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Comment by cybrox | Hacker News Reader

There's a huge shift in this field at the moment. I personally find it disrespectful to talk to people while wearing headphones/earbuds and I'd still consider myself young but a lot of younger people, especially u25 seem to find this completely normal.

I'm not sure I like this development. Ignoring the "disrespectful" part, it has become accepted to toy with your phone while listening to someone and let's be honest, we all know you're not REALLY listening or engaging with the conversation.

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I think your perception of what is being played inside the earbuds may be why you're confused about this. Around here it's extremely common for people to keep their earbuds in for short conversations, but everyone will pause and activate surrounding sounds while they talk. There are obviously assholes who don't, but in general it's completely normal to assume someone wearing earbuds is listening to you.

Contradictory to your experience with it being young people who wouldn't listen to you it tends to be the 45ish business man who continues to talk on their phone in my experience.

> in general it's completely normal to assume someone wearing earbuds is listening to you

Just because you emphatically state that something is normal, that does not make it normal

I think it's a little disingenuous for you to take what I said out of the context I said it in, but you're right as far as it's in my anecdotal experience. Which is why I said "around here", but I guess I could've made it even clearer.

I personally also take them out. But don’t see it as rude or disrespectful if others don’t.

Especially with AirPods gaining hearing aid functionality, it shouldn’t be a sign of lack of focus.

As an aside, I personally able to concentrate _more_ in certain scenarios when I am fiddling or have background noise playing. It quiets the part of my brain that otherwise gets distracted. I use that method for video conferences to increase the amount I am focused on the speaker and content.

What about earbuds aiding in hearing? Lots of scenarios where earbuds can help with hearing and not impede it. I use AirPod Pros on flights for cancelling out the loud background noise of the plane but it makes talking to others much easier.

It doesn't give any social cues on how you are using it. That is, people cannot tell whether you are using earbuds to block outside sound or to enhance outside sound. Therefore it doesn't work, until social norms change.

I remember the real hearing aids of yesteryear. They look sufficiently different from earbuds that they are always acceptable.

These days there's open earbuds that look a lot like hearing aids

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