Really depends on how they are being worn. If they are on without any sound being played its fine. Ear plugs are highly encouraged while riding a motorcycle and after a decade plus of riding I have never thought ear plugs along with a headset prevented me from hearing whats going on around me.

Maybe it is your own misinterpretation as the parent never said they were playing music on them. You might not realize just how loud the wind noise is on a bike, you are not exactly hearing your surroundings music or not. Most if not all of your awareness on a motorcycle is coming from your eyes not ears, so hard to really say its stupid.

It's been decades since I've ridden motorcyles but as I recall the helmet usually had foam padding over the ears and that was adequate for wind and noise reduction.

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. Mirrors and head on a swivel are way more important.

Deaf people manage to get licenses with no problem. My hearing was never tested to get my license, unlike my eyesight.

Is using headphones on a bike with music on or not somehow different from driving in a Lexus with music on or not?

I wear earplugs and play music via Cardo while riding nearly every single day. It's fine.

Let's be realistic - noise cancelling isn't a perfect technology. I rode with my AirPods for a short period of time and could still hear everything I needed to. The only reason I switched is because they're uncomfortable in a helmet.

My earbuds have a setting to allow for outside noises. Wearing them while walking, I often hear cars and other people well before I see them. Even with louder music, I still hear them. I can hold a conversation with people without taking them out. I don't wear them without music, though, because my own breathing is also louder and irritating.

If I have the noise cancelling turned on, it would be downright unsafe.

While it is likely illegal in many places, it isn't everywhere and the safety risk depends on what sort of equipment you have.

It is not illegal in every country. Further, wind noise and exhaust are too loud to hear anything anyway, so having music on and navigation is a bonus.

If that's illegal than cars with closed windows would be illegal too. Even more so if they have the radio on. As a cyclist I keep having issues with car drivers not hearing anything happening outside of their vehicle (not a bell, not yelling, not a bicycle hooter). That's like wearing headphones or earplugs and still is considered normal. I'd love if everyone would be required to drive a cabrio.

Why stop people from winning Darwin awards?

A lot of motorcyclists are the scum of society in other ways. Probably higher levels of domestic violence than the police.

You want to wear airpods while on the motorcycle? If this is an unironic idea you are having, indulge!

Use a model of in-ear phones which let you still hear the low frequency rumbling of the motor. That's the pleasant part of the noise anyway.

It's illegal in a few places in the US, but not everywhere. It's definitely not illegal to put in a few kW of amplifiers and a few square feet of speakers, and often not even a problem to turn them all the way up and stop whole areas from hearing anything.

Earplugs are pretty common on a motorcycle. The issue is not the exhaust, its the wind which gets to damaging levels at pretty low speeds.

Fully agree that its dumb but even on my electric motorcycle at sub-highway speeds, the wind noise was the only thing I could hear.

You're revealing that you have never rode a motorbike with your comment.

Riders need to use ear protection within the helmet unless they want to become deaf in the future, because of the wind noise.

There’s this thing called wind that makes noise and also other vehicles on the road as well. Did you ever consider that?

> In Europe it's strictly forbidden to wear headphones under the helmet.

No it's not.

> protective gloves with hardened knuckles is of course mandatory

No it's not.

On a pedal bike, it's very important because you are most likely to be hit by cars from behind. Motorcycles move much faster, and most riders wear helmets as well, already impacting hearing. The road noise and wind is very loud, try rolling down the window in a car on the freeway and imagine that on .your whole body.

In the Netherlands they banned wearing earplugs/headphones on bicycles for this reason (as well as using your device). Whether that's enforced / enforceable is another matter though.

On a motorcycle you need hearing protection due to wind noise, but good plugs will filter out the louder noises, not so much important ones.

As a cyclist, I find sound such a poor signal I'd consider it optional. Too many threats are silent and sound is too late, misleadingly bounces of other surfaces and generally poorly correlated with significance.

Safe cycling is all about vision. If you can't see it's safe, it's not. It isn't simply seeing imminent threats but predicting them e.g. identifying drivers that aren't paying attention and where a car could suddenly emerge like blind turnings, car doors, pedestrians and such, and countering with appropriate caution / road position.

If you find noise useful, IMHO it means you aren't sufficiently aware of your environment.

There is practically nothing to hear that matters for your safety on a motorcycle at highway speeds. An ambulance you will hear even with headphones.

Ear plugs are recommended while riding a motorcycle.

I ride with AirPods on, no content playing, just transparency mode. It cuts harsh wind noise, maintains 3D acoustics, and keeps me safer as a result. They’re a hearing aid for me in this case.

No, riding for a long time without ear protection will damage your ears. Ear plugs at least are recommended. I am not hearing anything over the wind and engine noise anyway.

> The moment I start talking to someone, automagically the NC is paused as well as any audio you were listening to.

When I'm listening to music, the music helps form my sense of time. It is deeply jarring to have the music pause for a few minutes and then start as though in 'music-land' no time had passed.

I'd be happier if the music volume went to zero but the song/track kept progressing.

The "always works" is the only reason I am using Airpods.

I have never had earbuds that are consistent in the way they connect in any circumstances. I have had Bose, high end Sony, Anker, and there are often times when you need it to connect in a rush and it forces you to shut down the device, the bluetooth on the phone, and waste 30 seconds that feel like 5 minutes.

Complete opposite experience. Moved to the Apple ecosystem including the watch, and the seamlessness of how airpods work with them all had me give away all my other earbuds - even though the airpods do not have the best sound quality. The convenience of everything just working had me never reaching for anything else.

I have plenty of complaints about Apple, but the Airpods experience is one the stickiest user experiences they have and would be one of the harder things to give up if I moved back to Android.

Are you sure you haven't got a faulty pair? Mine switch seamlessly between devices. I bought a bluetooth speaker recently and using it is hell on earth comparatively. The number of times I have to find the device it last connected to and disconnect before I can connect the one I actually want is absurd.

> I think the argument is that the urban setting itself is ancestrally unnatural.

That was my point, yes.

But those 40 people were likely more or less consistent and known to you and you also had direct or implied trust built up with them.

That's fundamentally different from an anonymous mass of people in a city. I've seen and heard much more than 40 people (many of them different every day) before I even reach the office in the morning.

> If a stranger wants to talk to me in the city, either they're looking for directions (happy to help!), or they are deeply confused about appropriate social behavior in crowded spaces

A neat summary of the article.

Talk to the old fogies in said city and they will saddle you with complaints of how people used to say good morning, how are you doing, etc. It didn’t used to be this way. Alas, we probably won’t be talking to the old fogies either.

You're just taking the Western code of social conduct as "normal". Human interaction is completely normal and natural.

For a non-solitary species that requires almost 2 decades for self-sufficiency, isolation is not a question of personal opinion, it is fundamental.