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The AirPods Effect

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Re: The AirPods Effect

#621

Post by poncho_romero »

angiolillo wrote: post #565
poncho_romero wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a lot of women who don't want to be chatted up who wear headphones This is true, but so is the opposite! I think the most important thing is to be kind and receptive. It's fine to start a conversation with a women wearing headphones, just take it in stride and don't be weird about it if she isn't interested in talking. I do this (with men and women) a lot. It is true that women are more likely to be approac…

> It's fine to start a conversation with a women wearing headphones, just take it in stride and don't be weird about it if she isn't interested in talking. I do this (with men and women) a lot. Not sure where you're from, but where I live, headphones are a well-understood signal that someone would rather not engage in conversation at the moment. Some have been conditioned to placate the kind of people who deliberatel…

Eastern Canada, where people are generally easy going and friendly. I'd be surprised and disappointed to hear things are different elsewhere, but I don't have the lived experience to say one way or another.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#622

Post by chasd00 »

FerretFred wrote: post #525
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…

Interesting .. when we first moved to my current house we knew it was a quiet neighbourhood, helped by being set back from the main road. What I wasn't prepared for was the absolute silence in the early morning - it was what I imagine deafness would be like, if earbuds can achieve something approaching that, then take my money.

I think ears adapt to silence the way eyes adapt to darkness. When camping on some land I have is SE Oklahoma it’s so quiet I eventually begin to hear the conversations of our neighbors on their porch maybe a 1/2 mile away.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#623

Post by aurmc »

basisword wrote: post #391
_the_inflator wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Noise cancelling is a treasure. And what I really like about them is the ease of use. The moment I start talking to someone, automagically the NC is paused as well as any audio you were listening to. It sounds so easy but is really running smoothly. Over time Apple really perfected the workings. This blend is what makes them so valuable for me. I don’t have to manually do anything, simply speak and interact…

>> The moment I start talking to someone, automagically the NC is paused as well as any audio you were listening to. This is one of those features I thought would be great and unfortunately had to disable in minutes. If you ever listen to music and sing along, even for a few seconds, the volume cuts because it thinks you're talking to someone. It's a shame. There's so many really great AirPods features and I feel lik…

>If you ever listen to music and sing along, even for a few seconds, the volume cuts because it thinks you're talking to someone. It's a shame.

This became such a huge problem when watching Jeopardy with my AirPods. I keep mumbling answers every 30-ish seconds, and when I do that, the show pauses and the world suddenly becomes audible and I have to remember to disable that feature.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#624

Post by Brajeshwar »

senordevnyc wrote: post #442
Brajeshwar wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sorry but I usually look at the content, the poster much later or sometimes not at all.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#625

Post by goodmythical »

talon8635 wrote: post #529
goodmythical wrote: post #374

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…

You’re chastising the person above you for blocking out the world with headphones while bragging that you have honed skills over time to, due to desire and necessity, block out the world in your own head. In any case, it doesn’t strike me as unreasonable to want to be unbothered, especially in particularly bothersome circumstances. You don’t owe anyone your attention, and the assumption that you do can and is weaponi…

I'm fairly mistaken you've mistaken me on two counts. I've chastised no one. I've merely observed aloud that the choices we all make have effects on both ourselves and others.

I also don't do any such thing as block the world out in my own head...not really sure where you could have gotten that except perhaps from a misunderstanding of meditation.

The meditation that I and many practice is about peaceful abiding or compassionate awareness. It's about changing our own judgement of reality as it is, not escaping from it.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#626

Post by goodmythical »

bscphil wrote: post #554
goodmythical wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Surely the solution to this social problem, however, can't be "everyone should simply convert to my religion / achieve a higher state of mind where they're not bothered by any form of inconvenience, irritation, or interruption." If it comes to that, most people will continue to wear their AirPods. It's a non-answer.

I think you'll find that I never made any such claim. I only ever spoke of my own experience with the topic at hand. I've done so in good faith that others may find it a useful comparison to the original technique suggested.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#627

Post by goodmythical »

gosub100 wrote: post #578
goodmythical wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why should you be bothered by people ignoring you with headphones when you simply could just...not?

Why should you assume that I am bothered by people ignoring me with headphones?

I certainly never said any such thing as it simply isn't true.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#628

Post by cloverich »

vkou wrote: post #573
milesskorpen wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that does happen occasionally in SF, it's <5% of my commutes.

It's been 0% of my commutes in Seattle. Yet the NC headphones are also everywhere, including on my head.

TBF seattle is particularly bad - it's famously unfriendly compared to other cities.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#629

Post by georgemcbay »

oceanplexian wrote: post #539

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 law…

> 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.

I've lived (and commuted on public transit) for years in many metros including SF, NYC, Boston and DC and can't recall even a single such interaction.

I'm sure it happens, I'm also sure it happens far less often than your competing anecdote suggests.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#630

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

antinomicus wrote: post #588
KolmogorovComp wrote: post #566

I’m reasonably skilled talking to strangers (can last about 3-4 hours in planes/trains/buses if the other party is up to it, after that I usually dry out of conversation), and do that frequently. However after several years of heavy traveling and hundreds of people talked to, you realize how similar everyone is. It is always the same issues, wife/husband, the kids, the parents… And it all starts to become a bit super…

That’s sad man - I also talk a lot to strangers and yeah most of the time you get average people, but then you meet that one in a million person and learn something truly fascinating or expand your sphere of knowledge or emotion or art or whatever. I’m always on the lookout for the next brilliant engineer, sensitive artist, or just a well read janitor.

Wouldn’t you consult a book or a video and practice a skill if you really wanted to expand your knowledge? And a “well-read janitor”, while certainly possible, is a trope more often seen in works of fiction. And what does “expanding your emotion or art” even mean?
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