of people and chaos around, and even a neurotypical individual can feel anxious.
Putting on headphones and playing Chopin is much more effective than breathing and telling yourself "everythings gonna be ok" in a loop. At least in my experience.
I believe we wouldn't have a tenth of the chaos we are currently experiencing if people talked to their neighbors and fellow commuters more.
With or without headphones, people aren't just chatting around on the subway all the time. I love my headphones and I also chat with my neighbours.
This is just the same argument that has been repeated since the dawn of the walkman.
50 years ago when people weren't looking at their iPhones on the bus, they were reading the newspaper or a book. Not a lot has changed.
What chaos are you referring to? What do you mean by "chaos"?
A buffer isn’t necessarily isolation or insulation.
You will have to explain. Headphones in work or street environments definitely function to minimize interactions with surrounding humans. I literally think twice before engaging with people wearing headphones and am rather oblivious to people around me when I'm wearing them unless someone is using physical gestures to get my attention.
If general public habits shift to the extent that the majority of people with headphones end up only using them for noise cancelling then my behavior would also shift accordingly.
> I can sleep, eat, shower, and meditate just as well in the middle of a deadly riot
Good for you. I can't. Some people need quiet conditions to focus or sleep and if they don't it feels like active torture.
> That's kind of the point the article is making though, isn't it?
I think the article pays lip service to this in a paragraph ("social crutch") but otherwise falls into the trap of "societal" pieces (Soft "Why can't we talk to each other anymore ? What is wrong with our cvilisation?")
In my opinion make it a safe enjoyable non-crowded ride and you'll get plenty of interactions.
> just another bourgeoisie wall.
You are not wrong in a way. The base of a lot of the kind of interaction the author of the piece is thinking about is a relatively equal social standing, otherwise there's too much at stake, on both sides. For example, I, a lower middle class man, would have little patience for someone telling me about how much fun they are having taking helicopter rides in the summer and I don't think they'd enjoy my rant about how landlords are evil. Of course I think there's a moral duty to lower yourself from your social standing to care for people who have it rougher than you but it's generally not exactly pleasant like a conversation with someone like-minded could be
Wow, was it a computer fraud abuse act thing, I mean claimed to be? Obviously nothing violent!
Thanks for sharing.
I plead guilty to financial fraud, thanks for the interest!
Curious how you project certain assumptions, though. Makes one curious about your own activities.
We’re on HACKER NEWS!
:( hey I didn’t wanna be rude… I retract the question
Smart hacker news poster comfortable talking about their legal history… feel like I suggested they set out to gleefully hurt people or something
Few who paid their debt to society and moved on are excited about random strangers wanting to do their own petty little performative mock show trials to sit in smug judgement over them. Please stop.
Almost as if there's a limit to how many demands strangers can reasonably place on a person before we as a society agree that the person should put up boundaries (like, say, putting on headphones and outright ignoring the demands) and even go out of our way to encourage strangers to respect those boundaries.
I'm not calling you out, IncandescentGas, you're right and you're doing a good thing. I'm just saying its ironic that you jump to the defense of somebody who has made it clear that they don't believe others deserve the same courtesy you are providing them.
No defence needed in my case. I made a mistake and paid my price. I feel bad for people who are so bored and miserable in their own lives that they feel the need to elevate themselves by trying to diminish me.
It's too bad that they don't live more fulfilling lives that don't require them to feel the need to attempt to insult people.
Smug?
Show trial?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48609479
People are really good at finding virtue within themselves
> poor souls you're choosing to ignore
And why exactly should I give a fuck about people who are trying to bother and inconvenience me?
The exact answer to that requires using the cognitive capacity of empathy.
Well perhaps you could spell it out for those of us who lack it then.
Counter: my attention must be earned, I do not owe it to randoms.
I agree with this comment.
Noise canceling headphones is the only reason I’m able to use the bus in SF. The author writes from Germany, which has reasonable social etiquette in place in most cities. That social contract just doesn’t exist in large parts of America. In Chicago, they have a real problem with people smoking on public transportation. They don’t make noise canceling headphones for your lungs yet.
The people wearing headphones all day aren’t the ones “losing touch with their neighbors”… no, it’s just that their neighbors are assholes, and they just want to get through the day.
> They don’t make noise canceling headphones for your lungs yet.
Well, they literally do, they’re just absurd:
https://www.wired.com/review/review-dyson-zone/
Funny, Germany is the only European country where I spotted multiple people using public transport smoking while it was banned.
I wear my AirPods Pro on the train largely for hearing protection. The DC Metro is loud, with or without people making noise in the train. Different train systems have different levels of loud, but when the Metro is flying through a tunnel it is quite loud.
I also often have them in while walking around the city for this purpose as well. I usually have the noise canceling off, but if an ambulance or something is coming my way, I quickly click the AirPod to put them into noise canceling mode.
The metro is a much less stressful experience for me with noise cancellation on. Without them the noise in tunnels just makes me anxious. The outside tracks are all fine without them though.
And for walking around - it's the traffic noise that bothers me, not people. Traffic noise can just be so loud along some roads (and at certain times of day) that it makes me not want to walk at all.
Traffic and honking can be quite annoying. I find the AirPods Pro knock down quick a bit of noise even when off just because of their tips, but when I want it even quieter I use the noise canceling.
Some places aren’t loud but most U.S. cities are. I’m going to Paris this summer, and I probably won’t use AirPods while walking around.
Paris is one of the loudest cities in Europe that I experienced. Bring your noice cancelling headphones.
https://leva-eu.com/europes-10-noisiest-cities-revealed/
> it just feels physically nice to remove the background noise whether it's the noise
I thought about it and I found that after so many years my mind can just fade the noise out and I doesn't bother me at all. It also helped me to hear selectively. On the other hand, when I wear noise cancelling headphones it feels weird, like detached from the reality I am present.
Only place I prefer to wear them is open plan office. Too many conversations and many grab attention needlessly.
It's not just a social or class issue. A lot of women wear headphones to discourage creepy men from hitting on them or sexually harassing them. The HN crowd skews toward young men and I think many of you don't understand that some women get this constantly on public transit.
Headphones also give an 'excuse'. Some men become really pissy and unstable if they think you're ignoring them, but if you have visible headphones, then you have the excuse of not hearing them.
Having to buy fancy headphones to solve a social problem is what makes it a class issue. That's the subtle error in the typical response.
Luckily, nobody is saying you have to buy fancy headphones.
Unfortunately, somebody doesn't understand the concept of structural incentives.
Also, do not reply to me any further, your sarcasm is not welcome. It is incredibly rude.
Take your Social Sciences 101 attitude somewhere else. And while you're at it, don't tell me what to do, thanks.
You missed the point. Cheap headphones work just as well for this purpose. It's not a class issue.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted, this is a real issue. I'm not a woman, but I'm a gay man and the same thing happens walking through Boystown or at the gym. Headphones have a near-100% success rate at deflecting unwanted advances.
[flagged]
Unwelcome attention is unwelcome attention. The only charitable exceptions might be children and adults with developmental disabilities, who allowably don’t know any better.
>adults with developmental disabilities, who allowably don’t know any better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb9dV_DP5NI
> Unwelcome attention is unwelcome attention
Quite right. Allow me to rephrase:
What about the non-creepy men?
It's very telling that you think creepy and ugly are you synonyms and non-creepy and attractive are synonyms.
Those guys are creepy too.
If they're a non-creepy guy, it's because they don't behave like a creep. Not because they're handsome.
You mean, what about the tall, handsome, well-dressed creepy men?
The dichotomy is not conventionally attractive/creepy, it's understands boundaries/creepy.
If all men are creepy, then why bother with the adjective?
You're still hung up on this idea that violating boundaries and being a man are synonymous, and that what makes it creepy is how attractive you are.
Whether someone is attractive or not, they're perfectly capable of not bothering someone who doesn't want to be bothered.
You're basically saying "if an unattractive man who doesn't respect boundaries is creepy, but also an attractive man that doesn't respect boundaries is creepy, then that means all men are creepy."
Do you really think that the response to "hi, my name is Bob!" being attraction or repulsion is not related to how attractive the man is?
Also, men are expected to initiate the opening. Very few men are attractive enough to not need to do that.
I teased a friend of mine long ago that his pickup line was "ok". The women approached him one after the other. Yes, he was tall and handsome. What works for 1% of men doesn't work at all for the rest of us.
I don't remember any time in my life where it ever felt normal to me to randomly talk to strangers. I went to London when I was a teenager and was made uncomfortable by how chatty the cab drivers were. Later, I worked at a startup and my boss was preternaturally gifted at chatting up strangers, which he did habitually in every setting we were in when we traveled; on the plane, on the bus from the airport, &c. I remember feeling like he was a freak of nature.
And I'm not an introvert!
All of this long predates Airpods.
I think this is a cultural difference, not a technological shift.
> I don't remember any time in my life where it ever felt normal to me to randomly talk to strangers. [...] And I'm not an introvert!
Life's so interesting sometimes! I consider myself an introvert, and I don't remember any point in time where it ever felt abnormal to talk randomly to the humans ("strangers") around you, regardless if you know them or not. We're both humans, why not see who the other one right next to you are? :) Maybe I'm just "too curious".
It was kind of confusing growing up in Sweden, where most people don't share this idea, so of course it felt really isolating when almost zero strangers actually engage even a tiny bit. Luckily, I figured out I lived in the wrong country relatively quick, and now live in a country (Spain) much more aligned with my own mindset, and having the time of my life chatting with everyone and everything, and they even respond back!
why do you consider yourself an introvert if you enjoy chatting with everyone and everything?
I fit this description too. I consider myself an introvert (that is, more introverted than extroverted; very few people are exclusively one or the other) because I need to be alone to recharge. When my "social battery" is full, I eagerly start conversations with strangers, and even when it is drained I'm comfortable talking to people, though I might not desire to.
It all depends on the subject - I can talk about cooking, climate change, collapse, film for hours. As for sports, gossip, celebrities, I clam up. Ditto for any talk that's status seeking or not curious and bi-directional.
Introvert doesn't mean one doesn't enjoy socializing, just that one needs quiet down time to recharge from it. Extroverts tend to be energized by socialization. It's also not always so cleanly binary, either.
I really hate that introversion gets conflated with social anxiety or misanthropy on the internet.
well, and I dislike that people feel the need to desperately label themselves with some affliction. At some point you're just pretty close to the center of the bell curve.
I'm not sure if you're talking about me self-labeling myself as "introvert" earlier, or specifically about the comment you replied to and the "social anxiety or misanthropy" parts, but I don't see either "extrovert" or "introvert" as any sort of afflictions, more like preferences.
I'd agree "hate" is a strong word and maybe a bit exaggerated, I hope at least.
I get tired from talking too much with people, and need to rest by being by myself, I guess is the gist of it. Still enjoy it though, like swimming in the sea, tiresome but fun :)
I’ve strange news from the business world. That ability to talk to strangers and be conversational with various topics is actually making him a rather successful boss/business-person. Remember, not just talking, but the far better one is the ability to listen, and take genuine curiosity in the other person’s stories.
I learned, and am still learning, to start with very subtle conversations in contextual proximity to the person without shocking/surprising them. And then, I mostly try to listen more and try to guide them to talk more. You will be surprised at how many a lot are eager to talk to someone, if they are being listented to.
I'm sure that's true but not everyone is cut out to be a "business-person". I certainly am not. Same with boss, I'm not a team player at all.
I don't mind small talk sometimes but there has to be some kind of common ground. For example with conservative family-first suit types I have nothing to talk about and it feels awkward to make conversation, but with the leather/mesh/blue hair alt/goth types I can talk for hors.
>For example with conservative family-first suit types
"hey man, how're the kids?" "Is your wife recovering from [illness] you mentioned last week?" "man, have heard the music on the radio lately?" "what kind of music do you like?" "can I ask you a personal question, what was the hardest part of getting the success you have?" "did you know you wanted to be a boss/manager when you were a kid? No? Oh, you wanted to be an astronaut? Oh man, no way, have you seen the crazy stuff spacex is doing with re-useable rockets? We're getting so close to (relevant sci-fi from when he was a kid)"
You've just got to have an open mind, which you'd think you'd have given your conversational partner preferences.
"SpaceX is a fraud. Its all about control. That's why in the future you'll be eating bugs because it's Greta Thunberg".
I am only partly paraphrasing actual conversation with my father in-law.
I cannot stress enough that what you think will work here doesn't: literally every topic will be pivoted towards a rant about which groups are destroying the future (all of them), or how it's all a conspiracy or how they are plotting against you.
You've invented a conversation you think works. I have lived a damn decade of the list of "safe" topics endlessly shrinking, and the punchline is same: 30 damn minutes of alternately being told some half remembered conspiracy theory from Facebook or asking for agreement that group are bad.
That scifi concept from when they were kid? Well they are lying about that for money of course.
It is exhausting to deal with over and over again.
You can lean in to that though. I live in a rural county with 22k people in the entire county.
But you're painting two different pictures as if they are the same. The suited family type and the conspiracy theorist are different people.
Were I to know that I were dealing with a conspiracy theorist, the pivot is "I wish I could pay as little tax as rich people do (knowing fully well that they often pay far more than I do" or "yeah, it's crazy how the rich always abuse the little guy" or "what would you do if you were in their position (the same? ah well, at least it's understandable. Different, there, you see, there are good people like you and I left to fight the fight!) Or, hell, just for funsies you can play Conspiracy Olympics in which you try to outgun and outthink their own wild ideas. "Oh yeah, well 'spacex is a fraud' is exactly what a russian sleeper agent would say!"
I'll admit that there have been a small number of people that I simply could not connect with on any level, but working in non-profits and with volunteers, you get used to people's quirks and figure out how to work with them on their level. And what's more, you'll often end up being considered one of their few friends or even just "one of the good ones in their book" because so many people are just completely dismissive of them because they don't like their ideas.
You're engaging in exactly the kind of behavior that many of them complain about, their "no one cares, everyone's out to get me" mentality is only enforced by your "it is not possible for me to talk to or associate with these people". You are in fact one of the they that is plotting to remove this demographic from your own reality. It is not a stretch for them to imagine that you would prefer that they did not exist.
Kindness is not complicated.
It's equally tiring hearing about how every problem in society is a result of capitalism and how conservatives are all facists and are scheming for a way to bring back concentration camps and want to deport everyone who doesn't have three generations of native-born ancestors.
There are fringe kooks at all edges of the spectrum and they are all tiring and boring.
But most guys on the train wearing a suit are just normal people who have to dress like that because their work requires it.
Good point but that's exactly what we in the LGBT community have had to deal with for years now. After a while the will to find a common ground just gets eroded. But that is a bad thing, I agree.
And the thing is a lot of MAGA people do want these things. Otherwise they wouldn't happen.
But yes part of the blame lies with me too. It is as you say very tiring.
I strongly feel that that's the thing that's mitigated modern queer integration into popular society.
I understand that being either loud and proud or even just unabashedly your own self can be trying at times. I know, by first hand experience (as a cis-ish passing transwoman if you squint), that embodying your own reality in public can be a difficult and damaging experience...
But it's just...necessary. Even on a completely selfish front, no one's going to accept me myself for who I am if I can't tell people who I am. And then there's the larger front that those who have come before me did some of the work to make my life easier, and that by my own work I can make the lives of those who come after me easier.
It's just...sad, you know? Like I know it's hard for us to keep banging our heads against the wall. It's hard to go out in public and recieve insult after insult. It is hard to visit an unfamiliar locale not knowing how we will be accepted. But we have to! Literally the only path to acceptance lies through exposure.
That's the real reason that I am so sociable. I know that the only way past the insults is past the insults. If I only ever hide in the closet...well, the closet isn't all that big is it? I believe that if I show up as myself in any and every interaction I can only have a positive effect. At worst, I find people so bigotted that they are beyond help, avoid them, and pray for those few. In the middle everyone lets me slide. At best, I find bigots who I can expose to reality as it is and help them to get over their fears and prejudices.
I have found through experience, that this reality is closer to the best of possible worlds I just described and far from the worst of the worlds I just described. I have been rewarded time and time again in my encounters, finding countless people that I am able to relieve of their fears and knowing that I have saved countless unknown queers from the vitriol that those I have helped would otherwise have spewed.
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Assuming you have nothing in common with someone because of how they dress is just prejudice with better aesthetics :/
The suit guy probably has more interesting stories than you'd expect if you gave him thirty seconds.
If someone wears a suit they have a reason for it, it's not something people do because they like the feel of it. Because they're really restrictive, expensive and feel horrible. They do it to impress others or to fit in in business. Or when they're trying to sell something.
I'm more comfortable among other outliers.
You think the green haired folks are doing it because bleaching and dyeing their hair is just super duper fun? They're doing it for the same reasons: attention, approval, to fit in with their peers, trying to sell their identity to their peers.
Well yes I think so. It is fun and cool. I love my crazy outfits too. It's not really about the peers though it's nice getting compliments at parties. It's more about feeling good about myself and feeling like it matches who I am.
Also they feel really good due to the materials being very smooth. Latex in particular is really like a second skin.
I would never feel good in a business suit because it's not who I am. Even if the fabric wouldn't feel horrible I would still be miserable. They're all the same too, like a uniform.
And you can't see, at all, that the folks who choose to wear business suits feel precisely the same way?
That they like getting compliments from the people they interact with? That it makes them feel good about themselves and feel like it matches who they are?
That the suit feels good too them due to the materials being quality and expensive?
That they would never feel good in leather because it's not who they are? That even if the leather wasn't sweaty and sticky, they'd still feel horrible?
Both of y'all are doing the same shit. You're wearing what you want to wear because it feels good to you and it feels good to you because you get compliments on it and getting compliments on it means that you've been accepted by the group you wish to be accepted by.
The suit and the leather gimp suit are the same thing. The vest and the kapris are the same thing. The turtle neck and the neck tie are the same thing. They are all status symbols. They all say "I want to talk to people dressed like this" and probably "I don't want to talk to anyone who dresses like that"
It's not all about compliments. Those are not that important.
But if a business suit matches who they are then I'm not really interested in them. Which is what I said in the first place. I really hate business and the kind of people that spew PR bullshit on LinkedIn for example.
