Headphones Everywhere
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
I suppose if I had to try and find his points they would be:
* "headphones are bad because they cause us to be isolated"
* "Millennials are seeing themselves as hard done by"
The second point might not be what the author means though, but the former has strong tones throughout the piece.
I do not agree, headphones are a way of having some level of privacy in an increasingly crowded and public world. We are expected to use public transport, for the good of our wallets and the good of the planet. However those public transport machines are especially loud (Bus engines are incredible) and we're beholden to the whim of shitty teenagers playing rap music at 100db from tiny speakers.
This is before I mention the increasingly popular open-office work environments, which put a large number of people in a room together for 8-10 hours every day.
I do not want to hear Debbie finalising that sales call and then talking shit to her colleague about the guy from third.. I want to get my work done and focus. Headphones are the only way to do that in a modern work environment.
I'm more surprised that podcasts and audiobooks aren't mentioned. I only listen to music at the gym and at work. When I'm travelling I like to listen to stuff that will push me but when I'm working I just use music to block the noise.
I am however trying to consider the author more as I read online though in this case I don't think it adds any additional context.
Ambling down a city street with headphones on—you know, maybe it’s dusk, maybe it’s midsummer, maybe you had a really nice day—is, without a doubt, one of life’s simplest and most perfect joys. Humans have long enjoyed secret communions with sound, and headphones allow for the development of a particularly private and tender relationship. How headphones’ sudden omnipresence might affect the ways in which musicians attempt to communicate with their audiences—how it might dictate what people require of or appreciate about songs; how it will change the way records are made and produced—is, of course, still being sorted out. It seems possible, though, that we are slowly reconfiguring music as a private pleasure—that, in fact, all pleasures, soon, may be private. We are all the lone stars of secret films, narrated by and in our own minds, and we seek out music that validates that position: separate, but forever plugged in.
But I think the overall narrative of the article steers a bit too close for comfort to the old "all you people have your faces in your phones all day long" theme, just directed at headphones. This is expressed a lot more in the initial 3 - 4 paragraphs, which is a shame because most of us will read the first paragraph and then hop on over to comments ;)
[1]: http://www.superfi.co.uk/images/product/large/100001914_1_.j...
No.
* closes tab
Or maybe the shared spaces are plain boring. I don't know what the author expects people to do on flights, but I'm not going to be twiddling thumbs for any flight longer than 30 minutes. Substitute headphones for paperbacks or newspapers, and the rant would still be relevant (for the lack of a better word).
It was intentional, and my point was that the author wasn't really railing against headphones exactly: humans have been engaging in solitary activity in public for eons, and the author is attempting to headfake readers into believing it's a recent phenomenon.
> How about talking to the people you are travelling
When traveling with friends/family, I usually talk to them. With strangers it's a dire gamble: on one hand, I choose my travel music/movie/book ahead of time and they are guaranteed to be interesting. On the other hand, the gent or lady the next seat over could be a great conversationalist or they could be really annoying and I won't tell them to shut up for civility's sake.
Might as well be, but I choose to take my boredom in moderation. Even with personal entertainment, a 12 hour intercontinental will have it's boring moments
> A lot of inventions and solutions to hard problems came when people were "bored".
My counter-thesis is that the solutions come when people are "relaxed" or "distracted", not necessarily "bored". I have had my fair share of Eureka moments on walks or in the shower.
(Yes, I did read it, and wish I had closed it sooner.)
This is a valid point, and I am quick to avoid reading articles with such 'click-baity' headlines myself.
When coding, I code.
When listening to music, I listen to music.
When sitting on a plane, I sit on a plane.
Resist the urge to distract yourself and see what happens.[2]
[1] There is the story of the Zen student whose teacher taught him "When drinking tea, just drink tea." The same student later discovered his teacher drinking tea and reading the newspaper. When confronted the teacher said, "When drinking tea and reading the newspaper, just drink tea and read the newspaper."
[2] I believe that boredom and frustration tolerance are important life skills worth developing. Also I have found that many things that at first seem boring become more interesting if you pay close attention to them.
Most of us never attempt any such training though.
In my comment I wasn't attempting to make a moral or aesthetic prescription. I was just pointing out that training the ability to focus on doing one thing is worthwhile.
[1] Also most Buddhist teachings reveal several layers of meaning when actually attempted. You are supposed to _try_ and sit and drink tea only, and see what happens, and what that reveals about your mind.
I do notice though that whenever I take them off, usually because I already have a head full of thoughts, there is a soothing effect. I think the constant flow of information is nice as a distraction but makes one much less mindful of other things. The brain does not seem to get the periods of wandering thoughts it craves from time to time. Constant information intake seems to make me less friendly to people, makes me stare and smile less. It makes me enjoy the beauty around me less. So I started to take them off more often, but it feels like I'm fighting an addiction when I do.
I've found that listening to random music ("I'm feeling lucky" on Google Music) is much more soothing than listening to any podcast...
But walking around and listening to your surroundings are a good way to cool off, and kinda forget about difficulties. Listening to the traffic go by can be hypnotic....
Do you not feel it makes you more likely to have an accident?
Here is a nice example of a typical rush hour, the red lane is only for bikes, of course everybody is very careful at intersections :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-AbPav5E5M (by the way the bus also has it's own lane in this example, and everybody knows: bus drivers don't mess around.)
Worse are the radio stations playing honking/emergency sounds or jerks screaming suddenly as they pass, just for 'fun'. Creates unnecessary anxiety.
The existence of all the headphones though raises more interesting questions that are fun and interesting to think about in a sci-fi way than "is it acceptable for you to react in this way?"
