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 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.
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.
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.
Edit to the edit: 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.
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
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.
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.
> (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 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’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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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".
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?
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.
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.
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.
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...)
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
> 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:
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
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.
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.
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.
> 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 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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Coincidentally, the latter increases the number of the former. Most people are going to avoid confrontation and instead opt for their personal noise cancelation.
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.
> > 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.
>> 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
>> 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.
Control group here- Adult from Silicon Valley that has never used a mobile phone/flip phone etc and has never used airpods either of course
My take- phones and social media have made everyone socially retarded and airpods are driving them further off that anti-social/socially retarded cliff
When I still lived in Silicon Valley I'd see people post things on local subreddits like "How do I make friends here?"
The simple answer is don't be a socially retarded dork- trying being a socially flexible and available human and not a socially retarded robot that wants the rest of the world to compromise for you-
In my opinion they have traded para-social relationships(podcasts, youtubers etc) for real social relationships-
They feel more "comfortable" with the para-social ones because they can control everything about it which has made them more uncomfortable with the real world they can't control-
You can't control when people might talk to you- or what they might say- BUT that's the beauty of real life- you might make the best friend or start an amazing relationship from chit-chat about nothing in the most random place-
Lock yourself out of those spaces/places/instances with your phone/airpods and your doomed to a life you "control"- a lonely boring fucking life
BUT hey, at least your "consuming" more "content" generating more profit for big tech instead of having friends- good job!
You probably also are helping out big-pharma consuming more anti depression meds with your self enforced loneliness instead of just talking to other human beings-
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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 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?
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.
> 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!
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.
> 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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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).
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Just any time in your day where you’re not bombarded with external input is getting very rare
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.
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.
Edit to the edit: 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Ear plugs are recommended while riding a motorcycle.
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.
> (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 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’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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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").
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.
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.
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.
If you're reading it's kinda obvious, and it's pretty annoying to be interrupted.
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.
So you are bad at reading signs. And that "seems happy" may be just "are too polite to punch you".
> 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.
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.
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".
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?
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).
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.
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.
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...)
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
> 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.
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
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.
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.
Well, what culture are you saying patterns like you?
This is common experience also in ND vs NT differences.
> 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.
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.
> 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 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.
check out some vox populi, you would be surprised
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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!
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.
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.
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.
How can it be crowded if nobody uses it?
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.
$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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As is driving alone in a car
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.
There is an even worse thing. Using speakerphone while on street, while holding the phone near ear anyway.
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
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.
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.
> > 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 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.
>> 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
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 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
>> 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.
I think "Your Brain Needs Idle Time" is more important than the effect on random social interactions.
> 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.
Walking around cars or in cities, especially in New York, is incredibly loud. The ANC protect my ears on the subways and streets.
Control group here- Adult from Silicon Valley that has never used a mobile phone/flip phone etc and has never used airpods either of course
My take- phones and social media have made everyone socially retarded and airpods are driving them further off that anti-social/socially retarded cliff
When I still lived in Silicon Valley I'd see people post things on local subreddits like "How do I make friends here?"
The simple answer is don't be a socially retarded dork- trying being a socially flexible and available human and not a socially retarded robot that wants the rest of the world to compromise for you-
In my opinion they have traded para-social relationships(podcasts, youtubers etc) for real social relationships-
They feel more "comfortable" with the para-social ones because they can control everything about it which has made them more uncomfortable with the real world they can't control-
You can't control when people might talk to you- or what they might say- BUT that's the beauty of real life- you might make the best friend or start an amazing relationship from chit-chat about nothing in the most random place-
Lock yourself out of those spaces/places/instances with your phone/airpods and your doomed to a life you "control"- a lonely boring fucking life
BUT hey, at least your "consuming" more "content" generating more profit for big tech instead of having friends- good job!
You probably also are helping out big-pharma consuming more anti depression meds with your self enforced loneliness instead of just talking to other human beings-
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.
> 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”
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.
The author's going to be floored when he hears about video games
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.
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 :)
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.
They have a situational awarenes mode
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.
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.
Hearing damage causing (eventually) tinnitus is cumulative so it could well have been that you were already building it up.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
Too much beautiful art walking around.
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 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.
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.
> 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!
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.
> 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?
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.
Lack of shared values and things to bond over.
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.
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
Most headphones these days are also a headset, allowing for bi-directional communication. Does it make a difference?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
I’m so with you, thanks Markham!
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.
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.
"You Can't Miss It" https://k2xl.substack.com/p/you-cant-miss-it
Come to the Midwest. Over friendly. Zero air pods effect.
> 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.
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 is by design, so they are not interrupted by random coworkers.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.