101–110 of 824 posts
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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.
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.
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.
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and people still try and suggest public transport is great, when its a hellhole..
It really depends, I would much rather travel by NYC subway or Vancouver SkyTrain or Seattle light rail if my origin and destination are within walking distance. It's the least horrible option in many cases. Good luck to anyone's stress level and pocketbook trying to commute by car in much of NYC and pay $550 a month for parking.
I 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…
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.
And the lack of music is for the same reason: you need to be aware of the men trying to harass you.
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.
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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.
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That just sounds like another version of what the author is talking about: using [device] to avoid human interaction.
Newspapers have probably been used for this on subways for this as long as subways have been around. Walkmen in the 80s.
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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. #moraloutrage
> 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.
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That just sounds like another version of what the author is talking about: using [device] to avoid human interaction.
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