[points back at ColonelMoose]
MAJOR DELURKING ALERT!
[fade out with klaxons blaring]
Wearing headphones in public is anti-social.
That’s why I used to do it. As well as have music in my ears. Since I’ve mislaid the radio, I haven’t really missed it, though. I listen to my own thoughts instead. Which are way scarier. 
It never stopped folk talking to me, though.
I never viewed this as anti-social. I stopped wearing a headset while jogging after almost getting squished by a car a couple of times. I listened to fast music to help me jog faster. Also used it at the gym for the treadmill, stairmaster, cycles. Lots of people do. But I also stopped using one while riding a bike outdoors for safety reasons. I was more concerned with traffic than muggers.
I used to listen to music on jets to drown out all sorts of noise and sometimes crying babies. I liked instrumental music for that. But in my quest to travel lighter and lighter, I don’t even bring the tunes any more. But earplugs are still great! ~FWIW
I wear them a lot at work. If I didn’t, I would be treated to the wonderful sounds of co-workers… “The printer is out of paper.” “My cat did the cutest thing…” Or the girl who starts every sentence in her whiny voice with “I feel…”
Did I mention I am surrounded by all the office machines? Three printers, fax and copier, which everyone seems to congregate around. At least the music is a steady sound and it helps me concentrate. I’ll admit it might seem antisocial, but it’s hard to block all that sound out for eight hours a day.
If it was just headphones it wouldn’t be a huge problem, but we seem to be isolating ourselves more and more, especially in the US. Unfortunately the rest of the world seems to want to copy us. We sit in our cars from our garage to the parking garage or mall. Put on the headphones or talk on the cell phone, get back in the car and go back to our garage then plant ourselves infront of the tube. When I am on public transportation or somewhere I have to wait, I will often take something to read. That may be isolating myself a bit, but I can at least still hear what is going on, but if I had headphones I wouldn’t know what was going on around me. Overall the sense of commuity is dying and if it continues I think society will be in trouble.
Another thing about headphones, many people listen to it so loud, I can hear it from some distance away. I wonder if we are going have an “epidemic” of hearing loss or deafness. Also, where I work, people often comeup to the desk to ask a question and leave their headphones on or drop it to their necks with the sound blaring and try to hold a conversation. This is what I find very rude and annoying. If you find you must actually talk to someone please turn it off or at least down.
For those of you saying that you’re wearing your headphones and not “inflicting” your music on those around you: my experience is that, in fact, you’re audible for about twenty feet in all directions. The non-headphone wearers on Narrad’s bus, for example, are likely not chatting away merrily, because they can’t hear a damn thing over the skrtcha-skrtch-skrtch-skrtcha-skrtcha-sktrch-TSH-skrtch of a dozen or more sets of headphones, leaving them nothing to do except think private thoughts of justifiable homicide. At least, that’s usually my experience as a frequent bus passenger.
Now, if you want to wear headphones and not bother the people around you, fine, it’s a free country, I won’t bother you.
Oh, crap… I’ve been spotted!
::slinks unobtrusively back into the night::
Depends on the headphones you wear. I’ve got the big muff-style headphones and unless I’m blasting em, nobody can hear a thing. But those cheap little headphones can be obnoxious.
It really does depend on your headphones, as well as the volume you put it on. It drives me nuts as well to be hearing other peoples music, or just the bits and pieces that come my way. What’s even more annoying is when you have your set at a decent level and can hear someone elses music over your own.
I always attempt to keep mine at a decent level where it’s not too loud for others. If it is and someone points it out I will turn it down, and I probably would anyway simply because if someone else can hear it, it’s too loud in my own ears.
I think they’re isolationist AND sometimes downright rude. While many of you extol headphone’s virtues by claiming that they cut down unsolicited converstations with others, I believe this is a trend that is exacerbating some fundamental rips in our social fabric.
People don’t talk to each other any more. The casual ‘G’day’ or ‘Isn’t it a lovely day today’, or ‘This damn train is taking forever’ seems to be a thing of the past in many urban communities. The nod and a smile to people passing in the street is no more, because people are either engrossed in a mobile-phone conversation or immersed in their music via headphones. Those brief little snippets of human interaction that draw us together as human beings and allow us to feel like part of a bigger picture are being tossed aside.
