The AirPods Effect
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The AirPods Effect
1–10 of 824 posts
Re: The AirPods Effect
#2I'd much rather be surrounded by people wearing earbuds than have people watching tiktoks through their phone speakers on the subway
Re: The AirPods Effect
#3I 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.
Re: The AirPods Effect
#4> 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.
Re: The AirPods Effect
#5I 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.
Re: The AirPods Effect
#6I 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.
Re: The AirPods Effect
#7Phones/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!).
Re: The AirPods Effect
#8> 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.
Re: The AirPods Effect
#9looks like the seashells of Fahrenheit-451 were inevitable
Re: The AirPods Effect
#10> 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.
Uh oh. You could be genetically predisposed to have to listen to everyone's problems.