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, rent, or steal them. I never saw the point. Humans are a part of nature. I can sleep, eat, shower, and meditate just as well in the middle of a deadly riot (I was once asked by an officer to leave the dining area as they'd maced several people and everyone else had fled while I sat there calmly eating my institutional cheesy cardboard because I was more hungry than bothered by the mace) as I can in a forest or a dead silent bed room.

Embracing or shunning the society you live in is a choice. Choosing either has consequences. My choice means that I am often driven to action to contribute to systemic solutions to the pain I see in life. It isn't easy, but I don't think I could live with sticking my fingers in my ears and pretending it isn't happening.

> (i.e. loud and busy environments with many strangers, often physically closer than comfortable) is unnatural to begin with.

What is unnatural about this? We have plenty of anthropological evidence that humans have been doing massive festivals for at least many thousands of years i.e. people voluntarily gathering together with strangers in loud and busy environments with all sorts of sounds and smells.

Yes! When walking along busy streets, I put my airpods on without music just to remove some of the car noise.

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 without having to touch them.

This is what bothered me really well, especially at work. Headset on, headset off - not anymore.

And people now don’t feel neglected when you keep the Pods in your ear.

Social reconditioning was part of the problem so to say. This tool is now accepted.

Well deserved. I am buying another pair of the AirPods Pro. I want a bit of safety after I temporarily lost one ear pod - I felt so disturbed, suddenly not being able to enjoy freedom acoustically anymore. Just to make sure and switch between them.

Agreed. Unrelated pro-tip: wearing them while riding a motorcycle. Reduces fatigue and transforms a rough experience into almost luxurious. Highly recommended.

> (i.e. loud and busy environments with many strangers, often physically closer than comfortable) is unnatural to begin with.

That's very natural when it comes to life in an urban setting. Love it or hate it, we wouldn't have been here now (I'm talking from a civilizational pov) without us humans moving into the cities.

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

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.

Wouldn't it be cool if this situation could be detected and when you hit pause it would actually repeat them for you?

I'm a big fan of having noise cancelling earphones in with no music or audio when going for a walk. It's amazing how it forces you to think as you say and brings a kind of clarity.

> After reading about the default mode network here a few times recently, I think missing out on all that critical "daydreaming" time is a bigger problem.

Part of the reason why I listen to music and scroll my phone is to get some peace from the default mode network.

I don't feel like I would do it as often if my mind didn't insist on being busy all the time.

> The DMN seems to fall into a similar area as meditation (remember when that was all the rage among tech leaders?); the lowered input noise gives the brain time to clear things out.

I am not skilled enough in that department to say anything with certainty. But formal meditation is about intentionally focusing the mind, and the talkative mind or whatever it is called in the buddhist traditions is probably this default mode network. Which is the first obstacle; being able to focus on the meditation object without having your attention hijacked because oh what's for dinner, did I send that email, but what about that other email, oh but I couldn't log in on my phone, oh by the way that phone is also annoying in terms of that related thing, but I should stop using my phone as much anyway what about getting one of those dual SIM cards that I read about on HN.

In my experience, it's probably healthier for the mind to have the DMN active more than someone who can distract themselves all the time do. But to me DMT looks to meditation like sunbathing looks to a day's hike (yeah you're outside for both of these activities but).

I miss daydreaming too. In younger years, I often had boring, repetitive work but I could daydream the full day. Then as more you need the brain for work, as less time you have to daydream. Now I have really cool work, but I can't daydream at all. Even I use mostly public transportation (train) and have my headphones with me, I rarely use they. I kind like to hear and feel the people around me.

> The DMN seems to fall into a similar area as meditation

I'm curious about the relationship between mind wandering as exploration leading to insight and mind wandering as rumination. It seems like DMN is more associated with the latter. Its association with meditation likely comes from studies like the below.

Meditation leads to reduced default mode network activity beyond an active task

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4529365/

I've done the exact same. I frequently take walks and walk places and often used that time for an audio book or podcast. A zen revelation has been taking these walks and not bringing my phone. It's my daily meditation.

Just any time in your day where you’re not bombarded with external input is getting very rare

Yeah, I have noticed this as well. When I’m trying to solve a difficult problem, it seems that way more ideas arrive to me unprompted when I take a break from heavy listening.

ADHD + Airpods means that I'm often putting them in, and stepping out of the house and completely forgetting to put something on. I'll just walk around with the noise cancelling on and it's super nice in a busy city.