There are hints of it in the article, but they don't come through well. The key questions are mostly of curiosity. First, there is simply "what are people listening to?" Is it always music, what kinds of podcasts, meditations, lectures, spy recordings?
I am particularly interested in shared experiences via headphones. It is okay in my book to not want to hear unwanted machine and person noise. Now what are the creative possibilities for making, e.g. mini groups of shared listening? In a sense, we are all sharing the same podcast, albeit time-shifted. What about group music-composing on subway trains? What about several people on the same bus or walking path to listening to the same thing together at the same time? What about historical tours, etc. This could be fun. And having all these headphones around might actually help it happen.
When refactoring or debugging code, I like fast paced with action-packed lyrics. Dragonforce Through the Fire and Flames, Darude Sandstorm, Linkin Park, Eminem Til I Collapse
When writing new code, I like slow paced with thoughtful or romantic[1] lyrics. Joni Mitchell, Mozart, Carpenters
I've also started to put the song on repeat on the background. I recommend ListenOnRepeat.
[1] http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/psy-methoden/methodenlehre/Lov...
I have a feeling it's cut down on altercations and fights, maybe even panhandling and performers. I wonder if there's any data on it or if a similar effect happens elsewhere.
Make tiny wireless earbuds. They can tune into a prison radio station. They are recharged by getting a new one from a prison employee.
But... then somebody might figure out how to take them apart and use the wires to affix a sharpened PCB to their shiv.
It just stands to reason, as the Panopticon is assembled for those of us who are yet "free", the same technology could also be used for those who more obviously are not.
Plus ca change... https://web.archive.org/web/20151123053907/http://i.dailymai...
That's the boring explanation. It may lack the keen social commentary that the article speculates on, but it happens to be true.
I take care not to use a high volume, unless I’m in a reasonably safe setting, like on a train. Listening to music instead of the traffic, people talking too loud, advertisements, etc., is great, but only as long as it doesn’t pose a safety risk.
Now I live in the countryside, my nearest neighbor is a mile away, and I haven't used headphones in 6 months, nor have I even thought about them until reading this article. And I still don't feel like using them.
The same logic implies we should ban public wear of headphones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ban_on_face_covering
"The key argument supporting this proposal is that face-coverings ... [are] a social hindrance within a society which relies on facial recognition and expression in communication. ... the European Court of Human Rights upheld the French law on 1 July 2014, accepting the argument of the French government that the law was based on "a certain idea of living together.""
Are you sure that's the reason? I'd imagine it would have something to do with the laws (at least here in Denmark) around it being illegal to be fully masked.
The basic idea is that non-verbal face-to-face communication is culturally expected as a very basic and fundamental part of our social interactions, however inconsequential they seem. An example: bump into someone on the bus, and you'll instantly look at their face to know if they're hurt or annoyed or sorry or vindictive without a word, and can proceed on with appropriate verbal communication. In other cultures maybe arm language suffices but in a European one it creates unease at best not to see the other's full face.
This is basically why even ill people don't wear masks around here (when it would really help not spreading diseases like flu) which is, I hear, basically a given in Asian cultures.
The French government decided to make a statement about it and declared that masking your face is illegal (barring a couple exceptions including medical reasons, safety, and cultural†† events) for cultural and security† reasons.
† Obviously terrorists vet in favor of RFC3514 and choose to wear masks in public and so everyone is now safer what you didn't think of the children did you?
†† Otherwise that would make for an interesting conundrum
The only exception is when it's carnival ergo the reason why it's called the carnival law here. And I assume that is also the case in most European countries.
When you are wearing a headphone you can be still identified.
Having said that. If I were to see someone walking around with a beard, large sunglasses, and a hoodie in a possible effort to conceal their identity, I would look at them a little more careful than I would the people around them.
I should have stated my original response a little more clearly. I don't think someone with 40-70% of their face covered is as recognizable as someone with 0% of their face covered.
Also, you omitted the primary reason:
"face-coverings prevent the clear identification of a person"
Anyway, as I said to someone else, sunglasses and beards are not banned. It's also questionable whether the government has any reasonable right to demand that you are clearly identifiable in public. Should everyone wear license plates?
Identifying someone is not necessary in order to talk to them; you can talk to strangers, can't you?
> It's also questionable whether the government has any reasonable right to demand that you are clearly identifiable in public
If the police is looking for you, it makes sense that they would discourage concealment en masse.
It seems to me that the demand for 'public recognizability' is really a demand for effective mass surveillance. It's not about being able to verify identity, it's about being able to monitor and track large numbers of people via camera and facial recognition.
It makes sense that the police would want this, as they want their jobs to be easier. But the police should not get to dictate the law.
Yes, like it or not communities require trust. States are communities. There will always be a level of mass surveillance.
Before the headphones the isolation device were books, a thing that would make us detach from reality and turn us crazy (this is the main plot of Don Quixote, a novel written in 1620)
Most people are working and can only quickly scan through it trying to find the main points.
If the smart people in ycombinator get the wrong point it probably means the article was poorly written.
I wonder if it was a deliberate decision to avoid a common debate or if she just didn't consider it.
Does the New Yorker really pay good, honest money for such laughably sheltered premises? It's no accident Taylor Swift's take-home last year was $170 million. Sometimes people wear headphones simply to tune out the grocery store's bland Adele-centric easy listening. Loving music is pretty much a human being thing.
Yes.
/me checks that the Grado SR80e is positioned properly and plays The Soft Moon ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwGEG10WIY )
Headphones are perfect for entertainment while commuting.
And once Apple removes the headphone jack, the revenue will spike again.