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The AirPods Effect

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Re: The AirPods Effect

#441
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

why do you consider yourself an introvert if you enjoy chatting with everyone and everything?

Introvert doesn't mean one doesn't enjoy socializing, just that one needs quiet down time to recharge from it. Extroverts tend to be energized by socialization. It's also not always so cleanly binary, either.

I really hate that introversion gets conflated with social anxiety or misanthropy on the internet.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#442
post #5

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 remem…

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…

It’s legit funny who you’re responding to with this exhortation on how to be a successful boss / business-person.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#443
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Since the advent of EVs, its not a safety issue imo. When Tesla's first came out, and the first adopters were all people that wanted to drive FAST, I was often surprised by them, especially since I always rode slightly faster than traffic as a safety mitigation technique. I quickly learned to use my eyes more. My eyes are my ears and you cannot rely on sound to know who or what might be coming up from behind you. Mir…

It’s been a thing since the Prius allowed driving with the engine off with parents complaining that the Prius is a silent killer of kids because they couldn’t hear them coming.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#444
post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you have nothing in common with someone because of how they dress is just prejudice with better aesthetics :/ The suit guy probably has more interesting stories than you'd expect if you gave him thirty seconds.

If someone wears a suit they have a reason for it, it's not something people do because they like the feel of it. Because they're really restrictive, expensive and feel horrible. They do it to impress others or to fit in in business. Or when they're trying to sell something. I'm more comfortable among other outliers.

If your suits feel bad you’re probably not wearing the right suits. They are expensive though, that’s definitely true, so it does reveal some of their preferences.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#445

The author has clearly never tried to leg press 300+ pounds in the gym to Madonna's "Like a Virgin". Sometimes the biggest sell of earbuds is noise REDUCTION, not what sounds they can make. I do agree that there are "social interactions" that are greatly devalued by people wishing not to be interacted with. But for me the earbuds are usually in to block annoyances, not avoid human contact.

This is talking about the second order effects of using the earbuds to avoid annoyances. It might not be the conscious reason you do things, but it is an effect that it has. The question worth exploring is what is the second order effect when people grow up where being isolated acoustically, or doing the social signal of having earbuds in even without something playing, is the norm for all interactions?

Re: The AirPods Effect

#446
The author is from Germany and still complaining about Americans interacting with each other less in public? I've been to Germany so many times and almost never seen anyone speaking to strangers on trains/buses/trams. Once I was on a train from Cologne to Frankfurt with a colleague and we were talking nonstop. After a while we realized it was just us talking and probably disturbing everyone else!

People go to extreme lengths to avoid talking to strangers on public transport even in developing countries. Earphones are just so effective.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the point the article is making though, isn't it? You're making a choice to insulate yourself from your surroundings. That choice has effects on both you and your environment. You see it as a simple salve, but the poor souls you're choosing to ignore see it as a just another bourgeoisie wall. I used to live in a prison. Headphones were a huge fighting issue. People who couldn't afford them would borrow…

A buffer isn’t necessarily isolation or insulation.

You will have to explain. Headphones in work or street environments definitely function to minimize interactions with surrounding humans. I literally think twice before engaging with people wearing headphones and am rather oblivious to people around me when I'm wearing them unless someone is using physical gestures to get my attention.

If general public habits shift to the extent that the majority of people with headphones end up only using them for noise cancelling then my behavior would also shift accordingly.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#448

To be fair when you live in a big city and you have to take the subway all the time, it just feels physically nice to remove the background noise whether it's the noise of the train itself or the musicians or the people asking loudly for money. I don't even have airpods, I have good old earplugs because I often too lazy to choose the soundtrack of my own life. It's not that don't want to talk to unknown people, it's…

That's kind of the point the article is making though, isn't it? You're making a choice to insulate yourself from your surroundings. That choice has effects on both you and your environment. You see it as a simple salve, but the poor souls you're choosing to ignore see it as a just another bourgeoisie wall. I used to live in a prison. Headphones were a huge fighting issue. People who couldn't afford them would borrow…

> That's kind of the point the article is making though, isn't it?

I think the article pays lip service to this in a paragraph ("social crutch") but otherwise falls into the trap of "societal" pieces (Soft "Why can't we talk to each other anymore ? What is wrong with our cvilisation?")

In my opinion make it a safe enjoyable non-crowded ride and you'll get plenty of interactions.

> just another bourgeoisie wall.

You are not wrong in a way. The base of a lot of the kind of interaction the author of the piece is thinking about is a relatively equal social standing, otherwise there's too much at stake, on both sides. For example, I, a lower middle class man, would have little patience for someone telling me about how much fun they are having taking helicopter rides in the summer and I don't think they'd enjoy my rant about how landlords are evil. Of course I think there's a moral duty to lower yourself from your social standing to care for people who have it rougher than you but it's generally not exactly pleasant like a conversation with someone like-minded could be

Re: The AirPods Effect

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that's true but not everyone is cut out to be a "business-person". I certainly am not. Same with boss, I'm not a team player at all. I don't mind small talk sometimes but there has to be some kind of common ground. For example with conservative family-first suit types I have nothing to talk about and it feels awkward to make conversation, but with the leather/mesh/blue hair alt/goth types I can talk for hors…

>For example with conservative family-first suit types "hey man, how're the kids?" "Is your wife recovering from [illness] you mentioned last week?" "man, have heard the music on the radio lately?" "what kind of music do you like?" "can I ask you a personal question, what was the hardest part of getting the success you have?" "did you know you wanted to be a boss/manager when you were a kid? No? Oh, you wanted to be…

"SpaceX is a fraud. Its all about control. That's why in the future you'll be eating bugs because it's Greta Thunberg".

I am only partly paraphrasing actual conversation with my father in-law.

I cannot stress enough that what you think will work here doesn't: literally every topic will be pivoted towards a rant about which groups are destroying the future (all of them), or how it's all a conspiracy or how they are plotting against you.

You've invented a conversation you think works. I have lived a damn decade of the list of "safe" topics endlessly shrinking, and the punchline is same: 30 damn minutes of alternately being told some half remembered conspiracy theory from Facebook or asking for agreement that group are bad.

That scifi concept from when they were kid? Well they are lying about that for money of course.

It is exhausting to deal with over and over again.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#450
post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what your trying to a argue but it simply depends on the local laws but from a safety perspective I cannot think of many opportunities the sound would save you as it’s already loud enough from wind noise alone. I ride with a comm system that I play media over and trying to be reflective of my past and I don’t see it. Not really advocating one way or the other like yourself, I don’t have that strong of a feel…

> I cannot think of many opportunities the sound would save you as it’s already loud enough from wind noise alone I am a bit stunned reading this.. Is this a common perspective of motorcyclists?

At highway speeds, the wind is loud. The engine is often loud even with a factory exhaust. The only audible signal that's likely to matter is a car horn, and those are loud enough to hear over music at reasonable volume.

Cars are quieter, and hearing other vehicles is more likely. If anyone shouldn't listen to music, it's car drivers, not motorcyclists.

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