> 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 to you are? :) Maybe I'm just "too curious".

It was kind of confusing growing up in Sweden, where most people don't share this idea, so of course it felt really isolating when almost zero strangers actually engage even a tiny bit. Luckily, I figured out I lived in the wrong country relatively quick, and now live in a country (Spain) much more aligned with my own mindset, and having the time of my life chatting with everyone and everything, and they even respond back!

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 the person without shocking/surprising them. And then, I mostly try to listen more and try to guide them to talk more. You will be surprised at how many a lot are eager to talk to someone, if they are being listented to.

Talking to strangers is a skill. You can practice it! I've made a point of trying to practice, albeit halfheartedly, and even though it's difficult for me, because I like it when other people try to talk to me.

Earbuds stop this practice dead in its tracks. You can't deny that.

My take, is that this effect has removed a lot of the micro communications we make - not necessarily random conversations. It’s taken away random moments that may trigger a short small conversation with strangers.

In part it’s taking away the shared experience in public and making it “my” experience.

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 visited Southern California, I was very uncomfortable with strangers striking up random conversations. Later in the trip in San Franciso, I felt that the slightly toned down form of this habit was more comfortable for me.

Moving back to Switzerland after having lived in CA for a few years, I had to relearn old habits.

As someone who is often pretty introverted, I feel like wireless earbuds just give me a way to act like I already wanted to with less friction. I pretty rarely want to talk to random strangers, not because I have anything against them, but because I just find it takes a lot of energy for me to do so (probably not in small part from having to replicate a lot of what comes naturally from others in terms of social signal reading with extra effort). People seem to be a lot less likely to randomly initiate conversations with me when I'm out in public with my earbuds on, and that saves me from having to decide between feeling even more tired after going out or the awkwardness of trying to cut off the conversation short to avoid spending energy on it.

I don't like talking to strangers and I would consider myself rather introvert, although not extremely (I'm more of a misanthropist, maybe). That said, talking to strangers is really quite easy; I do it sometimes, esp. to entertain my friends while walking on a busy street. It's quite fun. It can happen that you plunge into deep conversations too, with someone you met just seconds ago!

Technology and culture evolve together - I don’t think it’s a dichotomy.

Teenagers today are probably more likely to share your disinclination towards social interaction because they grew up during a time when AirPods are so ubiquitous.

As someone from Chicago (actual Chicago, south side, not the suburbs), randomly talking to strangers is what we do.

We're talking to strangers at the bus stop, at the grocery check out, or just wherever. It's just phatic conversation, nothing needs to come of it. Chicagoans aren't just friendly, they actually love the art of the conversation -- every conversation is a chance to put in the reps.

But the minute you step into the suburbs, this habit disappears.

My mom was one of those people that talked to people everywhere we went and seemed to know someone everywhere too. As a very shy kid I was constantly mortified but I had the startling realisation several years back that I'm that person now just starting conversations all over the place. Oddly enough seeing your comment I think the change happened when I moved to England in my late teens but I didn't recognise it until my 30s. I do wear my airpods a lot on walks these days but I always silence them as I approach people and regularly take them out if it seems like a conversation is about to start.

I definitely think it's generational. Every person I know over 50 could talk to a brick wall for hours. The people I know 30-40 it's a struggle for at least half of them. Under 30 and it gets much worse.

Even the older introverted people I know, who I would characterise as quiet, would find it really rude to get in a taxi and not chat to the driver for the duration of the journey.

With people doing their entire careers remotely now I can only see this shift happening faster and more intensely. Small talk is a skill like any other and I think it's a sad skill to lose on a societal level. And I say this as a serious introvert that doesn't love to make small talk. Nine times out of ten, when I do make the effort to e.g. talk to a taxi driver I come away happier.

> 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!

See that's interesting, because I *am* an introvert, but I'm quite happy to sit and talk to strangers. I don't mind it at all.

One of the few cultural similarities that I feel like London has with Scotland (where I live) is that you can just talk to people. People will talk. If you go to Glasgow and you ask for directions, chances are that the person you ask will walk with you to where you're going and point out good places to eat and interesting things to see along the way. Boston people have just learned this in a big way.

My son is even more so, and at not-quite-six he already appears to know most of the people in the town of 14,000 people where we live, how their farms are doing, how are the cows, what weight of potatoes are they getting per hectare, what prices they're getting at market, how they're getting on with that gearbox problem with the van. It takes about an hour to walk the mile or so back from school because he's got to talk to all the old guys and ask how they're doing.