We strut around demanding our rights to talk to who WE want to when WE want it. Wearing headphones essentially sends a message to the rest of the world that it is not worth interacting with. We assault other members of the community with our indifference to their very existence.
And in the next breath, we whinge about how the world is such a cold and inhospitable place nowadays, where loneliness and depression and alienation are being felt by increasing numbers of people. And we wonder why.
:rolleyes:
kambucta you try walking down the street and saying hello to everyone you meet… a good portion give you funny looks, the others ask if you have change and the rest ignore you. At least that’s my experience downtown.
In my neighborhood is a completely other story. I’ll say hello to people, smile. I know a few of the older people in my neighborhood because I stop and say hello and ask how they are today or hold the door for them. That’s how I was raised. My mom comes from a small town in Nova Scotia and she does the exact same thing, but even she knows you can’t say hello to everyone on every street you walk.
Even if you are not in a rush no one has the time to say hello to everyone you pass. We’re too crowded and everyone has somewhere to be.
My wearing headphones hasn’t affected how I react to the people around me. In my neighborhood I usually take them off so I can say hello to people, unless of course I can’t be polite without being brisk and in a hurry (or if I’m in a really bad mood. Some days I really can’t interact with people and just want my space. Headphones come in real handy then, that way I can politely ignore people.)
You want to get into fundamental rips of societies fabric? Whatever happened to saying thank you. To bus drivers or people holding doors for us for example? They say Edmonton is a friendly city to live in… well it took a lot of getting used to when I moved back here as I more often then not get the weirdo looks for saying thank you to the bus driver (not from them they usually smile) and get completely ignored for holding doors as if it’s that persons right that I hold the door for them. Maybe they think it’s because I’m female that I don’t appreciate being thanked for holding a door? I dunno…
I often speculate about this as well. For fun, sometimes when a person has their headset up at an annoying level, I’ll turn directly to them and (while appearing to speak rather loudly) merely mouth some words.
It can be hilarious to see them whip off their headphones in a startled fashion, worried that they might have finally shot their eardrums in the hindquarters.
Do we even want to know what sort of “fur” is on them? I don’t think so!
And this particular post was most definitely worth quoting in its entirety. It embodies exactly what I meant when I mentioned, “society as a whole being the real loser in this situation.”
Thank you, kambuckta, for so clearly elucidating the reasons I posted this entire thread in the first place. I feel there is an ever-increasing deficit of social skills in each successive generation. The practice of isolating ourselves in public directly contributes to this and no amount of at-home conversation can possibly make up for it.
Chance meetings can make for such wonderful acquaintances. Imagine if you randomly put half the members of this bulletin board on “ignore.” Think of the fabulous posters you’d miss out on. That’s how I view society at large.
Credit given where credit is due. At least none of the headphone proponents in this thread are bemoaning what an impersonal place this world has become. Yet, I remain obliged to wonder if they understand how they are helping to make it become so. Regardless, I shall still be glad that we have the choice.
If my headphones can get the bums, street preachers, and other assorted crazies to quit bugging me, I’ll take it. The downfall of society is just a side benefit.
Of course we do. Everyone does this all the time. Even if I’m not wearing headphones I can do this. When the person standing beside me decides to make a general comment about the bus, HE is exercising his right to talk to who he wants to when he wants to. Why is it rude when I use a device to exercise mine?
This is crazy. When I walk to work in the morning, I listen to music because it helps me to keep a good pace and it’s enjoyable. Don’t I have a choice in how I occupy my time? My commuting time is pretty much the only time I have not at work and not with my kid - environments in which I can’t turn off from the people around me. I am not obligated to be at the beck and call of strangers for idle conversation. How arrogant for people to think that I should.
I’m still polite and friendly. I was listening to my discman this morning when leaving my apartment. As I was passing the laundry room, a fellow renter came by with his hands full of laundry and detergent. Seeing that he might need help, I offered it. Am I still asocial and indifferent? Is society going to end because I was listening to music at the time?