If your suits feel bad you’re probably not wearing the right suits. They are expensive though, that’s definitely true, so it does reveal some of their preferences.
Good point, but I'm very sensitive to clothing. I just can't wear them anymore, and I don't have one that fits. The only one I had was just bought in a store. But it was awful.
But really a job where I'd have to wear one means a job working with business people and I would be very bad at that anyway.
For weddings I just don't go if it's too formal, though most of my friends are very polyamorous. If they even marry it's not a huge deal.
How much money do I need to get a suit that’s not miserable in 90f+ humid heat where even stepping outside in shorts and a t-shirt has you sweating after a few minutes?
I don't think it's necessarily the suit in that case. As a Florida resident, however, I like my Tommy Bahama suit's breathability but it might not be formal enough for every occasion. There's also some "super breathable" suit that I see being advertised a lot, but I haven't tried one of those.
There's a reason suits were not invented in such weather
> I'm not a team player at all
could ya try?
No. I don't want to change who I am.
It’s legit funny who you’re responding to with this exhortation on how to be a successful boss / business-person.
I'm sorry but I usually look at the content, the poster much later or sometimes not at all.
Yeah, I don’t think it was bad advice or anything, I just found it humorous.
Talking to strangers is a skill. You can practice it! I've made a point of trying to practice, albeit halfheartedly, and even though it's difficult for me, because I like it when other people try to talk to me.
Earbuds stop this practice dead in its tracks. You can't deny that.
> I like it when other people try to talk to me.
Probably an unpopular point on HN, but this is very gendered. There's a lot of women who don't want to be chatted up who wear headphones, and therefore a lot of men who are annoyed at this visible signal that the woman doesn't want to listen to them.
We can leave room for "not wearing headphones is a signal that you're open to talk" without having to pressure people who aren't.
> There's a lot of women who don't want to be chatted up who wear headphones
This is true, but so is the opposite! I think the most important thing is to be kind and receptive. It's fine to start a conversation with a women wearing headphones, just take it in stride and don't be weird about it if she isn't interested in talking. I do this (with men and women) a lot.
It is true that women are more likely to be approached by creeps, and due to the physical differences between the sexes women are at higher risk in such situations. That said, we shouldn't dismiss women as too delicate or whatever to chat with. They're people!
> It's fine to start a conversation with a women wearing headphones, just take it in stride and don't be weird about it if she isn't interested in talking. I do this (with men and women) a lot.
Not sure where you're from, but where I live, headphones are a well-understood signal that someone would rather not engage in conversation at the moment. Some have been conditioned to placate the kind of people who deliberately ignore these signals by engaging in brief small talk rather than risking a confrontation, but this shouldn't be misconstrued as an interest in talking.
> headphones are a well-understood signal that someone would rather not engage in conversation at the moment
I live in a big city in the US and for myself and probably most my friend group, this rarely true. Maybe it’s because we are a bit extroverted or do work that is social. For me it’s more that I like music or a book, and just want a distraction from my commute. You can start a convo just don’t be rude and realize I might be getting off my stop soon.
Eastern Canada, where people are generally easy going and friendly. I'd be surprised and disappointed to hear things are different elsewhere, but I don't have the lived experience to say one way or another.
I've lived in a few US cities, but the example of NYC comes to mind. New Yorkers are happy to lend a hand if you're lost, struggling with a stroller on the stairs, or something falls out of your bag. And they're happy to chat at a concert, club, farmer's market, sporting event, carnival, conference, convention, etc.
But a stranger gesturing for you to take off your headphones while you're walking briskly down the street or riding the subway just so they can make smalltalk does not seem socially acceptable whether it's packed at rush hour or mostly empty at 1:00 in the morning.
> therefore a lot of men who are annoyed at this visible signal that the woman doesn't want to listen to them
I mean I'm sure there's a guy somewhere who's annoyed by this, but "a lot of men who are annoyed" feels like making up a group of people to be angry at.
Given how the media amplify things, it could perhaps be literally just one guy, but FWIW I too have heard of the phenomenon pjc50 described.
> Given how the media amplify things, it could perhaps be literally just one guy
If you go to popular tourist spots in Europe there’s usually that one guy who’s trying to scam everyone who passes by. It only takes one to be a huge nuisance.
Sure, there are plenty of guys who are nuisances in all sorts of situations, but are there lots of guys who are angry that women use headphones?
yep. Just like it only takes a few prolific spammers to ruin email, it only takes a few antisocial con men to make "talking to strangers" seem like an imposition.
I don’t think it is unpopular as much as it might need clarification of culture and location. There are some countries where genders tend to talk their similar presenting gender in public setting like transportation.
Talking to strangers is a skill. You can practice it! I've made a point of trying to practice, albeit halfheartedly, and even though it's difficult for me, because I like it when other people try to talk to me.
It is definitely something one can learn. I also like it very much. Most people are just very nice and love chatting a bit as well (just be respectful of their time and know when to bow out).
There are also other functions that purely having a good time. E.g. when you are in a train with reserved seats, striking op a conversation is also a good way of gauging whether it's ok to leave your bags when you leave your seat to grab a drink or some food. Also, people feel more responsible looking after your stuff once you have socialized a bit.
For me it's not super-difficult. I came from a small village where it is normal to greet people and maybe chat, even if you don't know them.
> Most people are just very nice and love chatting a bit as well
In my experience, this depends on the context. Everywhere I've lived the only time strangers try to talk to me is to either a) ask for directions (1%) or b) beg for money (99%).
I see people in these comments suggesting we should just say no thanks I don't want to chat -- I'd have to repeat that a dozen times a day. It's exhausting and I don't gain anything from it. I figure these folks must live in totally different locations.
> I came from a small village where it is normal to greet people and maybe chat, even if you don't know them.
Yeah, I could see that. If my village/city wasn't plagued by petition beggars or money beggars or merchant beggars I'd probably be more interested in engaging.
Agree with the first part, very important! Not the second, however.
I joined my local fitness gym some months ago and use it to connect to people in the small town I moved to. Almost every time I'm there I manage to chat to someone briefly, and 50% of them have earpods in. Most of them now look up and greet me when we pass and multiple have up to me on other days to chat afterwards.
It's a skill and part of that skill is being able to give people an out of the chat if they don't feel for it, not interrupting at a bad time (mid set in a gym setting). My starter is usually a quick question with a "thank you so much, I'm new here" and if they reach for earpods to put back as they say you welcome, perfect you don't keep going. For the ones who want to chat keep them off and respond or ask something in return.
So headphones/earpods can be a barrier but for me it's a useful barrier and a clear signal, which helps both parties.
> Talking to strangers is a skill. You can practice it!
This is HN mate!
You need to design an app so people can practice it. (Alternately, rant something about "pick up artists").
The app should just disable your phone for the day so you have nothing to do but interact with the world.
We used to advocate governments turning off the internet on Friday nights and redirecting all WWW traffic to a test-card that says "Go to the pub".
> Earbuds stop this practice dead in its tracks. You can't deny that.
Yes it's a signal. For you to go find someone else to talk to :)
That doesn't mean I'm antisocial, there's just places where I go to be open to talk to people. Like bars, meetups, stuff like that. And places where I'm just to get from A to B and I don't want to. Usually when I'm in public transport I'm going to/from the office and I'm stressed because I deeply hate working in the office since Corona (no more fixed desks etc). So I need my space.
I just pretend I haven't noticed they have earbuds in and start talking to them. Virtually everyone seems happy to have an interaction, I get the feeling people are a bit starved for random friendly contact.
I don't wear AirPods/headphones of any sort in public but I don't like talking to strangers while out and about and get very uncomfortable since it's almost always someone trying to get something from me.
But every time someone does randomly talk to me, I smile and laugh and I'm very cordial. Because people who approach strangers generally get quite angry when they're outright shot down. That doesn't at all mean I'm happy to talk. A smile is often just a defensive response.
Just trying to spread a little cheer and human connection, getting angry is the last thing I'd do.
Amen!
> Virtually everyone seems happy to have an interaction
If a stranger bothers me while I have my headphones on I may act friendly and polite, but I am actually very irritated.
I would get very irritated by such behavior. One reason I wear earbuds is to signal that I don't want to get talked to.
Have you tried simply telling people you don't want to talk?
"Sorry mate, I'm reading" is hardly difficult.
Why would you initiate talk with me in the first place, when we're in a situation where I have not explicitly chosen contact with you? (say on a train)
Also reading something would be a clear signal (also to me) that a person doesn't want to get disturbed.
When I have to tell you that I don't want to talk, you have already disturbed me. So, taking the cues here clearly is on you, not on me, at least in my opinion.
Edit: To clarify a bit, I'm talking about places with involuntary social contact, like for example a train or a grocery store. I go on a train because I have to get somewhere, not because I want to interact with people. It would be a different scenario say in a bar.
If you are in a public space, I think it's totally fair game to initiate talk. It's also totally fair game to signal that you aren't interested.
This is actually very difficult for a significant number of people. Some people really struggle with saying "no" or enforcing boundaries, some people are very wary of negative interactions with strangers. If you are relying on people to explicitly push back on you, rather than reading more subtle queues, you are quite likely adding stress to someone's day.
I think most will pick up on subtle cues. That said, there is nothing wrong with being direct. And for those people who struggle with saying no, well, practice makes perfect.
If you're reading it's kinda obvious, and it's pretty annoying to be interrupted.
A dozen times a day, every day? No thanks.
So you are bad at reading signs. And that "seems happy" may be just "are too polite to punch you".
You may like it, others may not. I hate when random strangers talk to me. Unless you are skilled to distinguish willing from not, you are training your skill at the expense of others.
Kind of black and white. I think everyone agrees to not chat up strangers sitting reading books, listening to music or whatever, but if you're idle, what's the harm in saying "No thanks, I don't want to chat" or something similar if someone asks you something?
And yes, of course don't try to speak with people who obviously don't want to be spoken to. Quick way to find out, is to ask "Can I ask you a question?" and then you leave space both for the people who don't want to chat, and the ones that do :)
I used to judge that based on people's faces, but the faces lie a lot, and some people basically default to looking pissed off, while they can be very warm people, and also vice-versa, so in the end asking up front seems to be the nicest way for everyone to be OK with it.
What types of social interaction should be permitted in society?
HN is not a good place to ask about social skills.
> I like it when other people try to talk to me.
I don’t.
Skill issue I'm afraid ;)
(Said as someone who used to feel the same way, before I discovered the joys of talking to strangers.)
I don’t mind talking to strangers, I’m actually a very chatty and genial person. Some would even say that I don’t know how to shut up. I just don’t want people (strangers or otherwise) to interrupt me at times when I don’t want to talk.
My question is, why do you think you’re entitled to consume strangers’ time?
I think we see things differently. I view conversation as an offer, with no expectations either way. Whereas you seem to put more weight on it, I'd guess because the ADHD you mentioned in another comment means interruptions are more impactful for you. I'm not sure there is a way to bridge this gap, because for me (based both on my understanding of modern psychological research and personal experience), a world without talking to strangers is a much impoverished one emotionally and spiritually. I'm afraid I'm willing to throw your mental wellbeing out with the bathwater on this, though I feel bad about doing so.
> I'm willing to throw your mental wellbeing out with the bathwater on this, though I feel bad about doing so.
So what, disabled people should just stay home? That’s your answer, just make society hostile to people like me?
I bet there’s a middle road that you’re not considering, but because it’s not important to you, the disabled person should just accept a lower quality of life for your convenience.
I'd love to learn about this middle road. As I said in my comment, I'm not happy with my conclusion.
I definitely think it's generational. Every person I know over 50 could talk to a brick wall for hours. The people I know 30-40 it's a struggle for at least half of them. Under 30 and it gets much worse.
Even the older introverted people I know, who I would characterise as quiet, would find it really rude to get in a taxi and not chat to the driver for the duration of the journey.
With people doing their entire careers remotely now I can only see this shift happening faster and more intensely. Small talk is a skill like any other and I think it's a sad skill to lose on a societal level. And I say this as a serious introvert that doesn't love to make small talk. Nine times out of ten, when I do make the effort to e.g. talk to a taxi driver I come away happier.
I’ve noticed the age gradient as well. It’s hard to miss.
My take, is that this effect has removed a lot of the micro communications we make - not necessarily random conversations. It’s taken away random moments that may trigger a short small conversation with strangers.
In part it’s taking away the shared experience in public and making it “my” experience.
Completely anecdotal story, me and a friend had completely different experiences going to Portugal. We're both Brazilians so language, food, culture aren't barriers, he's very talkative and would joke and try to interact with random people in the street or restaurants. He had a terrible experience, hated the country, vowed to never come back, said he wasn't welcomed anywhere, people were rude, even waitresses.
I'm more of a "talk when talk is needed" person but still social. i don't really interact with strangers in the street and I assume business social interactions (like restaurants) are just that, business, so I'm polite but i'm not going to crack a joke with someone i've never seen before and will likely never see again. My experience was the complete opposite, loved Portugal, would easily move there if salaries weren't shit, people were nice, i felt welcomed anywhere i went, might have been the only place outside of Brazil i have really felt at home.
I think its important to NOT BE RUDE with the random people you meet in the street but I also see no reason so strike a conversation with them. If I happen to see something that picks up my interest, like a band shirt, book i like or something like that, i might bring it up if we're going to stay in the same place for long, but starting a conversation out of nowhere just isn't a thing for me.
Sure, but when the only reason I had those random moments with strangers were because they wanted them, and refusing to engage is considered "rude", I'd argue that it already was just someone else's "my" experience before, just "shared" because of societal peer pressure. What changed is that now I have a way to actually assert my boundaries without being the rude one.
I think it's a mistake to conflate passive signaling with asserting oneself, and whether you like the interaction you might have otherwise had or not (as long as it's not clearly harassment or something) it would be rude to ignore people in public whether that rudeness is delegated to technology or not. It's just another way of turning up one's nose, and it's a gross way to operate imo. If you don't like the people you'd interact with, it seems to me like it should be a personal goal to find a place to work or live that's more palatable from that perspective. If you go about life preferring to pre-emptively refuse interaction with people passively, I'm not aware of a better word than "rude".
You say “as long as it's not clearly harassment” as if that is uncommon. Outside of giving directions at train stations, the times when a stranger has started talking to me in public have been almost universally negative. Often times it starts as a friendly conversation before the harassment or begging for money or scamming starts. Other times the people just start out crazy or harassing.
I feel like your conception that “ignoring people either consciously or through technology is rude” makes more sense in higher social trust situations. Like at a party or a bar, where bad actors are less dense and there is an expectation of socializing.
> I feel like your conception that “ignoring people either consciously or through technology is rude” makes more sense in higher social trust situations.
Yes, but I meant that the more people who block everyone out by default, passively and indiscriminately, contributes to social rust rather than trust. Ignoring or especially telling some people is not inherently rude or bad, but conducting yourself as though everyone is de-facto untrustworthy is a problem that doesn't seem likely to be solved by passively blocking the world out.
Like I added, I don't know why I'd pay to live somewhere where I'd prefer not to interact with anyone. If the place actually does suck, then I should do everything in my power to find somewhere that sucks less.
If you have social anxiety or ADHD, those are personal issues that need to be managed, but I still don't think it's generally a good idea to pick the easiest, least superficially confrontational method to signal that you don't want to talk to anyone.
> people who block everyone out by default, passively and indiscriminately, contributes to social rust rather than trust
I'll turn this around: when I see people wearing headphones on the train or the bus, I appreciate that they respect everyone around them. Silence is a commons, and the headphone people respect that not everyone wants to hear their TikToks, their phone calls, their hallucinations, or their small talk.
> conducting yourself as though everyone is de-facto untrustworthy is a problem that doesn't seem likely to be solved by passively blocking the world out
Actually it does. Dealing with touts and sales people by ignoring them is usually more effective at getting them to leave you alone. If you engage at all, they manipulate your sense of politeness to draw you into a longer conversation or get you to do what they want. This is also true of most types of grifters and assholes.
Every time I got drawn into a scam or harassment, I could have prevented it by simply not engaging in the first place.
> I don't know why I'd pay to live somewhere where I'd prefer not to interact with anyone. If the place actually does suck, then I should do everything in my power to find somewhere that sucks less.
I live in the SF Bay Area and frequently visit Boston and Japan. In this limited experience, I've had a great time meeting strangers in social situations like at bars. I have never had a positive result from giving a stranger the time of day in public places (outside of giving directions). Maybe these places suck and I should leave, idk, but don't judge me for taking a default deny stance after consistently having negative experiences.
And this is just my male perspective. My female friends have even stronger stances against engaging with random people in public.
Wow, it’s wild that you think you have a right to the attention of strangers with whom you have no business. How is it rude to wish to go about one’s day unbothered?
I think if you are in public, you can't expect to be in private. You can try, but it obviously doesn't always work and we are exposed to all types when out of the house.
This has nothing to do with expectation of privacy. Private setting or public setting, it’s rude to bother people who are busy.
Some of you are unwell.
If you legitimately think that anyone who isn't extroverted in the same way as you is "unwell", I feel like you could use a lot of therapy yourself.
Saying things like "it's rude to bother people who are in public" (paraphrased) is antisocial and reflective of our time, where people live increasingly isolated and atomistic lives, not of human nature. My point is people who are not open to experiencing the lives of others around them are, as social animals, unwell. It's also worth noting that I don't think this is the fault of any individual (although my initial comment was not clear on this point) but rather of modern society which so thoroughly devalues what is human in favour of what is material and saleable.
Edit: I'm also very much an introvert, FWIW.
I am unwell; I have ADHD and if someone interrupts me it takes me a long time to get back on track. It’s very inconsiderate.
That's fair. I'm sorry you have to deal with that.
The problem is that you don’t know what the person that you randomly chat up is dealing with. You could be doing this kind of thing to anyone.
If I have earbuds in, I’m probably listening to classical music. It helps me self-regulate in busy environments. I’m not listening to podcasts (which everyone assumes now, I guess).
If you interrupt me, I’m going to be polite. You won’t know that you’re causing a problem because I don’t like to be a jerk to strangers. That could be happening every time you talk to a stranger for all you know.