Social Networking at its finest. I suspect he won't be stuck for a job when he's older.

> And I'm not an introvert!

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.

as someone who enjoys talking to strangers, while it is less common in some countries like China, and big cities in most countries, people tend to react mostly the same.

Well, what culture are you saying patterns like you?

This is common experience also in ND vs NT differences.

The trick to talking to strangers, in my experience, is to find an opportune moment where you have a reason to talk to them (ie: you are both looking at the same departure timetable and you ask about a particular train/flight). The response will determine whether the stranger is open to carrying on a conversation. Of course, if their presence in the shared space is short, this makes it harder as these opportunities are not always present.

Smoking is probably the best lubricant (ie: borrowing a lighter, asking about a brand/vape, etc.) and people when they smoke are usually more open to strike a conversation. That's not an endorsement of smoking (and I've quit very recently).

Agreed. These people seem to be panicking that our precious society is suffering because of choices people are making for themselves when that’s just what society is. If they benefit from talking to more people, go ahead and enjoy the benefits. They aren’t owed anything.

I’ll talk to strangers when it makes me feel good. But most of the time I try avoid inviting weirdos to complain about minorities or marginalized people from someone who has driven away anyone close to them.

It's one thing to isolate against strangers in a subway. It's another thing to be goddamn oblivious in a shared space like a grocery store--to take a random (not) example. It's getting to the point that I have to body up to people to get them to take notice that they're blocking a half dozen of us.

I also do agree with the comment that airpods do seem to get in the way of the most basic of social etiquette. Simple "please" and "thank you" are increasingly rare since you can't recognize the cues when your ears are full of something else.

That just sounds like another version of what the author is talking about: using [device] to avoid human interaction.

There is an even worse thing. Using speakerphone while on street, while holding the phone near ear anyway.

Coincidentally, the latter increases the number of the former. Most people are going to avoid confrontation and instead opt for their personal noise cancelation.

those are just people with bad manners.

Yeah I take them out too. The only exception is ear protectors (loops) which I wear in discoteques/parties. When I talk to people I don't usually take them out because I wear them for protection. If they notice I will explain and they don't mind.

In fact it's easier to hear them with those in anyway. I'm just very sensitive to sound and I have already damaged my hearing a bit when I was young.

> > They keep them in while ordering and paying for things in stores and supermarkets.

> As a GenYer I find this rude and I'll take them out any time I interact with someone.

I don't take my headphones off while paying for things in a supermarket - because you aren't really expected to talk or listen in this scenario, and the cashier doesn't want to interact with you either. But for anything more involved, like ordering something in a coffeeshop - yeah, absolutely.

> I think people have the right to comfort and focus

Focus on what?

>> As a GenYer I find this rude and I'll take them out any time I interact with someone.

Interesting point. Airpods actually work great as hearing aids and I personally use that in loud environments, but I find myself cringing when I do because exactly of what you say. So maybe normalizing their use even when interacting is fine? Still, I can't shake off the idea that I'm not fully connected with you if I'm talking to you and I'm wearing something in my ears...

> I’m a long distance runner and often run 15-20+ miles without music or headphones. It’s nice

https://youtube.com/shorts/aqWDyakwRg8?si=LZddNysBymNXLgZI

I often use over-ear headphones as ear-protectors rather than sound sources. It muffles the outside world, leaving me free to think.

I suspect in-ears have degraded my hearing, so I don't use them any more.

I'll chuck autism and overstimulation in there too. There's a reason that there's the stereotype of the autist wearing their noise-cancelling headphones.

> Correlation ... causation

Yeah, I'm surprised this isn't highlighted more in these comments. "A small study" and "an article" and such seems to be the basis for this article, and yet there's seemingly no work done to identify if it's actually that people's attitudes have changed, and they're adopting headphones because of that.

It's not as if there's been major, literal earth-changing events that happened in incredibly recent memory that might have changed how people socialize or interact or anything, right? Let's just blame a specific brand of a piece of technology that has existed for decades, instead.

>> It seems equally likely to me that other factors are driving increased social anxiety

Social anxiety thrives on avoidance. It's a feedback loop. So likely it's correlation + causation. Your anxious so you wear the headphones to block out the world which only breeds more anxiety.

And the mid point, Bowling Alone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone

I don't think the author presents it as such a binary decision though.

The fact is that in practice, it's either headphones in or out when in public. Meaning wearing them all the time effectively means IRL Do Not Disturb.

