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Comment by anamexis | Hacker News Reader

> A lot of people wear airpods around even if they're not actively using them, right?

Do they?

Depends on what is meant by "not actively using them".

I use mine in noise-cancelling mode all the time, without music/podcasts/anything. But the noise-cancelling is definitely active.

Always when I'm in the subway, along busy streets full of honking and emergency vehicles, and so forth.

Makes urban life much more tolerable.

Yes. They’re easy to just leave in your ears and go about your day

Especially with the loud noise suppression.

For me it’s the opposite. They have a “transparency” feature that works lets through ambient noise.

I often wear one set to transparency when I’m alone and have a podcast going or something. Ideal for something like a grocery store but still leaves me with full awareness. They also detect if I start speaking and automatically pause whatever is playing.

Loud noise suppression works with transparency mode. You might be thinking of the similarly named noise cancellation mode which works opposite to transparency.

Loud noise suppression does a temporary switchover when a loud noise happens to try and protect your hearing.

Yes they do, and they look as ridiculous as you think

How would you as an observer tell if somebody is using their AirPods to listen to music or whether they're just in their ears for noise cancellation and thus "look ridiculous"?

that's the point: i can't tell and that is uneasing

I don't understand why yet. Why is it important to you to know whether someone is listening to music or not? Why do you need to be able to tell at all?

It indicates whether you would be interrupting if you tried to talk to them.

...or be heard

it's just fucking with social interaction; maybe that's the point

Interrupting what, music? I sometimes wear headphones without listening to music because I don't want my train of thought to be interrupted.

music, a telecon, who knows...

> I sometimes wear headphones without listening to music because I don't want my train of thought to be interrupted.

totally understandable as the "right to be left alone" or privacy is essential but undeniably curtailed when in public.

i hope you can appreciate the collective imperative here and acknowledge that it would be super fucked up if everyone would be wearing headphones in public.

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