People like to make talking to random strangers seem somehow romantic, but it’s actually just selfish. You’re not interrupting my focus for me, you’re doing it for you.
> You’re not interrupting my focus for me, you’re doing it for you.
While it may be selfish and pointless, it's the default expectation that in public space people can be spoken to, but it costs something to remove that possibility without also physically isolating oneself in some way. Not all public space is necessarily social, you can be alone in a wooded glen which creates a proximity barrier, but trying to preserve your whole private sphere while being in an otherwise potentially social space removes something from that space.
When I deliberately don't want to chat with anyone, I just take a side street or something. Not always possible, but it's rarely worth it; usually work is the semi-public space I'd prefer unbroken focus.
I do think it's overblown to make some grand statement about this behavior if it's only an occasional thing, but if the default expectation shifts to people hesitating to talk to people only because they might have headphones in, I think we've lost something.
> it's the default expectation that in public space people can be spoken to
It is not the social norm that anyone can be spoken to in public at any time, you are oversimplifying things. E.g. it is largely considered socially inappropriate to strike up a conversation with a stranger on public transit when you’re squeezed in like sardines; we don’t talk to each other to give the illusion of privacy and space. It’s also not considered socially acceptable to have a conversation with a stranger standing at a urinal. There are significant social rules about which adults and children can speak to each other in social spaces. Etc etc
There are and always have been situations where it is more or less socially acceptable to speak to a stranger in public. Headphones is not a new one, I knew in the 90s that headphones meant “don’t talk to me”.
I also have ADHD, but the onus is not on others to compensate for that; it wouldn't be labelled unless it prevented us from being compatible with the conplexities of daily life unaided by stimulants. People envy the way I can banter with randoms if I want to, but if I don't, I move on, and deliberately have to practice not getting too derailed.
Seems like a tragedy of the commons. People don't have a right to your attention necessarily, but you also don't have the right to be unbothered arbitrarily.
I think your attitude that going out in public is tacitly opting into interactions with strangers is a much more gross way to operate. The assumption that it's easy to just politely decline a conversation (and that not doing so in the form of a conversation itself) seems like an extremely narrow-minded point of view based on your own subjective experience. You're conflating social anxiety with the desire to "assert oneself", when it's closer the opposite; socially anxious people quite often don't want to assert themselves, which is exactly why the "just politely decline" strategy is misses the mark so badly. The fact that wearing the earbuds opts out of that passively rather than actively is the entire reason it's desirable.
In one of my other comments in this thread, I explicitly called out that this desire has nothing to do with like or dislike of the people who I might have social pressure to interact with. Some people find social interaction a net expenditure of energy even with people they like, and having to do that repeatedly throughout the day because I want to go to the doctor or something and society has decided that it's "rude" if I don't engage with literally anyone who happens to want to talk to me when I'm in public is honestly just silly. It's not like I'm keeping the earbuds in and refusing to talk to anyone when checking in at the waiting room; I just don't care to have to have a chat with my Uber driver or strangers on the subway while I'm out, and it's ridiculous to imply that I should just never go in public if I don't feel the way you do.
What is the public if not the space where we interact with others?
The place between my house and all of the other places I might need to go? Is your argument that people should just not go to the doctor or get driver's licenses unless they're willing to interact with every stranger who wants to talk to them lest they be "rude"? I don't understand how you can in good faith claim that needing to do something obligatory outside of their house or apartment is actively opting into social interaction with literally everyone else in public.
You can simply decline the conversation. It's not as big of a deal as you are making it out to be. I'm not saying you have to actively opt into social interaction, whatever that means. I'm saying its reasonable for others to offer social interaction if you're in public.
"You can simply decline the conversation" and "it's not a big deal" are entirely subjective and based on the assumption that being extroverted is normal. Your rules of etiquette are that I need to go out of my way to give people the opportunity to talk to me so that I can tell them not to rather than just signaling to them that I don't want to (which saves us both time and lets me quietly enjoy some music on the meantime), which is just bizarre.
Your preferred default is also entirely subjective. I'm also not an extrovert. My friends all acknowledge my extreme introversion.
Whether grocery shopping or an endurance running event (5K+) those with any kind of headphones in are simply less aware of the people trying to get around them.
The folks without earbuds who park their grocery carts diagonally across the aisle while standing in the remaining empty space disagree with you.
I heard they're thinking of putting cameras in the AirPods - so we'll just add collision avoidance (and backup alarms).
> I don't remember any time in my life where it ever felt normal to me to randomly talk to strangers > And I'm not an introvert!
See that's interesting, because I *am* an introvert, but I'm quite happy to sit and talk to strangers. I don't mind it at all.
One of the few cultural similarities that I feel like London has with Scotland (where I live) is that you can just talk to people. People will talk. If you go to Glasgow and you ask for directions, chances are that the person you ask will walk with you to where you're going and point out good places to eat and interesting things to see along the way. Boston people have just learned this in a big way.
My son is even more so, and at not-quite-six he already appears to know most of the people in the town of 14,000 people where we live, how their farms are doing, how are the cows, what weight of potatoes are they getting per hectare, what prices they're getting at market, how they're getting on with that gearbox problem with the van. It takes about an hour to walk the mile or so back from school because he's got to talk to all the old guys and ask how they're doing.
Social Networking at its finest. I suspect he won't be stuck for a job when he's older.
That's strange to me that you mention London as being similar to Glasgow. I've not had the chance to visit either, but my go-to on this topic has always been this faux news story on the Mash Report:
Northener Terrifies Londoners By Saying "Hello"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YxLiLFjYKc
I hadn't noticed it before, but they even specifically mention the use of headphones as a defense mechanism near the end.
Maybe it depends on where you are and the cultural makeup of the part of London you're in, then?
As an aside, I used to work for the company in Glasgow that build The Daily Mash's website before they got all into the ad-heavy money-at-all-costs thing. It used to be much better and the guys behind are actually pretty decent.
Yeah the most unbelievable part of this is people randomly chatting in London.
I live in London, and I remember flying to Ireland at some point, and I was seated next to an Irish lady returning home from holiday who sparked up a conversation.
My initial reaction was "Why the fuck are you talking to me?" because I had lived in London so long I was thrown off by a random person sparking conversation. But turns out she was just a lovely Irish lady flying from from holiday
He's too little to walk by himself just now - he's not quite six, and there are a couple of busy roads.
But he'll just kind of wander about in the park and chat to folk, talk for hours to people at the farmer's market, that kind of thing.
As someone who is often pretty introverted, I feel like wireless earbuds just give me a way to act like I already wanted to with less friction. I pretty rarely want to talk to random strangers, not because I have anything against them, but because I just find it takes a lot of energy for me to do so (probably not in small part from having to replicate a lot of what comes naturally from others in terms of social signal reading with extra effort). People seem to be a lot less likely to randomly initiate conversations with me when I'm out in public with my earbuds on, and that saves me from having to decide between feeling even more tired after going out or the awkwardness of trying to cut off the conversation short to avoid spending energy on it.
This comment made me think of AirPods usage like eye-glasses usage.
As someone from Chicago (actual Chicago, south side, not the suburbs), randomly talking to strangers is what we do.
We're talking to strangers at the bus stop, at the grocery check out, or just wherever. It's just phatic conversation, nothing needs to come of it. Chicagoans aren't just friendly, they actually love the art of the conversation -- every conversation is a chance to put in the reps.
But the minute you step into the suburbs, this habit disappears.
I grew up on the south side and lived for years in Lakeview; we moved back from Ann Arbor to Oak Park, much later, the only time I've lived "in the suburbs", and Oak Park is more urban than Beverly or Jeff Park are. And then, of course, even after we moved to Oak Park, I still worked in the city every day.
No, this doesn't track my experience of Chicago at all.
It's a class thing more than a geography thing. Culturally working-class urban Americans are chatty in almost every American city, save the most recently-urbanized ones (like PHX -- and even there there Latinos are chatty even if whitey ain't...)
Reading a bunch of these posts, a similar thought occurred to me. When I lived for a short time in Manhattan, I found the friendliest / most chatty were always working class types that ran small businesses or worked in the trades. I wonder if it is nothing more than these people are much more exposed to "strangers" through their professions. As a result, they are much less afraid to open a conversation.
My experience of Chicago (North side) was that it was full of polite but unfriendly people. This was jarring to my experience growing up in NY, where people tend to be more rude but friendly. I settled in Atlanta, where people are more polite but quite friendly.
> But the minute you step into the suburbs, this habit disappears.
This is exactly the feeling I get in the suburbs of most places, and I think the nature of car-centric suburbs serves as a decent analogy for the Airpodsification of otherwise more urban areas. Suburbanites want their palace that they can tightly control, and it rarely matters where it is as long as they can drive to anywhere they need to go, but they don't really like people and it feels like a deeply antisocial liminal space. There's rarely any specific reason anyone would want to be there, and even if they did, they'd have to drive, and if they chose not to, people there use their cars as tools for avoiding interactions with strangers. You wake up, get in your motorized comfort bubble / killing machine, and then drive from point A to B and then back to Point A. If you wanted to go hangout, oftentimes the act of driving that you've chosen sucks all that time away anyway. Drivers then get dogs so they have some sort of excuse to interact with other people who have dogs, or kids or whatever.
Then if they're lucky, they wake up one day and realize they don't see any real friends that aren't their immediate neighbors anymore, and they've lost the ability to understand how to meet people outside of work. Their old friends didn't come out for that bbq because it's dead boring and the bbq master is the only one that doesn't have a commute back. The bar in their basement sits empty because it turns out people actually want to go to the pub instead of sitting in the basement. The novelty was never the drinking itself, but the feeling of coming together in the same space and place as other people hanging out having a good time.
Yes, I experienced this a number of times in my life.
Growing up in a small Swiss village I wasn’t born in, I had to learn that you basically greeted everybody you passed in the road, under the assumption that you knew them or were supposed to know them (more conversations were not needed).
Moving to a large Swiss village, I had to learn that saying hi to random strangers was considered weird at best.
First time I visited Southern California, I was very uncomfortable with strangers striking up random conversations. Later in the trip in San Franciso, I felt that the slightly toned down form of this habit was more comfortable for me.
Moving back to Switzerland after having lived in CA for a few years, I had to relearn old habits.
Similar experience here. I grew up in rural Ireland in the 80s where you said hello to everyone but had a culture shock when I moved to Dublin for college. I quickly realised that you don’t greet everyone. I put it down to a being a matter of scale: in the countryside, it’s easy to say hello to everyone when you’ll usually encounter only a small number of people. It’d be impossible to say hello to everyone in a big city.
I still say hi to people when doing things like hiking a trail that’s off the beaten track: we’re sharing a similar experience and have that one thing in common. If it’s a popular trail or busy weekend, it’s more akin to being in a large town where you don’t say hello.
Another rural-urban division in Ireland is that in the countryside, car drivers greet oncoming drivers – whether they know each other or not – by subtly raising a finger or two while keeping their hands on the steering wheel. Since the 80/90s, this custom has been dying out in the counties near Dublin but I still see it in the West of Ireland. A few years ago, we were holidaying in West Cork and my wife was driving but hadn’t realised we were being greeted by the locals. As a Dubliner, she’d never even heard of this practice.
Edit: By the way, I just noticed your username. Seeing that you’re from Switzerland, I was wondering if it’s a reference to the Celtic Frost album?
Oh, I’d forgotten about this! I never drive much in Ireland but was in the car a lot with my dad as a kid. When he’d visit family in Longford this was happening all the time - I just assumed everyone knew him!
Years later, when I’ve been driving and visiting the country, I found myself on the receiving end of this and it all clicked.
Thank you for this wonderful reminder.
I usually see a hand wave, or lazy salute around rural Western Canada.
Probably a rural everywhere thing?
Common in rural eastern Canada too.
grüezi!
> And I'm not an introvert!
Consider that you may be!
You’re just surrounded by other people who are also introverted to the point you don’t stand out to yourself.
I’ve driven almost 4000 people home from the airport. It’s almost annoyingly ubiquitous for people to chat up the driver.
If I didn't want to talk to a person, I'd just take a Waymo.
This may not always be an option for the somewhat more than 8 billion people who don't live in areas served by Waymo.
How long do you think that's going to be true? The other "gotcha" is that some 26 percent of humans aren't on the Internet.
I'm sorry, the guidelines state that we should assume the strongest possible argument.
What part of the world could possibly reject the onslaught of an American advertising campaign? If you don't have TVs to see our ads on, well give them to ya!
The trick to talking to strangers, in my experience, is to find an opportune moment where you have a reason to talk to them (ie: you are both looking at the same departure timetable and you ask about a particular train/flight). The response will determine whether the stranger is open to carrying on a conversation. Of course, if their presence in the shared space is short, this makes it harder as these opportunities are not always present.
Smoking is probably the best lubricant (ie: borrowing a lighter, asking about a brand/vape, etc.) and people when they smoke are usually more open to strike a conversation. That's not an endorsement of smoking (and I've quit very recently).
My mom was one of those people that talked to people everywhere we went and seemed to know someone everywhere too. As a very shy kid I was constantly mortified but I had the startling realisation several years back that I'm that person now just starting conversations all over the place. Oddly enough seeing your comment I think the change happened when I moved to England in my late teens but I didn't recognise it until my 30s. I do wear my airpods a lot on walks these days but I always silence them as I approach people and regularly take them out if it seems like a conversation is about to start.
Agreed. These people seem to be panicking that our precious society is suffering because of choices people are making for themselves when that’s just what society is. If they benefit from talking to more people, go ahead and enjoy the benefits. They aren’t owed anything.
I’ll talk to strangers when it makes me feel good. But most of the time I try avoid inviting weirdos to complain about minorities or marginalized people from someone who has driven away anyone close to them.
>> I try avoid inviting weirdos to complain about minorities or marginalized people from someone who has driven away anyone close to them.
I would suggest that it's your avoidance of talking to strangers that makes you think this is how a lot of them think. And it kind of proves the point that society can suffer because of it. If you went out tomorrow and talked to 100 random strangers for 10mins I'd be surprised if any of them complained about minorities.
That is statistically unlikely. Almost everyone has a "racist uncle" type story and that's what, out of 10 people in your family tops?
Chances are at least 20 of them would.
>> Almost everyone has a "racist uncle" type story
IRL I've never met one real person that has a 'racist uncle'.
Most of the racist uncles don't use that as first subject with complete strangers, that's more of a family thing.
I said in my post that I DO talk to strangers. It makes me feel good when that’s what I want. It’s also true that most of y’all are sus AF.
I find your negative view of humanity saddening. I think most people are basically good.
That is my experience as well -- most people are basically good.
But my personal experience has also been that the sort of people who ignore social cues and try and chat someone up who is wearing headphones while riding public transit or working out are generally less good.
I think there is some truth to that, especially on public transit.
check out some vox populi, you would be surprised
> Agreed. These people seem to be panicking that our precious society is suffering because of choices people are making for themselves when that’s just what society is. If they benefit from talking to more people, go ahead and enjoy the benefits. They aren’t owed anything.
I hope you don't complain when people use social media or have LLM as their daddy to cope then :)
Yes that’s my definition of freedom.
I don't like talking to strangers and I would consider myself rather introvert, although not extremely (I'm more of a misanthropist, maybe). That said, talking to strangers is really quite easy; I do it sometimes, esp. to entertain my friends while walking on a busy street. It's quite fun. It can happen that you plunge into deep conversations too, with someone you met just seconds ago!
Technology and culture evolve together - I don’t think it’s a dichotomy.
Teenagers today are probably more likely to share your disinclination towards social interaction because they grew up during a time when AirPods are so ubiquitous.
It's one thing to isolate against strangers in a subway. It's another thing to be goddamn oblivious in a shared space like a grocery store--to take a random (not) example. It's getting to the point that I have to body up to people to get them to take notice that they're blocking a half dozen of us.
I also do agree with the comment that airpods do seem to get in the way of the most basic of social etiquette. Simple "please" and "thank you" are increasingly rare since you can't recognize the cues when your ears are full of something else.
as someone who enjoys talking to strangers, while it is less common in some countries like China, and big cities in most countries, people tend to react mostly the same.
This is common experience also in ND vs NT differences.
Well, what culture are you saying patterns like you?
After reading about the default mode network here a few times recently, I think missing out on all that critical "daydreaming" time is a bigger problem. I've stopped listening to things while I'm out walking, and I've noticed a lot more solutions and ideas coming to me. The DMN seems to fall into a similar area as meditation (remember when that was all the rage among tech leaders?); the lowered input noise gives the brain time to clear things out.
I'm a big fan of having noise cancelling earphones in with no music or audio when going for a walk. It's amazing how it forces you to think as you say and brings a kind of clarity.
I am a big fan of walking around in nature (even parks) enjoying nature sounds. It positively affects my mood. Bird sounds are my favorite, but while in bed I love the rain outside.
Same! To the point that when I'm home I'm usually playing outdoor ambient noise mimicking that.
https://moodist.mvze.net/
No doubt this website has a better range of sounds, but this is also built into iOS/MacOS as an accessibility feature which means you can use it even when offline.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchl3061cdc6/...
Absolutely, yeah. I use that when data is limited, but haven't come back to it in a while. Thanks for reminding me!
ooooo thank you for this link!!! its weirdly hard for me to find ones i like on youtube. this huge for me haha
mynoise.net is the GOAT I think :}
Everything has its moments :) Most of the times I like complete silence, so often I sit up until 3-4 so I can sit on the balcony for 10/15 minutes in complete silence. Other times walking in nature hearing the environment and animals brings a lot of mindfulness and introspection. I've been nostalgic for the sounds of a running train in the past too, or just the rumble of living next to a busy plaza, but too much of that would be annoying too.
I guess ultimately variety is what I like :)
Sounds like the opposite of what the OP and GP were advocating for.
I often put AirPods in and turn the noise cancellation on, but don't play any audio. Many other commenters mention the same thing.
Different people have different levels of ability to filter out background noise. Some people can focus and ignore the outside world so much that you have to wave a hand in front of their face if you need their attention. Other people can't help but parse background conversations and noises all around them.
Noise cancelling headphones level the playing field for people in the second category: It allows them to dial down the distractions and focus like the first group when their environment is fighting hard against it.