> I think we need regular doses of real human contact — not just with close friends, but with acquaintances, and even with strangers — to counterbalance all the negativity we encounter in the news and online, and to remind us that, on the whole, people are kind and well-meaning.

I think the author may have a point here, but he'll be hard pressed to convince anyone to give up the benefits of 'sonic isolation' through music and noise cancelation that people seem to have discovered.

On a gut level I agree 100% as I'm feeling the same feelings and prefer no contact. But on a biological level it's definitely better to have more social interactions and talking to strangers specifically has many benefits to both you as an individual and for creating a better society.

That definitely applies to me, but I'm not sure everyone is the same.

Some people have the TV on every waking minute of the day, no matter what else they're doing. Some listen to music or podcasts in the same way. Others scroll through social media whilst eating or walking or even during conversations with other people.

It's not a new thing, either - constant background TV was definitely a thing at my grandparents' house when I was a child in the 1980s. Personally, I find the idea horrifying but I accept that I'm a bit of an outlier!

I live in cities, and I usually walk around 15-20k steps every day for the last decade in cities. I listen to music or podcasts in my earbuds, and often I read stuff on chat on my phone as I walk. I have never run into anything, and never had any issue bumping into people or cyclists. It's perfectly possible for some people to navigate just fine in their environment while dealing with multiple stimuli, and in fact that's exactly why I love walking so much more than sitting. Having earbuds or using my phone at the same time for me is certainly nothing like being intoxicated while walking. It's important to not project one's experience as how it must also be for everyone else.

You can turn most of them into transparency mode too. I do that sometimes when I'm in an area where I feel unsafe. So I can hear people sneaking up on me.

They have a situational awarenes mode

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.

Agreed. I wear headphones because open offices suck and I like music. I’m not trying to avoid anyone.

You make a very good point I didn't yet think of. Usually if someone tries to talk to me on the street it's something bad. A scammer, a thief, someone with those stupid clipboards trying to collect money for a cause. Some political campaign. It's rarely something positive.

You forgot to mention the part where this happened recently. You’ll habituate soon and forget about it.

Source: got bad tinnitus from motorcycling, became depressed with suicidal ideation and then got over it.

I swear my tinnitus is a result of use of AirPods.

This comes up every now and then, similarly people say it is caused by noise cancellation. I have looked into this once out of interest, but there doesn't seem to be much scientific evidence for this. Unless you put them at a far too loud volume of course (or presumably block your ear canal all the time and it causes infections).

A high percentage of the western population switched to noise cancelling headphones and earbuds the last ten years or so. There is also a base rate of developing tinnitus in the population. So, it is more likely to just be a coincidence.

Hearing damage causing (eventually) tinnitus is cumulative so it could well have been that you were already building it up.

> I swear my tinnitus is a result of use of AirPods.

Have you had your hearing checked out by an audiologist? Any hearing loss?

Hearing loss (age) and damage (loud noise) are the most likely culprits.

I've been wearing Airpod Pro 2s for 5 years and had no increase in my tinnitus (caused by many years of playing guitar and drums). I only wore Airpod Pro 3s for 3 days and my tinnitus increased by 3-5x. Thankfully, it went back to normal or almost normal after a few weeks. I now have a brand new pair of airpods I can't use.

Googling reveals others with the same issue with Airpod Pro 3s.

Outside I sometimes have headphones on without music, just so people do not approach me ..

But with your wife, doesn't eye contact work as communicating need for talk? Body language?

Ohh I love tattoos, as long as they are arty and not gaudy.

Most people here in Spain have beautiful tattoos <3

What are the social effects of tattoos?

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.

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...

Not all activity is economic activity and not all economic activity is valuable. People outside the US aren't generally expected to work 24/7

It's totally incorrect to state that the area served by either Sydney or Melbourne airport has less economic activity than the area served by "any airport in the US", or even the vast majority of US airports, so whatever laptops-at-airport (and I suppose airpods-in-ears) is a proxy for it sure isn't economic activity.

Not if they’re listening to Bush

A friend of mine from back home mentioned he hadn't heard anything about the White House UFC fight because he's solely focused on himself right now. Honestly, I think that’s becoming ubiquitous; all of us are navel-gazing and trying to "optimize" looks, diet, exercise, Ai skills, supplements. We can sit through four hours of a Joe Rogan podcast, there are so many long form podcasts! We are all just living inside our own little bubbles now.