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The AirPods Effect

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Re: The AirPods Effect

#531

Post by pwthornton »

cassepipe wrote: post #348

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…

I wear my AirPods Pro on the train largely for hearing protection. The DC Metro is loud, with or without people making noise in the train. Different train systems have different levels of loud, but when the Metro is flying through a tunnel it is quite loud.

I also often have them in while walking around the city for this purpose as well. I usually have the noise canceling off, but if an ambulance or something is coming my way, I quickly click the AirPod to put them into noise canceling mode.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#532

Post by SequoiaHope »

scoofy wrote: post #507
cassepipe wrote: post #348

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…

I agree with this comment. Noise canceling headphones is the only reason I’m able to use the bus in SF. The author writes from Germany, which has reasonable social etiquette in place in most cities. That social contract just doesn’t exist in large parts of America. In Chicago, they have a real problem with people smoking on public transportation. They don’t make noise canceling headphones for your lungs yet. The peop…

> They don’t make noise canceling headphones for your lungs yet.

Well, they literally do, they’re just absurd:

https://www.wired.com/review/review-dyson-zone/

Re: The AirPods Effect

#533

Post by tokioyoyo »

goodmythical wrote: post #501
wvenable wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can sleep, eat, shower, and meditate just as well in the middle of a deadly riot ... as I can in a forest or a dead silent bed room. You should realize that there are people who can't do that.

There was a point in my life that I couldn't do that. To suggest that it is impossible for a given individual is different from suggesting that it is difficult which is different still from suggesting that it is suggested. I have personally benefitted massively from deconstructing the walls that my parents and peers suggested I build as a child. It was work to do, and is work yet to be done, but I value it. I am no l…

> There was a point in my life that I couldn't do that.

At some point of my life, I realized I can’t assume or rely on the idea that other people will enjoy living their lives like I do. So, what I find admirable and something to thrive might not be the thing they’re looking for.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#534

Post by kjkjadksj »

conductr wrote: post #342

I was in college when the first iPod came out. As an early adopter that was super into my music that first year or so, wearing white headphones around campus actually came with more social interaction. It felt like everyone was staring at me and usually people constantly interrupted my jam sessions to ask me about them. The novelty quickly wore off for me, I realized I preferred a more private speakered environment f…

I don’t have airpods but I still use earpods for video conferencing. Honestly they fit and sound better (louder) when I have right and left switched.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#535

Post by mcculley »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #417
mcculley wrote: post #413

The modern world is funny. I have a hearing impairment, tinnitus, and use both AirPods and less visible hearing aids to hear people better. I only wear the AirPods around people who know me well enough to know that I am wearing them so that I can better hear them. I don’t want strangers to think I don’t want to hear them or that I am being rude. When I am out among strangers, I wear the less visible hearing aids. But…

Ever thought about wrapping your AirPods to be skin-colored? I wonder if that would be more inviting for strangers than the stereotypical white color.

No, it never occurred to me. This has prompted a fun discussion with my wife. I suggested I could grow some stem cells into a skin that would match the color of my ears. She suggests that I should not have these ideas.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#536

Post by Hoodedcrow »

elAhmo wrote: post #163
jorisw wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 see nobody saying "good afternoon" in a grocery store, that's the one place where you keep interactions to a minimum. Also, self-checkouts are not always an option because at least the ones at grocery stores here never accept cash.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#537

Post by adsteel_ »

conductr wrote: post #342

I was in college when the first iPod came out. As an early adopter that was super into my music that first year or so, wearing white headphones around campus actually came with more social interaction. It felt like everyone was staring at me and usually people constantly interrupted my jam sessions to ask me about them. The novelty quickly wore off for me, I realized I preferred a more private speakered environment f…

That's my memory as well. Early '00s, I was also in college and seemingly one year campus went from a broadly friendly, social place to one with a lot of people, headphones in, focused on their own little world.

There were Walkmans and disc Walkmans before that, of course, but MP3 players were a step change in social isolation, from my perspective. Bluetooth earbuds + a wave of streaming audio content have been another.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#538

Post by koliber »

mspgrunt wrote: post #530

By jove people and their airpods are isolating us! Why cant we just talk to eachother like in the good old days https://i.imgur.com/38q0wOe.png

It’s a funny comparing commutes back then to commutes now. But it does not take a lot of imagination to see that back then people did not isolate themselves with newspapers while buying food at the grocery store, standing on the crosswalk or in a myriad of their situations where we have opportunity for micro interactions with other people. In other words, looking only at commutes is nit picking.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#539

Post by oceanplexian »

Yeah, great article. But it should get to the point.

The reason you need to physically remove yourself is because of the insane lunatics that blast trash music and do a dance while aggressively panhandling or screaming at you for trying to commute quitely on the train to work. A hallmark of daily life when I worked in SF and in NYC.

A great way to fix the fake problem would be to aggressively enforce the existing laws, starting with tickets, and if that doesn't work, incarceration. Apparently it's not politically correct to do that though so I guess we are all second class citizens who need to live in a low trust society where people are increasingly isolated.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#540

Post by bitexploder »

goodmythical wrote: post #374
cassepipe wrote: post #348

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…

I worked in Manhattan often in the 00s and early 10s. Have people forgotten what big city life was like before? Commuters did not randomly strike up conversations. It was an unspoken code you left each other alone. Especially in rush hour commutes. Everyone is waking up or tired after a day of work. It is more about having some personal space in a crowded environment for many. Not everyone processes or experiences that the same way either.
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