Even listening to background music has the same effect for many people. Music, especially familiar music, is not necessarily engaging enough to pull people out of their relaxed states and focus on the music.
I miss daydreaming too. In younger years, I often had boring, repetitive work but I could daydream the full day. Then as more you need the brain for work, as less time you have to daydream. Now I have really cool work, but I can't daydream at all. Even I use mostly public transportation (train) and have my headphones with me, I rarely use they. I kind like to hear and feel the people around me.
In high school and college I worked at a Christmas tree farm, and eventually was also a landscaper/hardscaper, caring for, digging up and planting trees, and building retaining walls and patios. At the time it made for good motivation to keep doing well in school, as the hours were long, and while easy for a fit 18-22 year old, definitely back breaking kind of stuff.
However, looking back on it I miss those weeks and months on end of having 6+ hours a day to be outside, working my body, but doing tasks that let my mind wander all over. No doubt those years of daydreaming helped me become the person I am today, and everybody has to grow up at some point, but I do wish I could get more of that back into my daily life. In fact, I think a large part of my current path towards early retirement is just to have that sort of time back.
> After reading about the default mode network here a few times recently, I think missing out on all that critical "daydreaming" time is a bigger problem.
Part of the reason why I listen to music and scroll my phone is to get some peace from the default mode network.
I don't feel like I would do it as often if my mind didn't insist on being busy all the time.
> The DMN seems to fall into a similar area as meditation (remember when that was all the rage among tech leaders?); the lowered input noise gives the brain time to clear things out.
I am not skilled enough in that department to say anything with certainty. But formal meditation is about intentionally focusing the mind, and the talkative mind or whatever it is called in the buddhist traditions is probably this default mode network. Which is the first obstacle; being able to focus on the meditation object without having your attention hijacked because oh what's for dinner, did I send that email, but what about that other email, oh but I couldn't log in on my phone, oh by the way that phone is also annoying in terms of that related thing, but I should stop using my phone as much anyway what about getting one of those dual SIM cards that I read about on HN.
In my experience, it's probably healthier for the mind to have the DMN active more than someone who can distract themselves all the time do. But to me DMT looks to meditation like sunbathing looks to a day's hike (yeah you're outside for both of these activities but).
I'll take the opportunity to add that there are as many meditative goals and techniques as there are cultures.
What you are describing is likely closest to certain forms of zazen, in which one tries to focus on just one thing or no-thing in order to quiet the mind.
However, just as common, is the various vipassana schools in which one attempts to gain specific insight through specific observation.
In the former, enlightenment comes from still states, in the latter from evolving states.
Then of course there are many visualization and trance traditions, though those are more common the further west you go from SEA.
All that is to say that not all meditation is simple sitting. There are walking meditations, dancing meditations, chanting meditations, visualizations, prayer, etc. And while they differ in technique, they all have the goal of achieving some specific state of mind.
Just any time in your day where you’re not bombarded with external input is getting very rare
Far too much of this bombardment is self inflicted and very much related to smartphone use.
I wouldn't go so far as to say the DMN is akin to mediation. The DMN what activates when your brain is not focused on the outside world, eg when you're reflecting on the past, or contemplating the future. That's almost precisely the opposite of mindfulness, which is about the somatic experience of the present moment.
To give you another perspective, I think I suffer from far too much DMN activity. It's very easy for "reflection" to slide into rumination. Increase DMN activity is highly correlated with depression. And I found daily mindfulness meditation to be incredibly helpful at counterbalancing that, spending less time in my head and more time in my embodied experience.
I've done the exact same. I frequently take walks and walk places and often used that time for an audio book or podcast. A zen revelation has been taking these walks and not bringing my phone. It's my daily meditation.
> The DMN seems to fall into a similar area as meditation
I'm curious about the relationship between mind wandering as exploration leading to insight and mind wandering as rumination. It seems like DMN is more associated with the latter. Its association with meditation likely comes from studies like the below.
Meditation leads to reduced default mode network activity beyond an active task
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4529365/
ADHD + Airpods means that I'm often putting them in, and stepping out of the house and completely forgetting to put something on. I'll just walk around with the noise cancelling on and it's super nice in a busy city.
Yeah, I have noticed this as well. When I’m trying to solve a difficult problem, it seems that way more ideas arrive to me unprompted when I take a break from heavy listening.
I'd much rather be surrounded by people wearing earbuds than have people watching tiktoks through their phone speakers on the subway
That just sounds like another version of what the author is talking about: using [device] to avoid human interaction.
In a really big and busy city it's emotionally exhausting and not reasonable to have an interaction with everyone near you. The only way a lot of people can tolerate being packed into busy public transit systems on a daily basis is to intentionally ignore each other to a certain degree.
It's essentially the same unspoken etiquette rule as what you're socially expected to do if riding a crowded elevator.
Go commute by NYC subway 10 times a week, M-F especially during peak tourist season and you'll understand.
I intentionally behave completely different if I'm in a small town of 3000 people or walking down the street, shopping, riding transit in a large city.
100 years ago they sold pocket sized books so people in cities could ignore each other by reading books.
Also there's plenty of old timey black and white photos of people riding the LIRR or similar where everyone is holding and reading a newspaper.
Ah, it’s reading that’s the problem. Plato/Socrates/Thamus was onto something!
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and people still try and suggest public transport is great, when its a hellhole..
It's not. I really like public transport. It is cheap (I pay 22 euros a month unlimited), I can do something I like like reading or watching something. I don't have to worry about when my parking expires or having to return to a car. It's pretty ideal IMO.
You do have to ignore the people around yes but I don't find that a problem at all.
because it has other people on it? personally I find that sitting down and getting passively carried near to my destination is way less stressful than paying attention to the road that whole time - not to mention finding parking. You don't end up exactly at your destination, but a little bit of walking is good for you.
Assuming you live in a locale with a reasonably efficient system. I've heard some horror stories about north american public transport. Other countries tend to do much better with timetables and routes.
I've never caught a train nor a bus in my life and intend to never do so. I value my privacy and don't want to get stabbed or sit on a chair where someone has pissed all over.
Tell me you're an American that lives in a 100% car dependent community without coming right out and saying it. Say no more, we get it.
Australia.
Australian public transport is pretty good in my experience. I certainly don't expect to be stabbed or sit in piss.
And you drive?
https://www.youtube.com/@DashCamOwnersAustralia
Am European, at least in the big cities, public transport is mostly not worth using unless you are too poor to afford better options.
Too crowded, too hot, there’s a decent chance of arriving at your destination drenched in sweat. Not to mention how absolutely gross the people sitting next to you will often be.
I’ll happily take a few parking fines every day rather than getting in the tube.
I could afford a car and I also live in a big European city. But a car is a huge hassle here. Just trying to figure out where to park the thing every time is a huge stressor. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that anymore. Nor the fuel, the fines, the maintenance, the insurance, the road tax, the parking fees all that stuff. I could afford it but I'd rather spend it on something I actually enjoy.
Public transport here costs a fixed fee a month for which I couldn't even top up a quarter tank.
I need only one crowded Tube ride without air conditioning before a meeting for the total cost of car ownership to appear like an incredible bargain.
Oh the tube here has aircon everywhere. A bit too much even, you get this cold shock every time.
It sounds like a dream. Well air-conditioned public transport can certainly be a wonderful experience. I was a huge fan of the MTR when living in Hong Kong.
Unfortunately those implementations are far from the norm though, but of course all of these networks are seeing gradual upgrades.
How about in European big cities where that is not the case? Prague, London, Prague, Budapest, Zurich, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna…? So many people, especially not particularly poor people, use them to commute every single week. Notoriously, for some of these cities, it is slower to travel by car for your commute.
I live in London, temperatures in excess of 30C are frequent on the Tube. If I’m going to or coming from the gym, that’s fine. Otherwise it really isn’t.
The metro in Prague is indeed good, it’s just not a big city.
Zurich also has excellent public transport, but it’s really a village at best.
Madrid has Barcelona beat, but still occasionally suffers from a lack of air conditioning frequently leading to absurd temperatures.
I also live in London and never specified underground or trains only for any of these cities. Buses also cheap and air conditioned.
Also 2-4 months at best out of the year is not a great argument for public transportation not being the better option compared to cars and parking that don’t scale.
Side note, Elizabeth, District, Circle, Hammersmith & city, and Metropolitan lines where many people work are air conditioned. So are the trains to paddington and St. Pancras from any “village” outside of the London zones. This summer especially it’s been good for me.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s a plenty of good public transport in London. I’m just of the opinion that unless you happen to live on a particularly good route, the experience is too inconsistent.
I love the trains, Gatwick express is downright brilliant.
> Also 2-4 months at best out of the year is not a great argument for public transportation not being the better option compared to cars and parking that don’t scale.
Temperatures in packed tube carriages are very high no matter the time of the year, the bodies of the passengers alone put out sufficient heat.
When the AC works, that’s fine. My experience is that it fails far more often than I’m willing to accept.
TIL Zurich is a village
There’s not even half a million people living in Zurich; it is absolutely tiny, which is basically the entirety of its charm.
Nobody uses it, it's too crowded
People mostly use it because they can’t afford the better options.
McDonald’s is also extremely popular, as are Coca Cola and Bud light.
I extensively use public transit. While the cost savings are certainly nice, it is just soo much more comfortable.
Today I spent half my workday on a train going +200km/h to visit my parents. The alternative would have been an excruciating 6 hour car drive
> Today I spent half my workday on a train going +200km/h to visit my parents. The alternative would have been an excruciating 6 hour car drive
You are describing an experience which couldn’t be further from the norm in Europe.
high speed trains, that can go up to about 350kmph/200mph, are the norm in Europe if you're going a long distance across France or Germany, but they're not daily public transit for most people just like flying isn't.
How can it be crowded if nobody uses it?
It’s a famous “Yogi-ism”[0]
> On why he no longer went to Ruggeri's, a St. Louis restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.”
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra
that's the point.
You've never tried it but are still convinced it's a hellhole? I took a bus and train downtown yesterday and it was a perfectly smooth experience. And at least as far as I noticed, nobody stabbed anyone or pissed in any seats.
You should try expanding your horizons a bit.
Don't knock it until you've tried it.
how can you read this comment back to yourself and not see the delusion?
It really depends, I would much rather travel by NYC subway or Vancouver SkyTrain or Seattle light rail if my origin and destination are within walking distance. It's the least horrible option in many cases. Good luck to anyone's stress level and pocketbook trying to commute by car in much of NYC and pay $550 a month for parking.
I have a hot take about commuting by car from the suburbs into midtown Manhattan (the densest part). The trick is time of day. If you are a gov't bond trader, it it is pretty normal to get to the office around 6AM. You can easily beat morning traffic arriving that early. Also, your day ends very early, so the return commute is also easy.
That doesn't sound like much of a useful trick, unless you plan on switching professions to bond trader.
This is a classic myopic HN reply. I will be downvoted for this harsh response: You fuckin' dummy, "bond trader" was an example profession that is (1) high income and (2) needs to arrive early to work. Probably most lawyers and many medical doctors would be simliar. Also, if you own multiple pizza stores that need to get started early, the same rules would apply.
It was an intentionally myopic reply. Most jobs have fixed start times that people can't change around to avoid traffic unless you want to add an extra hour of dawdling before and after work. When someone complains about commute traffic, do you suggest they switch profession to lawyer?
There's no "trick" here. Its just a repackaged form of what literally every commuter knows that leaving early can beat traffic.
$550 is a steal.
Right, I could have written that much more pessimistically with 850/mo parking, insurance, congestion charges 5 days a week x 2, cost of car insurance, maintenance, fuel, cost of the car itself, etc.
The insurance in NYC is at least twice the rest of the country and then there is the likelihood your car will be hit or stolen while you're away, meaning at the very least it will be in the shop for a while. People I know who had cars in Manhattan or Brooklyn still took the train most of the time, leaving the car in the garage.
I remember in the 70s and 80s people on buses and subways reading magazines and newspapers. The idea that electronic devices have ushered in some age where humans want to interact with each other less is a myth I think.
Also "Father hiding behind his newspaper at the dinner table" has been a meme since forever.
There seems to be an overall, “I’m just now aware of this phenomenon, technology must be to blame” when the phenomenon has stayed constant and the tech has shifted under it.
#moraloutrage
The other related phenomenon is "I dont believe culture and society can change, so I pick something I am vaguely aware of existing in the past. The people who are old enough to be there know the comparison makes no sense, but it allow me to stop the discussion about change".
Like, there was some reading of newspapers and magazines, but not that much. They were large, you know. Most people stared silently out of the window. Multiple people reading newspapers on the bus would be rare occurrence. And it was NOT noisy unlike tiktok video.
Did nobody read TFA?
> Americans are speaking less and less to one another. The number of spoken words uttered by the average person fell by 28% between 2005 and 2019.
Doesn't mean they communicate less. A lot of phone conversations have pivoted to text/whatsapp.
I don't think that's it. I think highly anti-social behavior is often deliberate, looking for someone to challenge you. An exertion of power. That's why pretty much everyone learns to ignore the behavior and not say anything.
The only interaction you’re missing in ops post is politely asking them to turn it down and being told very aggressively to “shut the fuck up!”.
https://youtu.be/D1GyHQiuneU
Or getting killed for it.
Sure, in the same way that taking a leak in a toilet and taking a leak on the sidewalk are both ways of avoiding wetting your pants
If you can't or won't illustrate why the two are similar, avoid making the analogy. It just invites a fork in the conversation where people are going to argue "actually it's like a homeless guy taking a shit in my glove box," and other spurious diversions.
The point is that just because two things are used to avoid a third thing doesn't mean they're comparable when one of them is much less disruptive to those around you. There are people who don't think being forced into interactions because there didn't happen to be a way to decline without being considered rude is a better state that allowing people to opt out. Framing it as "both are examples of the same problem" is based on the (in my opinion flawed) premise that it's an objective problem in the first place rather than the previous social norm that was tilted towards extroverts now having more accomodations for those who aren't as extroverted.
Newspapers have probably been used for this on subways for this as long as subways have been around. Walkmen in the 80s.
Take me back to a simpler time in America when newspapers were used for just getting the news, and not for premodern TikTok stand-ins.
As is driving alone in a car
Coincidentally, the latter increases the number of the former. Most people are going to avoid confrontation and instead opt for their personal noise cancelation.
> Most people are going to avoid confrontation
Yeah buying airpods seems like better idea than being stabbed/beaten up
There is an even worse thing. Using speakerphone while on street, while holding the phone near ear anyway.
those are just people with bad manners.
> Where I live, in southwest Germany, AirPods are far less common.
FWIW I live in Amsterdam (also western Europe) and anyone in the streets under 50 is wearing them, myself included.
> They keep them in while ordering and paying for things in stores and supermarkets.
As a GenYer I find this rude and I'll take them out any time I interact with someone.
My point being that their ubiquity doesn't have to mean people being rude or indifferent to eachother.
I think people have the right to choose comfort and focus, anywhere outside of a conversation with another person.
>> As a GenYer I find this rude and I'll take them out any time I interact with someone.
Interesting point. Airpods actually work great as hearing aids and I personally use that in loud environments, but I find myself cringing when I do because exactly of what you say. So maybe normalizing their use even when interacting is fine? Still, I can't shake off the idea that I'm not fully connected with you if I'm talking to you and I'm wearing something in my ears...
Yeah, to me personally it just seems like treating the other person (e.g. a cashier or waiter) like a tool or utility rather than a human being. Even if your music is paused (which they can't know)
Have you asked an actual cashier what they think? They handle hundreds of people every day, do you really think they consider it rude if people don't chat them up? You can smile and say hello and thank you with or without headphones. This once again seems like a cultural divide, as a German I'm happy if noone talks to me outside of smiles and hello/goodbye, this might be different in the anglosphere.
> chat them up
You’re conflating intent to chat with the possibility to converse if needed
Yeah I take them out too. The only exception is ear protectors (loops) which I wear in discoteques/parties. When I talk to people I don't usually take them out because I wear them for protection. If they notice I will explain and they don't mind.
In fact it's easier to hear them with those in anyway. I'm just very sensitive to sound and I have already damaged my hearing a bit when I was young.
good that every AH has selfscankassa and i don’t need to take out anything
> I think people have the right to comfort and focus
Focus on what?
Kind of expected this question.
For me, on my own thoughts, rather than other peoples' conversations.
Reasonable enough. I kind of assume when I step out my front door that my attention will be hijacked more or less continuously by various things and people until I reach wherever I’m going.
> > They keep them in while ordering and paying for things in stores and supermarkets.
> As a GenYer I find this rude and I'll take them out any time I interact with someone.
I don't take my headphones off while paying for things in a supermarket - because you aren't really expected to talk or listen in this scenario, and the cashier doesn't want to interact with you either. But for anything more involved, like ordering something in a coffeeshop - yeah, absolutely.
> aren't really expected to talk
This is an assumption that I would interpret as rude if I were the cashier
Agree, it definitely is rude. Saying hello, good afternoon, responding to a question about cash/card also involves communication, and with earbuds it is simply rude to the other person.
If you don't want to talk to anyone, go to self-checkout or a vending machine, but cashiers are humans and not just robots scanning items.
I see nobody saying "good afternoon" in a grocery store, that's the one place where you keep interactions to a minimum. Also, self-checkouts are not always an option because at least the ones at grocery stores here never accept cash.
Lived in DC and this is very true, lived in London and would be thinking about it all day if I ignored a cashier. London it is polite to say please, thank you, good afternoon, and all other verbal mannerisms.
Saying thank you to the bus driver in UK felt nice. Doesn't really hurt anybody.
> you aren't really expected to talk or listen in this scenario
Absolutely bizarre. The cashier is not some sort of robot.
The author is from Germany and still complaining about Americans interacting with each other less in public? I've been to Germany so many times and almost never seen anyone speaking to strangers on trains/buses/trams. Once I was on a train from Cologne to Frankfurt with a colleague and we were talking nonstop. After a while we realized it was just us talking and probably disturbing everyone else!
People go to extreme lengths to avoid talking to strangers on public transport even in developing countries. Earphones are just so effective.