People still talk to me when I have headphones on. Just a couple days ago, a guy and I amiably conversed about a bat that had gotten lost in the train station. I took them off after he began speaking, though I could hear him just fine. The day before, I advised a woman on PDAs after she saw me using mine - and yes, I had my headphones on when she first spoke to me.
To calm Steve’s worries, I’ll note that my headphones are quite good, and according to my discman, the volume is set at about 10% typically, perhaps 20% at most. I easily can hear the pages turning in a newspaper a few seats away.
I haven’t seen headphones as being such a widespread scourge that it causes waves of depression and isolation, and I can’t think of a time in my lifetime when a nod and smile in the street was common. Perhaps 5% of the riders on my train wear headphones - and if we’re so “antisocial”, why do you want to talk to us? Strike up conversations with the other people if that’s what you think. My depression is from neurochemicals for the most part, not from not chatting up everyone in sight, and I was shy before I ever had headphones.
In days gone by, when I was very prone to taking a lot of acid…I would always, ALWAYS put headphones on if I ever went out into public. Sometimes I didn’t even have them attached to a wakman, I’d just leave the enhooked plug in my pocket.
It was a very easy “out” of any conversation or situation I didn’t want to be in. So, yes it is antisocial…but I don’t fault anyone at all for doing it. 95% of the conversations I have in public are either small talk or other throwaway stuff that I can do without.
I must look awfully friendly and/or UN-anti-social even when I have mine on because I don’t tend to notice that people have a problem greeting me or even asking a question (what time is it, where does this bus go) if I’m wearing mine.
But then, I don’t usually ride the bus, (I know, I know, I get asked “where does this bus go” when waiting on the corner to cross the street while out speed walking my dog), so I don’t know how people would look at me if I were to use one while in more social circumstances.
As to how I view others who wear them? If I think anything at all, it’s “wonder what they’re listening to” or “wonder if they’re studying” etc.
I frequently use mine for french lessons. And I know there are lots of books on tape/CD out now.
Even if they were being “antisocial” and actively using it as a “give me my privacy” device? So? IMHO, people have a right to not be bothered if they don’t wish to be, withOUT being labeled “stuck up” or whatever.
IMHO? It seems like a fairly decent way to make this statement.
Shrugs…
People asking about cover sheets for your TPS reports…
Oh, the irony!!
After posting to this thread this morning, I had to make my way to work via public transport. Now normally at peak-hour, the trams are packed like sardines with grumpy commuters, and I usually slink in a corner with my newspaper to do the crossword puzzle. It’s sort of a ritual now.
Except today is Sunday. I bought the paper as per usual, and jumped on the tram but this time got a seat. I opened the broadsheet to the puzzle page, fumbled for my pen out of my bag, and then…
…“S’cuse me, do you know who won the footy last night?”
She was an elderly lady on her way to mass at St. Pat’s and she was just itching for a chat. She knew a damn-sight more about footy than I did (which isn’t hard, seeing as I know bugger-all, except for who won last night).
But I wanted to do my puzzle, dammit. It’s part of my morning routine. It’s what I DO to prepare me for work. If I don’t do my puzzle, I feel somehow disconnected from the day, and this old sheila wanted to natter about the bloody footy for gawdsakes. 
Instead we chatted about the vices and virtues of many of the players and coaches and managers of AFL teams, and we shared some laughs and we agreed that footy is a stupid game that is dominated by the almighty dollar nowadays. And when she got off the tram to toddle over to the cathedral, we wished each other a fine day, and I felt much better for having taken the time.
I did my puzzle on the train, where NOBODY wanted to talk to me.
You could NOT have put this any better. I couldn’t agree more. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been the unwilling listener who wanted to scream “Shut that noise the f*** up already!”
One more thing, if I may. People who listen to music on headphones in public are NOT antisocial, not even if they’re doing it so as to avoid having to interact with chatty strangers on public transportation, panhandlers etc. I don’t consider it antisocial to want to avoid people at all, personally. I think “asocial” is a better term for these folks; “antisocial” is better reserved for muggers, rapists, killers, thieves, arsonists etc. who actually harm people and/or their property.
Happily Asocial (though I lost the “need” to have music on all the time quite awhile ago and my Walkman lies unused in one of my file cabinet drawers),
Yersinia.