Traveling the other day, I was struck, once again, by the overwhelming percentage of passers-by who wear earphones or buds. At a busy airport concourse, I guessed that probably six out of every 10 people were listening — to what? Rock music? A book on tape? An NPR podcast? The Vienna Symphony? No way to know.
The cumulative effect of this phenomenon is that it creates a privacy zone around anyone who happens to have earbuds lodged in their ears. It’s a much more formidable “don’t bother me” barrier than, say, a scowl, because you can defuse a mean glance with a pleasant smile or a nod of passivity. But someone who is lost in sound is usually oblivious to the sea of humanity surging by. It really becomes challenging to even gain their attention, much less eye contact. The result is like the proverbial ship passing in the fog. People with earphones move near by, close and yet distant: there, but practically speaking, not.
Well and good. However, the widespread use of ear devices does suggest yet another diminishment of what we used to call “society,” as the term was employed to describe the interactions and communications among neighbors, colleagues, and even total strangers. Think about it: how many times in the past week have you actually said “hello” to someone on the street, standing in line at the grocery checkout, or waiting to pass through airport security. We’ve apparently concluded that extending such an old-fashioned pleasantry might be construed as something more sinister, like a pick-up line at a bar, or that there might be some sort of hidden agenda lurking behind the greeting. Better not to become involved. Earphones help create and maintain the proper distance.
I prefer a more benign explanation: folks wrap their heads in earphones because they need background theme music to get them through their mundane days. Thanks to movies, especially, we’ve become accustomed to “theme” music to drive our emotions and signal our thoughts. Hollywood producers are especially adept, these days, at choosing just the right cuts from just the most appropriate pop artists to help set off or accentuate the expressions of the actors on the screen. The effect, I think, is to prompt the rest of us non-actors to conclude that if it works in the movies, it can work for us. The results are magical: we’re sitting in a plane awaiting take-off and a song pops up on our iPod (one we forgotten we had downloaded). Suddenly, we are transported to some plateau that is clearly different and much less boring than we would normally experience as the jet trundles down the runway. Music pulsating into our ears helps define who we are and, more fundamentally, who we had once set out to be.
It’s a wondrous transformation, like moving from gray winter to green spring. The only problem is that, with earphones, it’s like being in the movies by yourself.