Oh god I love how quiet European trains are. I used to take trains a lot in my childhood and until my 20s in Ukraine. Sometimes trains were buzzing with voices during the day, especially if someone was drinking. Not all rides were like this, of course, but in general I remember a lot of noise. German trains are so soothing in comparison!
I find it funny that on some of the ICE trains they have a quiet cabin. To me that’s basically the entire train!
in the netherlands trains are usually too noisy to focus on anything unless it’s a silent car or 7am.
> Heavy headphone use makes people feel lonelier, the survey found.
Correlation for sure, I’m less sure about causation though. It seems equally likely to me that other factors are driving increased social anxiety/isolation which in turn drives people to wear headphones to avoid social interactions.
I'll chuck autism and overstimulation in there too. There's a reason that there's the stereotype of the autist wearing their noise-cancelling headphones.
Yes and they are a great help.
Even though I'm AuDHD (and more ADHD than Autism in that) I do appreciate the silence when I feel like it.
I use them more with just noise cancelling on than I do with music. And never ever podcasts, I have zero patience for those.
> Correlation ... causation
Yeah, I'm surprised this isn't highlighted more in these comments. "A small study" and "an article" and such seems to be the basis for this article, and yet there's seemingly no work done to identify if it's actually that people's attitudes have changed, and they're adopting headphones because of that.
It's not as if there's been major, literal earth-changing events that happened in incredibly recent memory that might have changed how people socialize or interact or anything, right? Let's just blame a specific brand of a piece of technology that has existed for decades, instead.
Author had a shower thought and decided to write “insightful” post. Tale as old as time.
>> It seems equally likely to me that other factors are driving increased social anxiety
Social anxiety thrives on avoidance. It's a feedback loop. So likely it's correlation + causation. Your anxious so you wear the headphones to block out the world which only breeds more anxiety.
The thought of intentionally deafening myself to the outside world, even partially, is unnerving, because I can't stand the thought of nerfing my own situational awareness to that degree. Especially in fast-paced environments, like city streets, where sounds can carry such important signal.
Even watching someone else walk around a city with headphones/earbuds in is something that makes me uncomfortable by proxy. It's like someone deciding that walking around with beer goggles is a good idea
I live in cities, and I usually walk around 15-20k steps every day for the last decade in cities. I listen to music or podcasts in my earbuds, and often I read stuff on chat on my phone as I walk. I have never run into anything, and never had any issue bumping into people or cyclists. It's perfectly possible for some people to navigate just fine in their environment while dealing with multiple stimuli, and in fact that's exactly why I love walking so much more than sitting. Having earbuds or using my phone at the same time for me is certainly nothing like being intoxicated while walking. It's important to not project one's experience as how it must also be for everyone else.
You think you do. You're just not aware of how many people are dodging you to prevent collisions :)
No I also dodge, because I glance around the entire time I do things. I have ADHD. I feel more comfortable having continual tasks and stimuli, so looking both way, glancing at who's around, pressing the button for crossing the street, these are part of the background pleasure.
You don't have to share my experience, but the difference is that you deny mine can exist, whereas I am perfectly fine understanding e.g. the autistic person who also posted about how they wear earbuds to use ANC because noise disturbs them. You are not granting the same consideration about how other people experience things differently.
It was intended as a lighthearted comment, hence the smiley face :)
But so you have a baseline to compare this against?
You don't know what you doing know, after all.
You can turn most of them into transparency mode too. I do that sometimes when I'm in an area where I feel unsafe. So I can hear people sneaking up on me.
Transparency mode is better, but it isn't perfect. The simple fact that you have something else producing noise in close proximity to your ears is enough to disrupt your ability to hear other things, even if they're also making it to your ears with high fidelity.
I mean, noise cancelling works by producing more noise, not less; and there will be plenty of times when what's outside with destructively interfere with what you're listening to, or vice versa.
This may be hard to do in a city, but a good test is to go outside on a quiet night, wearing only on one ear, and then turn your head back and forth to alternate ears while trying to listen to specific distant sounds. It'll really highlight just how many things are still being filtered out.
Or it'll demonstrate how much more deaf you might be in one ear :P
They have a situational awarenes mode
I was in college when the first iPod came out. As an early adopter that was super into my music that first year or so, wearing white headphones around campus actually came with more social interaction. It felt like everyone was staring at me and usually people constantly interrupted my jam sessions to ask me about them. The novelty quickly wore off for me, I realized I preferred a more private speakered environment for my jams. I also did and still suffer from massive pain caused from most in ear headphones, even the recent AirPods with adjustable silicone tips I use sparingly and never more than a hour or so.
What was weird was about 2 years later it completely flipped. I had written off my iPod in public while the entire world adopted them. I went from being the only one on a bus with white corded buds, usually recipient of people’s gazes, I was being antisocial and everyone’s eyes were telling about it. To suddenly, I was the only one engaged. Everyone else was being antisocial. This was well before the iPhone but people still just stared at their play list and stopped interacting. A quiet bus full of college students was a strange thing to witness but it took over as the social norm.
That's my memory as well. Early '00s, I was also in college and seemingly one year campus went from a broadly friendly, social place to one with a lot of people, headphones in, focused on their own little world.
There were Walkmans and disc Walkmans before that, of course, but MP3 players were a step change in social isolation, from my perspective. Bluetooth earbuds + a wave of streaming audio content have been another.
The time after I left campus life in mid00s was relatively normal until the AirPods came out then everyone everywhere started again with the headphones in most of the time, it’s been that way since.
What I find interesting is how there seems to be some people that also are just always on the phone talking in public. It’s either a headphone call or often complimented with the handheld FaceTime. The forced eavesdropping I am subjected to makes it sound like nothing important is being discussed. Reminds me of my land line calls as a pre/teen where we just spent hours on the phone with a friend and basically had nothing to say, maybe we watched TV together and commented about the show.
The phenomenon seems much more prevalent in certain demographic groups from my totally nonscientific observations and I find that interesting as well. From what I can tell, in jest, black women are not capable of grocery shopping without being on the phone with another person (and not talking about shopping list items).
> I also did and still suffer from massive pain caused from most in ear headphones, even the recent AirPods with adjustable silicone tips I use sparingly and never more than a hour or so.
Have you tried replacing them with foam tips?
Yes, I feel like I’ve tried everything and usually just use over the ear when I need them. More than anything, I just optimize for not needing them. I have a dedicated office so I can use speakers. I use the AirPods on flights under 3 hours which is my majority. I just have sore ears after and live with it. But I don’t wear headphones anywhere around town like what the article is talking about it. I see it and decided not to participate way back because of the antisocial part that was obvious so long ago.
I don’t have airpods but I still use earpods for video conferencing. Honestly they fit and sound better (louder) when I have right and left switched.
Is this a primary preference or something you do because of your environment (busy coworking space/ cubicles/etc)? I use over the ear headphones when I need to but am thankful that I’ve almost always had a dedicated office and can use speakers and a microphone without disrupting anyone else. I also like the speakers because I can listen to voice/music while muting OS sounds or control volume separately pretty easily. The mic is just part of my camera, but it’s also a peripheral as my work laptop builtin is pretty crappy and I usually am docked with laptop closed.
I do think over the ear is so much better at anything else at noise canceling and blocking out the outside noises in general. On a flight it’s leaps and bounds better at blocking the dull humming of the plain. I have to really crank up the volume on AirPods to be able to hear a movie or podcast. It ends up feeling like I’ve actually done more harm than good to my ear health. Although the compact carry is a huge benefit
I only use them for zoom calls. Just what I had in the drawer with a microphone during covid and they have yet to break. I think the mic is better than the laptop mic since it is closer to the mouth. For any other audio I break out over ear monitors.
The modern world is funny. I have a hearing impairment, tinnitus, and use both AirPods and less visible hearing aids to hear people better. I only wear the AirPods around people who know me well enough to know that I am wearing them so that I can better hear them. I don’t want strangers to think I don’t want to hear them or that I am being rude. When I am out among strangers, I wear the less visible hearing aids.
But a funny consequence is that because my modern, less visible, hearing aids are connected to my phone, I am often listening to podcasts or news and nobody can tell. So sometimes a stranger will say something and I have to pause the audio and ask them to repeat themselves.
I am wondering what social norms will be like once everyone has less visible electronics in their ears.
Wouldn't it be cool if this situation could be detected and when you hit pause it would actually repeat them for you?
So you want your magical EarPods to be always listening and recording everything from the past, say 5 seconds?
A brief ring buffer is a fairly privacy-respecting implementation, as opposed to long-term capture and storage.
Demonstrating that such a capability is in fact a brief ring buffer to the average Joe or Josephina on the street might prove more challenging, and numerous similar technologies have rapidly acquired a highly pejorative taint, e.g., "glassholes".
It would probably be the phone, but yes
Already is, in some sense, for 'hey siri'.
Ever thought about wrapping your AirPods to be skin-colored? I wonder if that would be more inviting for strangers than the stereotypical white color.
No, it never occurred to me. This has prompted a fun discussion with my wife. I suggested I could grow some stem cells into a skin that would match the color of my ears. She suggests that I should not have these ideas.
You could also tint your ears white, I suppose ... ;-)
The author is a "Firm believer that humankind took a wrong turn with the invention of the smartphone." and has a new book coming out, so naturally he is trying to push some anti-tech narrative.
No, headphones don't make people antisocial. If someone is wearing headphones, respect their privacy and just leave them alone. Some people just don't like to chat to random people on the subway or at the supermarket. Some people just don't see the value of mundane conversations with strangers.
It depends on the culture and personality. Some people like it, some don't. In the US, people are more inclined to chat to strangers, and in Germany for example they aren't. These differences are actually what make us "human", so it's not a binary decision of: talking to strangers == good, and headphones == bad.
I don't think the author presents it as such a binary decision though.
The fact is that in practice, it's either headphones in or out when in public. Meaning wearing them all the time effectively means IRL Do Not Disturb.
> I think we need regular doses of real human contact — not just with close friends, but with acquaintances, and even with strangers — to counterbalance all the negativity we encounter in the news and online, and to remind us that, on the whole, people are kind and well-meaning.
I think the author may have a point here, but he'll be hard pressed to convince anyone to give up the benefits of 'sonic isolation' through music and noise cancelation that people seem to have discovered.
> I think we need regular doses of real human contact — not just with close friends, but with acquaintances, and even with strangers — to counterbalance all the negativity we encounter in the news and online, and to remind us that, on the whole, people are kind and well-meaning.
Well how about cut all the negative bs so there’s nothing to counter-balance? Nobody forces you to read news if they affect you so much.
On a gut level I agree 100% as I'm feeling the same feelings and prefer no contact. But on a biological level it's definitely better to have more social interactions and talking to strangers specifically has many benefits to both you as an individual and for creating a better society.
I mean what do you want the author to write, cooking recipes? Where is he "pushing" it? Writing a substack related to the theme of the book you're writing is, apparently .. bad? Even if true, are we we not supposed to market things at all. Sure, there's a line after which shilling becomes distasteful, is that really the case here or is it an overreaction?
I can image that because of motivation to sell his ideas and writing, he is in incentivized to sensationalize the research he refers too. Not that the author claims to be a scientific writer but many people find it intellectually dishonest to try to push your opinion and often clever but, ultimately, anecdotal observations about the world via “scientific” language.
I live in a big city and notice this a lot as well. I’m starting to reduce my headphone usage. My hearing is getting worse at a young age.
I don’t think the default should be needing to have a soundtrack to your life. I’m a long distance runner and often run 15-20+ miles without music or headphones. It’s nice
> I’m a long distance runner and often run 15-20+ miles without music or headphones. It’s nice
https://youtube.com/shorts/aqWDyakwRg8?si=LZddNysBymNXLgZI
Jesus H. Christ, what a terrible day to have ears and eyes. Who even consumes this “content”?
Thank you, don’t worry you are not alone.
People who you think you're better than.
I often use over-ear headphones as ear-protectors rather than sound sources. It muffles the outside world, leaving me free to think.
I suspect in-ears have degraded my hearing, so I don't use them any more.
I just got some ear plugs that swimmers wear, quite nice
Yeah, great article. But it should get to the point.
The reason you need to physically remove yourself is because of the insane lunatics that blast trash music and do a dance while aggressively panhandling or screaming at you for trying to commute quitely on the train to work. A hallmark of daily life when I worked in SF and in NYC.
A great way to fix the fake problem would be to aggressively enforce the existing laws, starting with tickets, and if that doesn't work, incarceration. Apparently it's not politically correct to do that though so I guess we are all second class citizens who need to live in a low trust society where people are increasingly isolated.
Coming back to the states after traveling abroad is always astonishing. For all our wealth, it genuinely feels worse than somewhere like Brazil in many of our big cities
The Brazilian government keeps the crime contained to specific areas, where it gets extremely bad. In the US, a generalized lack of enforcement means small amounts of nuisance crime spread around.
uhh, could it be perhaps you've just been living in the "specific areas" where crime is "contained" in the US.
If you mean “cities” then yes. Google the word “favela” if you want to see how things work in Brazil.
It has nothing to do with wealth. It’s just policy.
There is a difference between being a tourist somewhere and actually living there.
Being a tourist in SF is probably way worse than being a resident that knows what to avoid doing and where to avoid going.
This reply is perfect. The anger encapsulated in it captures the exact crux of the post. The point, of course, is that advances in personal technology have coincided with a cultural shift where people feel entitled to personal isolation in public spaces.
When I moved to NYC 30 years ago, one of the things that made me fall in love with the city was the way that living in such close proximity to so many others seemed to create so much more empathy. The same effect, I now see working in reverse, minimizing contact with others with by disappearing into technology has the effect of making people less empathetic. Instead of reaching into their pocket for a subway performance, or a homeless person, people might prefer to see them arrested for the crime of violating their all important personal barriers.
My home is now a place where people are mortified by the homeless, and literally give them things off of themselves, or offer ways to existentially assist, on-sight.
Maybe it’s the crushing disproportionate volume and nature of the poverty that each effective individual is confronted with that’s to blame - I still believe people are inherently good, but they do give up pretty easily if you make it socially acceptable to ignore.
I will no longer choose to live in places it’s socially acceptable to ignore.
I don't feel entitled to personal isolation from people who might want to strike up a conversation. If I'm not in the mood, I'll just say so.
I feel entitled to personal isolation from schizophrenics, who have a good chance of assaulting me if I look at them wrong. (And did you think screaming and playing loud music was disruptive just to quiet, and not to the aforementioned conversation too?)
You are the problem, not the person you're replying to. When you say 'you must exhibit infinite tolerance of antisocial disruption', the easy response is 'or I could always just leave'.
[flagged]
While commuting can be chaotic, I don't think what you're calling out is the central point of the article.
Spaces that are less chaotic - coffee shops, gyms, even elevators - are places that people used to be able to strike up random short conversations with each other. Sometimes these would become longer. Sometimes they even turned into friendships.
It still happens of course, but I, like the author, am saddened that casual socialization seems to be on the decline.
I like to say Hi to people in elevators. Some reciprocate. Some find it awkward. But I don't even bother saying Hi to those wearing AirPods since that would be rude, interrupting them. Could an interaction have brightened our mutual days? Could we have become friends? Who knows, AirPods preempted it from the start.
I’ll add onto this the PA system & noise from the trains themselves. BART isn’t exactly a quiet train system, and MUNI is far too comfortable blasting announcements & propaganda through its PA system telling you not to commit crimes.
Those speakers by the way are an ADA requirement, and the only information that should be coming out of them are the stop announcements & any comms from the driver that may be necessary. Anything else in four different languages is not required, including the track telling you not to stand too close to the doors on the bus.
People can’t understand you can’t have both protecting the poor and not enforcing laws against the poor at the same time
You can be poor and obey the law. You can protect the poor and enforce the law.
It is the weird identity politics is what gets in the way.
There's a easier solution by crime caused by poor people: they stop being poor. The fact that nobody tried is the thing that should be studied instead.
I grew up poor and that was never an inducement to commit crime. I took plenty of "food I didn't want" off my friends' hands at lunch in middle and high school, but never even thought of crime.
Although my parents weren't rich they still tried to teach right from wrong, respect for others and all the rest.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but there's plenty of examples of rich assholes who act as if money makes them immune from justice.
There's abundant evidence against this belief:
Indenting that triggered monospace code formatting, which is preventing those from becoming links.
I'm hearing this high pitched sound, does anyone else hear that?
I clicked and scrolled through several of those studies, and those snippets are incredibly misleading. I would recommend not using these in debates, unless you want to come across as a poor researcher acting in bad faith.
The very last one says nothing about genetics at all, that's saying the justice system is biased.
The second to last is part of a much more nuanced section talking about environmental impacts and the role that can play in biological expression. It literally says:
> Thus, just as biological mechanisms can influence environmental responses, environmental stressors can affect biological expressions.
I stopped reading at that point.
The poor are impacted by lawlessness far more than the rich. No private security or fancy neighbourhoods. Cutting down on actually harmful bad behaviour (and by this I mean dealers and muggers, not broken taillights) is the best thing you can do for poor people.
This is nonsense. You absolutely can have both -- typically by building systems to eliminate poverty and reduce income inequality.
I’ve been in the Baltic countries for a few weeks. I do not see any of the behaviors you mentioned, but all the behaviors mentioned in the article.
I don’t think this is a bad music problems
You also see the behavior in the middle of the woods on a hike, or as the article mentions at upscale cafes. The whole point of the article is the near universality of wearing airpods. So a comment dwelling on US urban subways tells you more about the comment-writer's preoccupations then any sociological insight. And a top comment tells you mainly something about the preoccupations/demographics of the site.
Pretty sure my commute of 12 years had exactly zero aggressive panhandling (or unaggressive panhandling), yet just about every single person on it was wearing some flavour of them.
I've also just been in Japan, where nobody's commute has panhandling of any kind, and guess what, everyone there is tuning the world out with their headphones, too. Despite it being kind of verbotten to make noise on the subway, and the few conversations that were happening on it were very quiet.
I wasn't wearing mine during that trip. Because a relatively quiet space was actually pleasant for me to be in. American cities are so fucking noisy, and as a consequence, even people respectful of their surroundings tend to be loud.
