When is it time to take the earbuds out? For some people, it's almost never. Dan Weisel, a family medicine doctor in St. Louis, tells the Wall Street Journal that he has noticed a growing number of patients keeping their earbuds in even after he walks into the examination room. "My initial reaction is, that's rude because it seems like you're not giving me your full attention," he says, though he acknowledges that the patients could be using them as hearing aids or to control sensory overload—and that times are changing. "Technology influences culture and it influences manners. So I have to tell myself, having earbuds in isn't something I understand intuitively but maybe it's intuitive for Gen Z," the 35-year-old says.
It has also become common to see people in customer-facing jobs wearing earbuds, despite employers' efforts to crack down. Weisel and other people concerned about the trend say part of the problem is never knowing whether the devices are on, or whether the person is giving you their full attention or listening to music or a podcast.
- Psychologist Gloria Mark says people can't multi-task as well as they think they can. "People really can only cognitively focus on one thing at a time," Mark, the author of Attention Span, tells the Journal. "So when a person has earbuds in, they're either listening to their music or they're listening to you. They might think they're doing both but what they're doing is switching their attention back and forth."
- San Francisco resident Emily Hoeven says earbuds are ubiquitous in the city—but she has "complex emotions" about her AirPods. She treasures moments when, "aided by the music streaming through my AirPods, I enter a kind of pure flow state," she writes at the San Francisco Chronicle. "Yet I also resent my AirPods for the artificial barrier they establish between me and everyone else." "When you wear headphones, you are literally plugging or covering your ears," she writes. "And that sends a pretty clear Do Not Disturb signal."
- Weisel says his wife, an emergency room doctor, has experienced the same issue, with one recent patient having a conversation on his AirPods while he was being examined. "Have we gone to the point where you can't give anyone your full attention, even in an emergency medical situation?" he asks.
- Hoeven notes that concerns about headphones are nothing new, pointing to a 1982 Washington Post Magazine column by Walter Shapiro. He called the Walkman a "potent symbol of an antisocial electronic future."
(More
earbuds stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
