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The AirPods Effect

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Re: The AirPods Effect

#331

Post by ChoGGi »

Anthony-G wrote: post #270
microtherion wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vi…

Similar experience here. I grew up in rural Ireland in the 80s where you said hello to everyone but had a culture shock when I moved to Dublin for college. I quickly realised that you don’t greet everyone. I put it down to a being a matter of scale: in the countryside, it’s easy to say hello to everyone when you’ll usually encounter only a small number of people. It’d be impossible to say hello to everyone in a big c…

I usually see a hand wave, or lazy salute around rural Western Canada.

Probably a rural everywhere thing?

Re: The AirPods Effect

#332

Post by tokai »

asdfsa32 wrote: post #273
steve1977 wrote: post #144

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 n…

Strongly feeling a need to isolate yourself is not healthy and unnatural.

Writing comments on HN is also completely unnatural.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#333

Post by saghm »

brailsafe wrote: post #97
saghm wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

I think your attitude that going out in public is tacitly opting into interactions with strangers is a much more gross way to operate. The assumption that it's easy to just politely decline a conversation (and that not doing so in the form of a conversation itself) seems like an extremely narrow-minded point of view based on your own subjective experience. You're conflating social anxiety with the desire to "assert oneself", when it's closer the opposite; socially anxious people quite often don't want to assert themselves, which is exactly why the "just politely decline" strategy is misses the mark so badly. The fact that wearing the earbuds opts out of that passively rather than actively is the entire reason it's desirable.

In one of my other comments in this thread, I explicitly called out that this desire has nothing to do with like or dislike of the people who I might have social pressure to interact with. Some people find social interaction a net expenditure of energy even with people they like, and having to do that repeatedly throughout the day because I want to go to the doctor or something and society has decided that it's "rude" if I don't engage with literally anyone who happens to want to talk to me when I'm in public is honestly just silly. It's not like I'm keeping the earbuds in and refusing to talk to anyone when checking in at the waiting room; I just don't care to have to have a chat with my Uber driver or strangers on the subway while I'm out, and it's ridiculous to imply that I should just never go in public if I don't feel the way you do.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#334

Post by jagged-chisel »

dingaling wrote: post #115
jagged-chisel wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time understanding someone so oblivious as to need telling not to try talking to someone with earbuds in. You can see them. Don’t talk to me. If you must , get my attention first with a wave or something - don’t touch me.

Do you apply this rule in reverse? If you need to speak to someone who isn't wearing earphones, do you wave at them first or do you just start talking to them? I suspect the latter.

I use a verbal cue to get their attention before diving into my question, because their ears can hear me. In any case, you need to wait for people to register that they need to change contexts before engaging them.

Where did you find the three dollar discrepancy?

vs.

Hey, Barb. Where did you find the three dollar discrepancy?

With earbuds or headphones, the method of attention getting has to change: something they can see (wave), or something they can feel (tap the desk, no touching them.)

Ultimately the point is you get their attention, then you engage with the subject. If you're oblivious to the fact that there's an audio barrier sticking out of their ear, don't be surprised when you get no response.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#335

Post by cassepipe »

alun wrote: post #325

Anecdotally, when it comes to talking to strangers I've often felt it's easier to converse with older people than those my own age. For example, the conversations feel more genuine and less "forced" on both sides, and overall I feel more comfortable being myself. The reason might be because they grew up in a world where social media was non-existent, so interacting with strangers was more common. As a result, they te…

To me it's easier to talk to older people because it is a given that being old past a given threshold generally lowers your social status in modern societies and they tend to be more lonely on average. We have all met someone who is old and is desperate to establish contact about anything. This means that their whole demeanor is inviting conversation, establishing eye contact and smiling and all that

I happily "take the bait" cause I am a quite patient person but sadly, people who are lonely have such an urge to talking that they are totally incapable of listening. I consider myself a good listener, competent at signaling than what they are talking about is actually going through but a lot of the time they might as well be talking to a tree.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#336

Post by stasomatic »

GJim wrote: post #220
gijsnijholt1980 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is using headphones on a bike with music on or not somehow different from driving in a Lexus with music on or not?

Re: The AirPods Effect

#337

Post by TaupeRanger »

TLDR: "I think AirPods increase social isolation, I don't have much good evidence for it, and although I started the article by observing how many MORE Americans use AirPods, I completely contradicted myself at the end by pointing out how Germans, who apparently use AirPods less, are still less friendly/warm to strangers than Americans."

Suspiciously close to an AI slop article.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#338

Post by quotz »

infecto wrote: post #224
Neywiny wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

wouldnt the helmet prevent that ?

Re: The AirPods Effect

#339

Post by ajsnigrutin »

> This habit of using headphones to dodge uncomfortable interactions may be especially common among younger adults, for whom social unease and feelings of isolation are well-documented problems that have become more common in recent decades.

Earphones (not specifically apple ones) are great for this. My city has become a touristy hotspot in the recent years, and you can't walk 50 meters through the city center without some homeless guy, or a romanian woman with a baby asking you for money, some "finnish" guys trying to sell your their music cd (that you have nowhere to insert anymore), some scammer offering you a flower or someone trying to sell you a boat tour of a city you've lived in your whole life.

Earphones in and you don't even have to reply, just ignore everyone.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#340

Post by projektfu »

projektfu wrote: post #310
tines wrote: post #43

> Americans are speaking less and less to one another. The number of spoken words uttered by the average person fell by 28% between 2005 and 2019. Is it just me or does anyone else turn skeptical when seeing these precise numbers given to something that seems essentially impossible to measure with this accuracy?

That's the central measure of 338 fewer words per day, but the 95% confidence interval was 25–652 fewer words. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17456916261425131 There is an interview with the authors here: https://phys.org/news/2026-04-people-spoken-words-year-years...

I should add, 338 fewer words per day per year, cumulatively 28% fewer. It's a little clumsily written.
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