I’d say it’s the opposite. We get non enforcement and anti enforcement because lots of people aren’t directly affected.
Different neighborhoods, work from home, private transportation to work, or—admittedly to a lesser degree—AirPod insulation.
If we were really all this together quality of life in our cities would be taken far more seriously.
No, it’s because city politics in the US are dominated by naive bleeding-heart type leftists who are willing to overlook any and all forms of antisocial behavior if it’s committed by a poor and/minority individual.
Considering that's where all the people and money are in this country, it's clearly not a problem for most folk. You're entitled to your outlier opinion, of course.
Eh I don't think so. Commutes are as clean and peaceful as they can be in the Netherlands or Switzerland and people are no less buried in their phones with noise-cancelling earbuds on.
The Netherlands has plenty of crazies using public transport. Every other window on the train has the emergency number on it for a reason. I refuse to travel in second class, hate being close to people that blast music, use drugs, puke or eat a broodje pindakaas.
The Netherlands even has segregated busses for asylum seekers because there was too much violence. Dutch people have their own busses and asylum seekers are required to use a separate bus with extra security. Upside is that asylum seekers don’t have to pay for a ticket.
You make it sound like it's an absolute warzone (your demographic certainly likes to push that narrative even in the most uneventful of places!). Yes I've taken trains back home from nights out at 4:30 in the morning where there were drunk girls talking loudly and (gasp!) trash on the floor. There's certainly no-one "blasting loud music" in the average train and definitely not "doing drugs".
Ofc there's a non-zero number of crazies, violent people, sexual harassers, etc. That's a certainty in a system with 400 million trips a year! But then please don't leave your home, there can be an ax murderer lying in wait at any corner!
I would see people doing drugs about twice a week during my commute pre-Covid
Can confirm. Traveling via public transport in Switzerland is remarkably uneventful. It's a stark contrast to my Eastern European home country, where it is a gamble due to a certain demographic's anti-social behavior.
I commute every day in Switzerland, and we have people blasting music, shouting, putting feet on seats, taking 3 seats etc, including in 1st. I actually stopped traveling in 1st, it could be more noisy and chaotic than 2nd and the price difference wasn't worth it.
Why is this downvoted? This is correct.
People like blaming everything that is wrong in their life on lack of law enforcement against the undesirables.
It's a tale as old as time.
I haven't seen showtime on the subway here in NYC in a long time. And even when it happened more often, they generally would dance for all of one stop before moving to the next train car. So, what, like ~3 minutes of your commute?
Much more annoying to me these days are all the people that have decided it's acceptable to stare at their phone and zombie walk out of the train and up the stairs, completely oblivious to the world around them. They're not even making noise, just walking straight into other humans in a busy station while scrolling tiktok.
Incarceration would be nuts.
For what exactly? And unstable homeless person threatening people on the street?
Harassing people and living on the street is already crime. Camping in public, public nuisance, loitering, obstructing sidewalk, etc.
I have come to the conclusion that until I am part of the landed gentry, the erratic homeless are a positive impact on my life. They may be a nuisance and cost me a stolen package here and there but when the “let them eat cake” types move into the neighborhood is when I get priced out. That is to say like inflammation is a symptom of something being wrong in the body, their plight is emblematic of the struggle that affects everybody but the upper crusts of society. You can try to treat the symptom in either case but there are much deeper structural problems.
Do you also think we should get rid of sealed sewers and keeping the roads intact in order to bring down property prices?
Maybe this is a sign of deeper structural issues and we shouldn't regress as a civilization but rather fix what the actual problems are.
I’m not saying that we need to regress further as a society. I was merely providing a counterpoint to the argument that the homeless need to have their agency stripped because they’re a negative value to “productive” society.
Their negative value isn't to productivity, but to your personal safety and quality of life, and frankly their safety and quality of life too. Accepting that people who cannot look after themselves need to be looked after by the community rather than left outside to die, I personally feel, should not be a controversial position.
While that does happen occasionally in SF, it's <5% of my commutes.
It's been 0% of my commutes in Seattle. Yet the NC headphones are also everywhere, including on my head.
TBF seattle is particularly bad - it's famously unfriendly compared to other cities.
Wildly unfriendly and standoffish, but also extremely unaccepting of dinguses blasting music without headphones on trains and buses. You win some, you lose some. I’ll embrace the silence and make my friends outside of transit and elevators, I think. (Bias disclaimer: PNW dweller for the past 9 years)
Oh lord not the laws and especially not the tickets
This is why they cane people in Singapore for nuisance crime. Incarceration is expensive and fines don’t have the right effect.
> The reason you need to physically remove yourself is because of the insane lunatics that blast trash music and do a dance while aggressively panhandling or screaming at you for trying to commute quitely on the train to work.
I've lived (and commuted on public transit) for years in many metros including SF, NYC, Boston and DC and can't recall even a single such interaction.
I'm sure it happens, I'm also sure it happens far less often than your competing anecdote suggests.
It’s a mixture of naivety and foreign influence campaigns.
What's interesting is how the culture of the homeless people seems to differ across SF. Civic Center to 6th & Market is consistently the worst in my experience in terms of volatile people.
Tenderloin these days is relatively peaceful (plenty of people on the streets but they're just getting high with their friends).
Mission is chaotic, extra poop on the sidewalk, sometimes masses of people 50+ deep. But also the people on the street seem to mostly know and take care of each other. Higher density of people selling stolen goods. If I take Muni bus 14 home at 3AM it's a bunch of people shuttling to shelters but being polite (although not always lucid), exchanging cans of soda, etc. However I've heard quite a few stories from 38 with people being threatening or worse.
> if that doesn't work, incarceration.
Sure, let’s “solve” a minor problem in the grand scheme of things with a much larger evil.
incarceration is going too far, all you need is a few enforcers with shock wands like in Demolition Man
Maniac has responded with a scornful remark!
Wont someone please think of the unstable homeless person threatening people on the street.
Incarceration is more humane for everyone than letting sick people live on the street.
Threatening to revoke the rights and freedoms of your fellow citizens and put them in a hellhole is pretty antisocial and sociopathic behavior, my dude. That makes me suuuuper uncomfortable.
Oh no, better throw you in jail so I don't have to think about you. Don't mind the moldy bugs in your food, that's just extra protein.
[dead]
It is an amazing piece of technology that allows you to ignore people at will by pretending you're not hearing what they're saying if they insist.
AirPods for sure do not make you more lonely. It's about your personality. Either you are an introvert or not.
> “No one talks on the bus. No one greets the barista. Even in class, students are choosing to listen to music instead of their professors,”
Why? Bother them for no good reason? I am incredibly annoyed when people come to me to make small talk. Same with classes... if the topic is interesting or the professor is good at its job people will listen. If the professor has a very non-interesting class or is a boring person, why bother listing to it? You read the notes, get a the lowest passing grade possible and go on with your life. Before tablets people would read their newspapers and be very annoyed if you bothered them. Now they have AirPods instead of tablets or newspapers. Same thing: no everybody wants to talk to everybody.
>> “No one talks on the bus. No one greets the barista ...
> Why? Bother them for no good reason?
Those 2 examples for the article are not the same situation at all... in many cultures:
"No one talks on the bus" --> very good, people are here to commute and want quiet.
"No one greets the barista" --> Wow, you're a POS human being. It's basic human dignity to greet the people you interact with.
Try the latter in a country like France for instance, skipping the "Bonjour", which is the expected cultural greeting (You're not expected to do small talk, just "Bonjour"), keep your airpods on and just place your order ... and see how the person on the other side reacts :)
> It's basic human dignity to greet the people you interact with.
No. While it might be nice, it is not mandatory. And no, no one is a POS just because it doesn’t say hi first. You have to be very entitled to think it is required or that you deserve it.
Baristas in NYC don't care about being greeted specifically. They want to take your order so they can move the line along. You will get a very strange look if you try to small talk in a busy cafe.
> They keep them in while ordering and paying for things in stores and supermarkets.
This hit me. I often use headphones during chores, including going grocery shopping. I love human interaction, but not while pickings things into my shopping basket. For years I'd also leave them in when paying (audio paused, of course). It took a cashier tell me I was being rude before I realized. She was absolutely right, of course. I do make an effort to visibly remove my headphones when expecting human interaction now. A big thanks to that cashier, and my apologies!
I’m reasonably skilled talking to strangers (can last about 3-4 hours in planes/trains/buses if the other party is up to it, after that I usually dry out of conversation), and do that frequently.
However after several years of heavy traveling and hundreds of people talked to, you realize how similar everyone is. It is always the same issues, wife/husband, the kids, the parents…
And it all starts to become a bit superficial. Sure, you can talk, but to what avail? You realize how shallow the situation is because the common ingredient in all stories is that everyone only ever care about their closed ones, which you and them will never be.
And you reassess the book option whose insight or knowledge may very well impact your life much more than yet another seconds to hours long chitchat.
Signed: a disillusioned extrovert.
That’s sad man - I also talk a lot to strangers and yeah most of the time you get average people, but then you meet that one in a million person and learn something truly fascinating or expand your sphere of knowledge or emotion or art or whatever. I’m always on the lookout for the next brilliant engineer, sensitive artist, or just a well read janitor.
Wouldn’t you consult a book or a video and practice a skill if you really wanted to expand your knowledge? And a “well-read janitor”, while certainly possible, is a trope more often seen in works of fiction. And what does “expanding your emotion or art” even mean?
Conversation tends to be a less-curated alternative. You're going to read something you've elected to read, and have expectations of, whether that's a topic of interest, favourite author, recommendation by an acquaintance, current best-seller or well-reviewed work, something hunted down through references or footnotes, etc.
The people you encounter daily may well also represent selection biases, but they're probably going to be at the very least along a different axis, and you might be surprised at what comes up. I like to have a balance of intentional and serendipitous feeds in my life, whether technically-mediated or organic. Keeps things interested.
Having the book or a podcast on tap as needed isn't a bad backup. But talking, even briefly, to strangers may prove provocative.
It means expanding your empathy. If you don’t do art, I highly recommend it. I talk to random people and learn more about the human condition and incorporate it into my songwriting.
Signed: an introvert.
So you’re wasting both your time and theirs, for no reasons. Instead, try politely signaling you’re not interested.
That being said, fortunately it’s easy to see people who like to talk.
I'm having fun doing that to be honest.
But to get back to the topic: that's why I'm wearing AirPods in public now; signaling that I'm not interested.
Tinnitus
I swear my tinnitus is a result of use of AirPods.
I never wore any type of earphones ever. Then started using AirPods for calls, during workouts or on a plane. A year later I developed tinnitus and the only thing that changed in my life was wearing AirPods.
I’m no doctor, and who knows what caused my tinnitus. But it’s irreversible. I constantly hear a humming ring now and it’s super distracting, especially trying to go to bed.
I’m no doctor. But heads up for those who haven’t used inner ear headphones.
You forgot to mention the part where this happened recently. You’ll habituate soon and forget about it.
Source: got bad tinnitus from motorcycling, became depressed with suicidal ideation and then got over it.
Happened 4-years ago.
I still notice it every night at bed. Or anytime it’s quiet.
I try not to think about it, because I feel like it gets amplified when I do.
But it’s daily for the last 4-years :(
Hope you’re ok now. Please see someone if you’re not.
Did you happen to get covid or had a really heavy reaction to a inoculation around that time? That's what triggered mine; but it's actually been getting a lot better and (pure anecdotal) but I think 6 months or so of a b complex vitamin pill in the mornings have helped. Apparently, it can promote nerve repair, there's absolutely no money in studying this effect however so research is scant. I think you have very little to lose by trying it, though.
It's still there, but I routinely go weeks without noticing it now.
I've had some tinnitus for very long time (decades) -- usually, it was quiet enough to ignore and sometimes it seemed like it disappeared completely. It got way worse near the beginning of 2020. It became bad enough to hear all of the time. Even a rock concert doesn't really drown it out (yeah, I tend to wear earplugs for those -- but not quite at 100%).
Also near the beginning of 2020: I was sick AF for over a month with respiratory problems and fever and intense feelings of being unwell in ways I didn't know a person could experience. (Covid? Maybe. No way to tell, as far as I know. All I know is that I was in bad shape for a long time, that it came on very quickly, and that I tested negative for flu.)
Anyway, which b complex vitamin pills might you suggest? I'm game to try just about any low-impact way to turn down the noise.
I'm using these ones:
https://www.gosupps.com/natural-elements-vitamin-b-complex-2...
I know that these things can be bad, but it gets better. I have had some form of tinnitus since I was a kid. I never realized this until I talked to my wife one day and she says that no, she doesn't have a persistent beep that she can tune into.
It may have been caught be ear infections when I was a kid. I also had eardrum tubes as a kid, twice.
I don't notice it during the day or at night, though I can tune into it (like, when typing this I hear it). It's only more noticeable when I'm very tired or have a fever.
I think the brain learns to ignore/block the signal, similar to how you can be aware of breathing or hearing your heart beat, but you don't hear it all day because your brain will just not attend to it.
I became profoundly deaf in one ear as a teenager. I suffered with tinnitus for several years.
I don’t notice it at all now. It’s possible it’s still there, but I never think about it.
It’ll probably happen to you too at some point. It can’t be forced though, unfortunately.
I swear my tinnitus is a result of use of AirPods.
This comes up every now and then, similarly people say it is caused by noise cancellation. I have looked into this once out of interest, but there doesn't seem to be much scientific evidence for this. Unless you put them at a far too loud volume of course (or presumably block your ear canal all the time and it causes infections).
A high percentage of the western population switched to noise cancelling headphones and earbuds the last ten years or so. There is also a base rate of developing tinnitus in the population. So, it is more likely to just be a coincidence.
I've been wearing Airpod Pro 2s for 5 years and had no increase in my tinnitus (caused by many years of playing guitar and drums). I only wore Airpod Pro 3s for 3 days and my tinnitus increased by 3-5x. Thankfully, it went back to normal or almost normal after a few weeks. I now have a brand new pair of airpods I can't use.
Googling reveals others with the same issue with Airpod Pro 3s.
> I swear my tinnitus is a result of use of AirPods.
Have you had your hearing checked out by an audiologist? Any hearing loss?
Hearing loss (age) and damage (loud noise) are the most likely culprits.
Yes. Checked out twice.
No hearing loss at all.
My hearing is actually better than age appropriate, so the doctors say I’ll just have to live with it because they can’t detect it.
You should look into notch therapy apps—I have some very mild tinnitus that flared up into moderate tinnitus for a couple of months last year, so I was looking for options and found that there were some that looked promising.
What was your experience with them?
Hearing damage causing (eventually) tinnitus is cumulative so it could well have been that you were already building it up.
Tangentially related, but it's interesting to use airpods in hyper-busy train stations in Japan like Shinjuku station, where you have a huge mass of people, and a large majority of people using bluetooth earbuds of some sort. A train rolls up and the sheer amount of 2.4GHz traffic can jam your own audio for a bit. It's an interesting stress test of radio interference.
The author hit the nail on the head with this piece.
I purchased bone conduction headphones this year to serve as sleep headphones that work with my custom molded earplugs for sleeping. The headphones work as intended for this purpose, but I was not ready for how greatly they would change the way I move throughout the world.
These let me clearly hear music AND my surroundings. No longer do I need to decide whether I want to socialize with others or enjoy music that I love. The headphones let me do both! (While AirPods have outstanding noise transparency capabilities, speech can get muddied depending on the environment.)
Over time, I became SLIGHTLY more willing to engage in small talk with strangers. This combined with taking public transit to my co-working space (not the norm here in Houston; our transit system is criminally underrated) has improved my life much much more than I ever could have expected. (In fact, taking the bus and train in opened my eyes to how isolating driving really is. Between driving and WFH, you can go months without interacting with another human if desired. That can't be healthy. AI will make this worse.)
I think "Your Brain Needs Idle Time" is more important than the effect on random social interactions.
That definitely applies to me, but I'm not sure everyone is the same.
Some people have the TV on every waking minute of the day, no matter what else they're doing. Some listen to music or podcasts in the same way. Others scroll through social media whilst eating or walking or even during conversations with other people.
It's not a new thing, either - constant background TV was definitely a thing at my grandparents' house when I was a child in the 1980s. Personally, I find the idea horrifying but I accept that I'm a bit of an outlier!
When I'm doing a task, whether it's going to the grocery store or heading to work, the last thing I want to do is talk to someone. And in my personal experience, people don't randomly try to speak to me with or without headphones, unless it's someone wanting to pass out a pamphlet or a story employee asking if I need something.
If I can make my social outtings in this regard easier and less stressfree, that far outweidghs any anti-social stigma.
The noise levels everywhere in our cities overwhelms me. The constant chatter of people all around, e.g., a loud conversation in close proximity, people blasting some TikTok garbage on the train, or someone approaching me trying to sell me something when I'm simply walking - I'd rather avoid all of this.
I'm usually playing dark noise on noise cancelling earphones most of the time, and that helps me tune out the constant, stress inducing bombardment of unwelcome auditory inputs.
You make a very good point I didn't yet think of. Usually if someone tries to talk to me on the street it's something bad. A scammer, a thief, someone with those stupid clipboards trying to collect money for a cause. Some political campaign. It's rarely something positive.
When Walkman came out:
https://www.freethink.com/consumer-tech/sony-walkman-technop...
"Some said it was a sign of a continued rise of Reagan- and Thatcher-style individualism. Cultural critic Allan Bloom deemed the Walkman “a nonstop…masturbational fantasy” in his 1987 book “The Closing of the American Mind.” Neo-Luddite John Zerzan saw the Walkman as part of a modern trend that encouraged a “protective sort of withdrawal from social connections.” Thomas Lipscomb, chief of the Center for the Digital Future, equated it with the euphoric drug “soma,” from Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” creating, as he put it, “an airtight bubble of sound” that was nothing but a “sensory depressant.”
...
The Walkman, critics claimed, was more than just music to one’s ears. It was a tool of societal disconnect ... "
Personally i wear AirPods only in one ear - don't want to be struck by anything i didn't hear coming, and that also doubles the battery time.
> don't want to be struck by anything i didn't hear coming
Airpods Pro with transparency mode is the best for this
I don't in general trust the tech, saying that as someone who programmed computer the first time in 1987 :)
And having music in both ears, nice stereo, etc., definitely decreases situational awareness even if the outside sounds come through fine.
Everything old is new again; observe this song from 1983: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR_b3WYHZ7o
And the mid point, Bowling Alone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone
"Walkman On" by SSQ.
As someone who lived in New York for over a decade and grew up in the general area, there is not a single person who would think its normal if you're trying to strike up a conversation on the subway or even really when walking down the street.
The etiquette is to keep to yourself, airpods aren't creating that dynamic. The normal assumption if you don't know the person in most contexts them interacting with you in NYC is they're up to something and that's just normal US city dynamics with > 10 million people on a busy day.
The dynamic changes when you're hanging out in front of your apartment for say a cigarette or something or at a bar or sitting in the park but even then its not wrong to signal you're not open to interaction in those situations its simply more normal to chat with neighbors or other people hanging out.
I'm old enough to remember an earlier, but not the first, generation of portable recording/playback devices, the Sony Walkman (1979). Note that there had already been about two decades of such devices dating to the first transistor radios (and headphones) of the 1950s. Arguably a crystal radio set (easily hand-carried or wearable, and functioning without batteries) might also meet that definition.
I don't know about earlier options, but the Walkman did become truly ubiquitous, and a large fraction of my peers had or wore these fairly constantly, with discussions at the time of isolation, as well as, fairly presciently, potential hearing damage. Another factor is that the soft foam over-the-ear headphones tended to leak a tinny resonance into the immediate area, and "sound leakage" was commented on and tsked about.
There were also concerns about the antisocial nature of the devices ... or the intimacy of sharing headphones (one speaker apiece for singe-head sets, or for couples, dual-headset options).
SSQ's "Walkman On" dates from that period: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48597698>.
I also remember from the late 1990s the first time I encountered someone walking down the street, talking apparently to themselves, using an early corded single-ear headphone with a mic. Mobiles were becoming more common, but were usually held to the ear. This behaviour struck me as much like what one might see from rough sleepers, though this man was far better dressed than most. The experience is of course now ubiquitous.
Those sentiments are well reflected here: "The Forgotten War on the Walkman" <https://newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-forgotten-war...> (July, 2025)
HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44449970>
I didn't fight a culture change in our work dynamic as we went from an extroverted office to a mostly headphones-on culture where people would even sometimes type instead of talk in certain meetings. In the end, I don't think it mattered except that resisting change and insisting on my way could have (would have) backfired.
Didn't see any data in the article, not that I disagree, yet what if AirPods allow a return to normality for those who wish to have some distance?
Maybe everyone's just had to put up with extroverted norms until AirPods and mobile phones came along.
Q: Do you consider yourself more introverted or more extroverted?
9% Completely introverted
29% More introverted than extroverted
31% About an equal mix of extroverted and introverted
15% More extroverted than introverted
7% Completely extroverted
9% Not sure
n=1000 2023 YouGov internet poll
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/rwpllcwimy/Introverts%20and%20Ex...
Also, Susan Cain's book Quiet claimed 1/3 to 1/2 of the population are introverted. (Who knows)
I wear over-ear headphones almost all the time when I'm out on my own using public transportation, grocery shopping etc.
I listen to audio books (fiction) and it's great. I'm an introvert and this actually helps me keep high energy levels all day long. Another plus is I'm usually immersed in the story and not using my phone (well apart from it being a playback device) when sitting down or waiting somewhere.
And it's precisely this extra energy I can use to have more meaningful interactions with other human beings. I don't wear headphones when I go climbing for example and interact with random strangers quite a bit when I do.
I also don't appreciate the stereotypes that are flung about in the article. I'm also German, plenty of interactions as described in his Jalapeno-Story all day every day.
I actually use AirPods to assist my hearing in loud environments, but this aside...
I think there's also the consideration of: how often have you really wanted a stranger to talk to you on the bus. I've talked to a few women about this, and they don't leave home without headphones because it gives them an excuse to ignore strangers hitting on them in public.
I have a family member who works substantially on some of the main design/components of the AirPods who might have a different take. He wears them all the time but, as this article fails to mention, with transparency mode on. Thanks in large part to my family member, we are able to hear the outside world through the AirPods just fine and our brains are able to process the audio coming in as real time and not disorienting.
Thanks to this mode the AirPods have now been certified as hearing aids and many other friends and family members have said the same thing: that the AirPods are better hearing aids than actual prescription hearing aids (which usually cost absurd prices)
I talk to those people with those AirPods in as if they have no AirPods in at all, and thanks to those AirPods they are able to hear me better.
This is all a matter of perspective and comfort ability with adopting new paradigms and technologies. You need not see everything from the perspective of “technology bad”.
This struck a chord with me because when our 9mth old was born, I leant heavily on airpods during night feeds and still do wear them when it's just me and her hanging out; we interact constantly and chat away but I always have them in.
I also wear them listening to podcasts doing chores in the evening while my wife is on the couch; whenever she says something I have to ask her to repeat herself and its just not nice.
I also agree with the lack of idle thought; my brain is constantly tied into some content stream.
I need to be more deliberate - maybe I'll only use them for work (I work from home so use the for meetings and to hear notifications when away from my desk) and when running.
Kinda funny but I think this situation is less bad than it was a year ago.
For a while it seemed like young people were hard of hearing like the elderly, somebody would be camped in a weight machine at the gym resting for 30 minutes and I’d have to stick my hand in their face to get their attention or they’d be walking down the street and I couldn’t warn them about hazards on the sidewalk.
Maybe it just doesn’t bother me anymore or maybe they’ve wised up.
This article definitely doesn't account for those of us who are neurodiverse. My airpods buy me precious energy I can spend in social circles that I would otherwise not have. Force me out of them on a train or bus, expect me to be asocial for an hour when I get home.
Nothing is more unwelcome than casual conversation with strangers. It's very difficult to know what to say and how to act. I don't have a machine built for interacting with this person, so every conversation is simultaneous developing and operating a machine. No thank you!
And I'm not lonely nor isolated. I've curated the relationships I want. They are high quality, free from social media, and very active. I don't need someone sticking a spanner in my mental machinery on the bus.
> Where I live, in southwest Germany, AirPods are far less common.
Seems like there’s a high probability the author just drives everywhere at home.
Do tattoos too. American living in Switzerland and it's shocking when I go back.
Ohh I love tattoos, as long as they are arty and not gaudy.
Most people here in Spain have beautiful tattoos <3
What are the social effects of tattoos?
If you go to Japan, they won't let you enter most onsens. You see a lot of one star reviews from angry tourists who didn't know ahead of time.
For many onsens, this rule died in the last five years of the tourism boom. Also, many young Japanese people in big cities now have tatoos. As along as your tats don't look "too Yakuza", you will be fine. Also, many conservative ones have changed to allow you to wear a small elastic band of material to cover them. Also, many onsens have the option of a private bath that you can rent for an extra fee. Even the conservative ones don't care if you have big tatoos in a private onsen.
Too much beautiful art walking around.
If you want that warmth, you have to invite it in. It has nothing to do with the airpods.
Do you ever sit somewhere in public fully relaxed without a care in the world? Do you ever poke your head up to see who else is looking at what you're looking at? Is your expression neutral or natural?
There's always someone nearby doing the same. What happens when you spot them? Don't overthink it.
One thing I find concerning is the amount of people I see driving these days with AirPods. Don’t think they can hear emergency sirens or honks very well that way. I think it it’s even illegal in some locations. I assume they do this in older cars without a way to connect their phone or just like immersive sound.
AirPods have a transparency mode and are also fda approved hearing aids now. For some folks it is actually safer to wear them than to not wear them.
Walking around cars or in cities, especially in New York, is incredibly loud. The ANC protect my ears on the subways and streets.
I didn't realize that research on this topic was so sparse, I just took it as a fact that people wearing airpods don't socialize in public.
When I was in college, the line "he can't hear you, he has airpods in" was a meme. It was used as a jab at someone who wasn't paying attention because they had wireless earbuds in. So I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.
I have a hard time understanding someone so oblivious as to need telling not to try talking to someone with earbuds in.
You can see them. Don’t talk to me. If you must, get my attention first with a wave or something - don’t touch me.
Do you apply this rule in reverse? If you need to speak to someone who isn't wearing earphones, do you wave at them first or do you just start talking to them?
I suspect the latter.
I use a verbal cue to get their attention before diving into my question, because their ears can hear me. In any case, you need to wait for people to register that they need to change contexts before engaging them.
Where did you find the three dollar discrepancy?
vs.
Hey, Barb. <wait for acknowledgement> Where did you find the three dollar discrepancy?
With earbuds or headphones, the method of attention getting has to change: something they can see (wave), or something they can feel (tap the desk, no touching them.)
Ultimately the point is you get their attention, then you engage with the subject. If you're oblivious to the fact that there's an audio barrier sticking out of their ear, don't be surprised when you get no response.
One can hear, the other can't. So not sure how that's a reverse rule at all, it's actually the same rule applied to the reverse situation. The reverse of the rule would indeed be talking to someone without earbuds in.
> This habit of using headphones to dodge uncomfortable interactions may be especially common among younger adults, for whom social unease and feelings of isolation are well-documented problems that have become more common in recent decades.
Earphones (not specifically apple ones) are great for this. My city has become a touristy hotspot in the recent years, and you can't walk 50 meters through the city center without some homeless guy, or a romanian woman with a baby asking you for money, some "finnish" guys trying to sell your their music cd (that you have nowhere to insert anymore), some scammer offering you a flower or someone trying to sell you a boat tour of a city you've lived in your whole life.
Earphones in and you don't even have to reply, just ignore everyone.
The biggest effect of AirPods was that people stopped asking you to pull out the earphones when they talk to you.
At early college age I was dealing with stress that I for some reason had in a crowded city, and my main help was listening to rhythmic music all the time.
What annoyed me a lot that people from a coffee shop workers to beggars were making me more stressed by insisting that I must get my headphones out before the conversation began.
With release of wireless Apple EarPods this behavior completely disappeared in a following year.
I did notice the self-isolation effect of wearing any headphones a long time ago. Now, after a few years of using AirPods and finally switching back to cheap cable headphones only for work calls, it actually helps a lot for my brain to register context changes much more easily. And if you have adhd I highly recommend trying to do the same.
While I can see the point author is making, it’s weird how it is pinpointed to “headphone use”. I’ve been listening to music on the go for almost 30 years, starting with cassette players, then CD players, then mp3/ipods. Taking a bus/metro and listening to some new album or old favorite was very formative experience as a teen music lover. I have a sense that the important moment with regards to the issues described in the article was mobile internet becoming widely available and development of easy/good wireless headphones (AirPods). Social media and algorithmic streaming is a big part of this too, not just “headphones”.
100% this. People used to read newspapers and books on mas transit and Walkmans have been with us since the early 80s.
I think it comes down to people not _wanting_ to interact with anyone outside of their circle. I pull out my earbuds _constantly_ when I'm out in order to greet people, interact with retail staff, and hear things around me.
By jove people and their airpods are isolating us! Why cant we just talk to eachother like in the good old days https://i.imgur.com/38q0wOe.png
It’s a funny comparing commutes back then to commutes now. But it does not take a lot of imagination to see that back then people did not isolate themselves with newspapers while buying food at the grocery store, standing on the crosswalk or in a myriad of their situations where we have opportunity for micro interactions with other people. In other words, looking only at commutes is nit picking.
A lot of women wear headphones / earpods without playing anything on them. It is a great way to stop men from trying to flirt to you, as you've got a convenient excuse to just completely ignore them!
And the lack of music is for the same reason: you need to be aware of the men trying to harass you.
Came to say the same. It’s a very useful tool to stop having to deal with being bothered by strangers whilst I go about my day in public spaces.
I think an angle the author misses is the degree to which we've all become intolerant of boredom. Moments of stillness and boredom have all but been erased from our daily lives, the daily commute being a great example. Airpods give us an easy way to not have to grapple with the prospect of not being entertained during every waking second of our conscious experience.
But boredom is _really_ important – that's the DMN activity you want. Boredom gives your mind the chance to reveal things to you that you need to know, and may be actively avoiding.
Phones/Screens and headphones are being optimized to blind you and deafen you from the real world. You dont care though because it creates a pseudo-safe-zone through social status signaling (look at my expensive headphones in my ears, I look so cool and technologically advanced!).
I see people walking around with airpods in and all I see is that dude from 2010 with the shaved head, Oakley sunglasses, and one of those Jabra single-ear Bluetooth things.
Anecdotally, when it comes to talking to strangers I've often felt it's easier to converse with older people than those my own age. For example, the conversations feel more genuine and less "forced" on both sides, and overall I feel more comfortable being myself.
The reason might be because they grew up in a world where social media was non-existent, so interacting with strangers was more common. As a result, they tend to be more socially intelligent than the younger generations.
Will be thinking about this article the next time I reach for my AirPods as I'm about to leave the house.
To me it's easier to talk to older people because it is a given that being old past a given threshold generally lowers your social status in modern societies and they tend to be more lonely on average. We have all met someone who is old and is desperate to establish contact about anything. This means that their whole demeanor is inviting conversation, establishing eye contact and smiling and all that
I happily "take the bait" cause I am a quite patient person but sadly, people who are lonely have such an urge to talking that they are totally incapable of listening. I consider myself a good listener, competent at signaling than what they are talking about is actually going through but a lot of the time they might as well be talking to a tree.
Totally relatable. It's not just earphones. Put your phone and headphones away and then observe people. Every one except the 70 plus will be hooked on their phones. That 20 second wait between getting up to get off the train and waiting for the doors to open? Pull out your phone
Every desire for entertainment, education, distraction is filled by the phone. You're obselete.
You can spend hours in an extremely crowded city constantly bumping into people and feel the most alone you've ever felt in your life
Hyperindividualism has won
> Americans are speaking less and less to one another. The number of spoken words uttered by the average person fell by 28% between 2005 and 2019.
Is it just me or does anyone else turn skeptical when seeing these precise numbers given to something that seems essentially impossible to measure with this accuracy?
That's the central measure of 338 fewer words per day, but the 95% confidence interval was 25–652 fewer words.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17456916261425131
There is an interview with the authors here:
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-people-spoken-words-year-years...
I should add, 338 fewer words per day per year, cumulatively 28% fewer. It's a little clumsily written.
I am autistic. I can’t even count the number of times I got into dangerous situations because of my crappy social skills when strangers chatted me up. I don’t know, maybe strangers are well-meaning and kind to neurotypical people, or maybe people with good social skills can understand the intentions of strangers fast and cut off suspicious interactions before they are harassed or conned while I realize what’s happening only when it’s already happening, or maybe shitty people can sense my chronic social confusion and target me specifically… but I personally quite enjoy modern headphones etiquette where I live and the norm being not having random interactions. It feels way safer than in pre-headphones era (I grew up in a relatively low tech environment in a small town).
Plus, processing spoken language is physically exhausting even when I am having an enjoyable conversation with someone I love.
Other people already commented on the overstimulation aspect.
Not suggesting that the world should be remade to accommodate my needs, of course, just wanted to share my experience, I guess.
Noise is a big problem but this is a terrible solution. People clearly hate noise. Rich neighbourhoods are always quiet. It's basically the point. We need to go hard on noise. I think it's one of the biggest sources of unhappiness today. We can start with motor vehicles which are easily the biggest single source of noise. People shouldn't have to disable their ears to deal with this constant assault.
I wish I could walk around NYC without airpods in. Someone mentioned the lunatics and others blasting music but the main issue honking.
The honking in NYC is unbearable. Add to that the noise that the subways make and the constant construction and you're risking actual hearing damage if you don't wear some noise cancelling headphones.
What I would really love is an option to have a small indicator light or visible signal on my earpiece that means “there’s no sound playing”. And if I’m using them just for noise cancellation but want to appear approachable, I can turn it on. Honestly would be great for sound my home, as sometimes I keep them in when doing chores just because I don’t have a free hand, but I would like my wife to know she can talk to and I’ll hear her.
Outside I sometimes have headphones on without music, just so people do not approach me ..
But with your wife, doesn't eye contact work as communicating need for talk? Body language?
Sometimes I’m washing dishes and she walks into the room and doesn’t immediately know if there’s sound in my ears. It’d just be a nice little affordance to be able to proactively signal that.
The most jarring thing to me is seeing how kids (high school and college age) use Airpods now. I will see a group of friends hanging out in public and none of them take their Airpods out! They are talking and socializing, but they feel no need to remove the Airpods from their ears when nothing is playing. They're frictionlessly moving between real life conversation and content on their phones. This includes situations where you really think you'd want to take the Airpods out, like playing pickup basketball.
I don't know how to feel about this. I guess I'm happy that they're out of their house at all, but it does feel very sci-fi. In sci-fi books a common trope is for characters in the future to have neural implants that seamlessly and permanently connect them to some mega-internet. 24/7 Airpods is like the caveman version of that.
The author has clearly never tried to leg press 300+ pounds in the gym to Madonna's "Like a Virgin". Sometimes the biggest sell of earbuds is noise REDUCTION, not what sounds they can make.
I do agree that there are "social interactions" that are greatly devalued by people wishing not to be interacted with. But for me the earbuds are usually in to block annoyances, not avoid human contact.
This is talking about the second order effects of using the earbuds to avoid annoyances. It might not be the conscious reason you do things, but it is an effect that it has. The question worth exploring is what is the second order effect when people grow up where being isolated acoustically, or doing the social signal of having earbuds in even without something playing, is the norm for all interactions?
Agreed. I wear headphones because open offices suck and I like music. I’m not trying to avoid anyone.
Back home in the UK I find I need to always have my airpods with me because of the number of shops, supermarkets and cafes that blast out irritating pop music.
I’m… sensitive to music I don’t like and find the experience almost painful otherwise. Small pocket, noise cancelling headphones have been a real game changer for me.
To me it’s just a proxy for the amount of economic activity in a place.
Every time I go to Melbourne airport in Australia, I’m shocked that nobody - nobody - has their laptop out. In Sydney a few people do. But go to any airport in the US and if not a majority are on laptops at least a large minority seem to be..
So yes - airpods in ears, laptops in airports, city lights at night. Just a sign of how plugged in everyone is to “something” that’s happening.
Not all activity is economic activity and not all economic activity is valuable. People outside the US aren't generally expected to work 24/7
It's totally incorrect to state that the area served by either Sydney or Melbourne airport has less economic activity than the area served by "any airport in the US", or even the vast majority of US airports, so whatever laptops-at-airport (and I suppose airpods-in-ears) is a proxy for it sure isn't economic activity.
Reading the comments and debate about whether or not AirPods use is rude or not when others are around, it seems like the uproar over Meta glasses but in a minor key.
This is not new. AirPods are newish, but this is not new. People have been wearing headphones in public spaces since the Walkman, if not before, in large numbers. You can probably find opinion columns bemoaning this shortly after the introduction of the Walkman.
The seeming ubiquity is definitely new.
> People now wear their AirPods all day at the office.
Hey, that's me! Not with AirPods specifically, but I do have noise cancelling headphones. We can talk over lunch or during a break.
> They keep them in while ordering and paying for things in stores and supermarkets.
Now that is just rude.
Public, not pubic
> I felt like half the people around me in pubic had some kind of device-connected earwear on their head.
Not if they’re listening to Bush
I stopped listening to music on my walks and bike rides years ago. I sit at home listening to music all day while I work, so to me it's a nice respite to enjoy the world around me.
> People now wear their AirPods all day at the office. They keep them in while ordering and paying for things in stores and supermarkets.
I wonder how people do this or if my ears are just shaped weird, because I can’t even sit totally still at my desk without them falling out.
Get the new Powerbeats Pro 2. Nearly identical in functionality to Airpods, but they have ear hooks as they are designed for sports.
There's a pretty big difference between AirPods and AirPods Pro. The former just sort of loosely sit in the outer part of your ear. The latter form a pretty good seal in your ear canal. That's how you get good noise cancelling with Airpods Pro.
The loose fit of the regular AirPods and the wired EarPods never made any sense to me.
This is actually the exact opposite for me. Rubber tipped buds will not stay put in my ears when I move around, while the original airpods models sit within my ears and don't fall out unless I'm doing cartwheels.
The AirPods Pro do come with buds in a few different sizes—have you had the opportunity to try both the small and the large types?
I've also heard that the most recent AirPods Pro fit much better for people who have had problems in the past—I think because their rubber buds also have some foam in them, to help them create a better seal.
This has been my exact experience too.
my $9 wired earbuds from Sony also form a good ear seal by the way. No need to buy the $250 (!) thing from Apple. Unless you don't have a headphone jack.
I've used these to sleep to podcasts or quiet music at music festivals, and they block out the music from outside pretty well. This is because of the flexible rubber seal. My wireless earbuds are hard plastic all the way around and sit (securely) in my earlobes while my wired ones actually go inside my ear canal.
It also depends on the person and the model of Pros, strangely enough. The first generation stayed in my ears perfectly, but the second generation does not.
Yep. The pros also come with a bunch of different silicon ear tips to fit a range of different ear canal sizes.
Uh oh. You could be genetically predisposed to have to listen to everyone's problems.
This sounds sad to say, but I went on a walk outside, my AirPods died and realized I hadn’t listened to the outside world in a long time. Was a nice reminder to take a breath sometimes and enjoy the world. I think we all forget that
Noise pollution has always been a problem, especially in public transit. We finally have a decent solution. I don't think it's much more complicated than that.
I wear headphones because of all the people around me not using headphones while they listen to podcasts, talk on the phone, watch yootoob, and so on.
The author's going to be floored when he hears about video games
Same article was written about the proliferation of the Sony Walkman back in the 80s. Same article was written about newspapers on trains. File under “new thing is bad.”
Like huge SUV and pickup trucks in urban environments, guns and the like; their usage - and the perceived need for them - is a strong code smell of inhumane environments.
"You Can't Miss It" https://k2xl.substack.com/p/you-cant-miss-it
I'm reminded of the old-timey picture of a bunch of people on a train staring at their newspapers. Nothing new here.
looks like the seashells of Fahrenheit-451 were inevitable
A friend of mine from back home mentioned he hadn't heard anything about the White House UFC fight because he's solely focused on himself right now. Honestly, I think that’s becoming ubiquitous; all of us are navel-gazing and trying to "optimize" looks, diet, exercise, Ai skills, supplements. We can sit through four hours of a Joe Rogan podcast, there are so many long form podcasts! We are all just living inside our own little bubbles now.
All my co-workers wear those and I hate it. Any attempt to talk to them about work or personal subjects means they have to hit their ear and pause it. It just makes me want to say nothing.
That could be an advantage if your work requires some kind of sustained concentration, for the other party at least.
I like using by headphones (which are big and over the ears) as a way to signal when I’m on concentration mode and don’t want to talk, but I do that maybe 30-40% of the time.
That is by design, so they are not interrupted by random coworkers.
Well we are a science lab and need to constantly communicate about work so that’s not good.
There are better ways to do that than interrupting someone in the middle of flow.
i've been wearing headphones in public since the 90s (walkman > discman), i have no idea how the author thinks headphones is a new phenomenon. I'm not particularly interested in unsolicited advice or conversation, so that's a plus for me.
New is relative. 90s is still new for a lot of things. At any rate, the pervasiveness of it is new, and having a generation of people that know being isolated acoustically as the default state is also new.
‘please mind the platform gap please do not eat or drink on the railway premises wear a mask don't lean against the door hold onto the handrails on escalator give way to alighting passengers don't leave your belongings unattended take out your travel card and tap for quicker entry and exit don't board if lights are flashing Molestation and taking upskirt photos is a serious offense do not meddle with the rail equipment its not a matter of if but when, our response matters, SG SECURE! in the event of an emergency take cover call 999, and wait for the authorities take the lift if you have bulky items This train has stop here because the train ahead is still at the station, "Your attention please. Please do not leave your belongings unattended. If you see any suspicious looking person or article, please inform our staff or call nine, nine, nine." etc, etc.
Now repeat the whole thing in English, MandarinMelayu then Tamil and blast that record on repeat.
sila berhati-hati di ruang platform, ombothu, ombothu, ombothu
welcome to Singapore
Very similar experience in England with ridiculously excessive announcements on trains. It's the verbal equivalent of being constantly slapped in the face.
Yes there were all these people talking on the bus before wireless headphones.
"And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind. The room was indeed empty. Every night the waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward morning. There had been no night in the last two years that Mildred had not swum that sea, had not gladly gone down in it for the third time."
Different public spaces have wildly different expectations with regard to social interaction.
Most people know better than to strike up a conversation with a stranger who is watching a theater performance, reading in a library, or walking briskly to work. Whereas chatting with people at a club, sporting event, carnival, conference, convention, etc is socially acceptable.
But many places are ambiguous like public transit, gyms, shops, airplanes, etc. Assessing whether someone in those contexts would welcome interaction with strangers requires social awareness.
Unfortunately, some people overlook or deliberately ignore these cues, so folks who aren't interested in social interaction have taken to wearing headphones in those contexts to make it as obvious as possible. If you're the kind of person who is surprised by how many people are now wearing headphones, it may be because you were missing their more subtle cues before.
Noise cancelling is a treasure.
What I like about them is the ease of use.
we all have a choice to use or not and the depending of the context we live in there could be more or less benefits overall (metro city vs bucolic small European village). But what this article capture for me is something more philosophic, anthropologically as Aristotle told us we are social animal, and for about at least the past 5k years we benefited a lot as a group by contamination, etc.. now we live in more bubbles, bubbles are more diffused than previously and we must at least acknowledge what we are missing in the process. It's the same difference between old generalist medias, tv shows, books culture, and the more different possibilities and bubbles we live (more importantly grow, sometimes without touching the "local" "proverbial" grass). It's interesting to observe a social phenomenon that is mostly recent:
+ walkman 80s but diffused as today the Bluetooth headset only years later but not comparable
+ mp3 player 2000s not comparable as capabilities and more of a young adopt early technology
+ smartphones 2010s mass adoption but at least you hear mostly people around you.
+ air pods 10y ago on September -> in 10 years are adopted more than any of the previous tech. Adoption rate is hug (i consider also other brands)
and to be honest there is another topic correlated -> most young people have lived the covid pandemic and interiorizited some behavior
also grown up in some white collar sector live with headset after the pandemic, cause of smartwarking but also the more diffused use of team/zoom/meet in the workplace
now there is also ai (and it's a matter of time we will want a constant access to it that can also be headset related) and smart glasses are near than ever.
there could be consequences in less than 10y.
It's a social science matter nobody taking seriously.
Eh. I'm autistic and audio overstimulation is very real for me. When out at a restaurant or similar public place, I often have my AirPods in with nothing playing, just noise cancellation. I can still chat with my wife or whomever is with me and hear them, albeit muffled, but it keeps everything else down and manageable. Perhaps I could get some of those Loops, which I understand are less obtrusive.
I don't know that I'm autistic but I've grown very sensitive to nuisances over the years, which is why I wear them any time I'm not with someone I know.
I use the Background Sounds feature on the iPhone, set to Dark Noise, in public transit if there are loud people nearby that my music isn't drowning out. Recommend trying it out. There's a Control Centre shortcut for it too (with an ear icon).
Yeah I use them for that too. I use loops a lot in clubs etc and people sometimes comment on them and I explain and they're fine about it.
I can hear them better anyway and I have some degree of hearing damage so I prefer them in for protection in those cases.
> Heavy headphone use makes people feel lonelier, the survey found. It also makes people less likely to have a meaningful conversation with someone new. Many of those interviewed for the survey said they wore headphones in part to avoid having to talk to other people.
Well that sounds like correlation might not equal causation if i ever heard it.
Wearing on public transport: meh, the chances I chat with a total stranger is quite small.
Wearing on walks around my neighborhood: yes, totally see how this nudges away from spontaneous chats with neighbors / acquaintances as we pass each other and wave, but don't stop perhaps due to the friction of removing airpods and sense we may be interrupting each other.
Sometimes if I see a neighbor I know up ahead, I will preemptively remove my airpods to open the possibility of a chat. Most of the time just a hello, but sometimes a nice catch up. With the airpods, very unlikely to chat.
Really I see it as the exact opposite. A walk around the neighborhood is highly unlikely to strike up random conversation with a stranger. Might run into a friend or someone friendly but they are likely going to approach with or without airpods
Interesting that your experience is so different. I didn't mean strangers in my neighborhood though, just acquaintances / neighbors who I talk to sometimes - and airpods nudge the decision towards smile / wave keep walking over stop and chat.
Turn on music, Turn off world
Sorry but this “people aren’t the same because headphones” (or podcasts or <insert here>) is just too convenient a narrative especially when your pull quotes are from random college newspapers and small scale studies.
Having some music or a podcast to listen to on your commute is the new “I have a giant newspaper in front of my face”.
If you want to have a random conversation you totally can! But like all things in life - the other person may not want to have that conversation at that time.
Most headphones these days are also a headset, allowing for bi-directional communication. Does it make a difference?
Who are these people who keep complaining about this supposed isolation and such? It's a complaint that periodically makes it on to Hacker News, but the more I think about it the more I feel like we're listening to a complaint made by a vanishing fraction of the population and giving them a more credence then they deserve because a few of them write with great pathos and drama.
But I'm old enough to have ridden the bus not just before AirPods but before really practical and widespread headphones in general. (Headphones have been available for a long time, but people did not routinely carry them around because they did not generally fit conveniently in a normal-sized pocket.) I've spent probably hundreds of hours on busses, much of that on a college campus where we were probably about as similar a social situation as we can be.
And busses were never rolling conversation hubs. They weren't tomb-silent but the conversations were almost always between parties who clearly knew each other. They weren't some sort of daily forum for the debate of politics, nor a reliable source of small talk.
The only one that I will agree is something I used to do was small talk with the checkout clerk, because the transaction takes long enough to be socially awkward to be standing in silence, but again, inconsequential small talk.
Every time I read one of these articles moaning about how we're all behind headphones and how impersonal the shopping experience has become, I become more convinced we're not listening to Important Social Commentary by Thoughtful Individuals... I think we're reading articles from that tiny minority of super-socially-aggressive people who used to incessently bother those around them with their overly intrusive attempts to converse with us in that distant past pissing and moaning about the fact that we now have the social ability to block them in a way that doesn't exceed our politeness threshold. The people that we've all met that we wish would just shut up, where we're sending them social signals and body language to please stop, and they just continue on.
Now this is what they write in response to that.
Now, I'll cop to being reasonably on the end of the "let me get in and out and accomplish my goal without your contribution", but I've spent plenty of time in contexts where I got to see other people in those contexts, especially as a child, and I just don't recognize the wonderland of social interaction these people seem to be missing out on. There was never a time where these random encounters (ignoring cases where you run into people you already know) were ever anything more than the briefest, most transient touch of humanity, and if someone is in a situation where they are starved for that, perhaps their problems are deeper and lie elsewhere and the solutions are something other than trying to convince everyone else to change for them.
First generation of AirPods Pro were the only in-canal earphones that didn't fall out of my ears (rare shape of ear canal and yes, I tried different sizes, they all fall out or don't fit).
Only have over-ears headphones, so I keep borrowing pods from my wife when I'm cleaning/exercising.
Was very disappointed when she lost them and the replacement - pro v3 - had fixed the rare shape and they started falling out like any other earbuds.
I’m so with you, thanks Markham!
> The number of spoken words uttered by the average person fell by 28% between 2005 and 2019
This effect started well before Airods and even smart phones became ubiquitous. The airpods were released in Dec of 2016. Before Blackberries and Iphones, people on the subway all had daily newspapers in their face. In DC we had a free abridged version called the Express.
> Americans are speaking to one another far less than they used to. According to that study, the number of spoken words uttered by the average person fell by 28% between 2005 and 2019. Each year during that time period, the number of words people spoke in an average day declined.
I wonder what the difference is between this, and culture in EU where small talk isn't really a thing.
The EU is large and most importantly very diverse. Pretty much all the West and South of Europe has a very strong small talk culture. You shall not stereotype a country, and even less so a political and economical union of countries.
The US is larger than Europe and importantly very diverse, a melting pot you could say. You will find people in the South are far more talkative than people in the Northwest. The “Seattle Freeze” is real and I believe that it does not exist to the same extent in the South.
Just pop over the border to Canada from Washington state and they thaw right out!
Also, nit, but Europe has ~2x the population of the States, and definitely more cultural and linguistic diversity.
They all talk or at least understand English. The cultural exchange between Spain and Hungary is much smaller. Or France and Poland. And historical shaping is much different - they did not went through the same dictatorships and same wars.
And within those regions it differs a lot too. Here in a big Spanish city you would find very little too, especially in summer when there's so many tourists.
This will be even more interesting when AR glasses finally go mainstream in a few years, further increasing this effect.
Come to the Midwest. Over friendly. Zero air pods effect.
TLDR: "I think AirPods increase social isolation, I don't have much good evidence for it, and although I started the article by observing how many MORE Americans use AirPods, I completely contradicted myself at the end by pointing out how Germans, who apparently use AirPods less, are still less friendly/warm to strangers than Americans."
Suspiciously close to an AI slop article.
I started using them recently but I already wasn't talking to strangers for a long time before that.
I suspect the constant stimulation suppresses the default-mode network, the idle wandering your mind normally experiences when you're doing nothing.
Before that, I'd sometimes hold my phone up to my ear to listen to a podcast (even on the subway at minimum volume) but it was awkward so not ubiquitous. I think buying a paid of wireless earbuds was one of those decisions that made my life subtly worse overall, like eating a whole tub of ice cream.
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Lack of shared values and things to bond over.
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While crass, I’m likely going to think about your comment for a long time as someone who typically doesn’t enjoy surface-level interactions or doesn’t enjoy engaging with people who I know the relationship will never move from acquaintance/coworker levels.
Your comment will likely make me leave my AirPods in their charging case more as I go about my day to day activities, or at least think about using them more intentionally than I do now, which is having them in basically 24/7.
> Put your phone away, don't wear your airpods and live in real life- or continue with your airpods and your neck cranked down into your phone- you don't need friends anymore, AI will be your friend.
I have had decent conversations with strangers on planes and trains while my headphones were in. I paused the music to talk for a bit.
It doesn’t have to be either-or. Headphones don’t make you antisocial - being antisocial makes you antisocial.
“Life finds a way”
Meh. When I was young the old people complained that everyone was wearing walkmans (with those metal band orange foam headphones lol). It's just old man shouting at cloud. And no, I don't want to talk to everyone. Piss off and leave me alone.
I also hate noise and I really love wearing my earbuds (I don't use Apple) with no audio but just the noise cancelling on when I'm on public transport or walking. Sometimes with nature sounds like rain if the coverage is not strong enough.
I never listen to podcasts by the way, I truly hate them. Same with youtube videos, I just don't have patience to consume content at someone else's pace.
I stopped chit-chatting at the water cooler because I have a specific sense of humor that not everybody likes. And by "not likes", I mean the feminist women in my department get offended. Very easily. And because they're women, they hold special power wrt HR. So I just quietly spend my day now.
I think you should joke more, ideally in the presence of HR. They will sort it out.
So you literally cannot hold a conversation at work without making offensive and misogynist jokes in front of female coworkers? Is this something you need to see a doctor about?
Perhaps. Just like you might have to see one about reading into other people's statements and blowing them out of proportion.
Um I think this might be on you and not them.
Or just on the combination.
In America, I am _much_ less likely to encounter a friendly exchange with a a stranger than I am to be accosted for spare change by people for whom our obscenely wealthy systems have failed and/or decided are not worthy of assistance, so even small cities around rural areas have huge populations of unhoused people with a variety of deep-seated and untreated conditions.
Also, although I live in a medium-sized metro area with >8M people, it’s in the South, and I have zero access to public transportation. I prefer to use AirPods for music/podcasts/radio in my car, where I’m alone either way, so that I can more easily answer hands-free calls (which is necessary for my job).
Our society’s problem isn’t with AirPods, they’re just a symptom of the broader social decay that 80-years of inequality and deregulation has brought us.