I was in college when the first iPod came out. As an early adopter that was super into my music that first year or so, wearing white headphones around campus actually came with more social interaction. It felt like everyone was staring at me and usually people constantly interrupted my jam sessions to ask me about them. The novelty quickly wore off for me, I realized I preferred a more private speakered environment for my jams. I also did and still suffer from massive pain caused from most in ear headphones, even the recent AirPods with adjustable silicone tips I use sparingly and never more than a hour or so.
What was weird was about 2 years later it completely flipped. I had written off my iPod in public while the entire world adopted them. I went from being the only one on a bus with white corded buds, usually recipient of people’s gazes, I was being antisocial and everyone’s eyes were telling about it. To suddenly, I was the only one engaged. Everyone else was being antisocial. This was well before the iPhone but people still just stared at their play list and stopped interacting. A quiet bus full of college students was a strange thing to witness but it took over as the social norm.
That's my memory as well. Early '00s, I was also in college and seemingly one year campus went from a broadly friendly, social place to one with a lot of people, headphones in, focused on their own little world.
There were Walkmans and disc Walkmans before that, of course, but MP3 players were a step change in social isolation, from my perspective. Bluetooth earbuds + a wave of streaming audio content have been another.
> I also did and still suffer from massive pain caused from most in ear headphones, even the recent AirPods with adjustable silicone tips I use sparingly and never more than a hour or so.
Have you tried replacing them with foam tips?
Yes, I feel like I’ve tried everything and usually just use over the ear when I need them. More than anything, I just optimize for not needing them. I have a dedicated office so I can use speakers. I use the AirPods on flights under 3 hours which is my majority. I just have sore ears after and live with it. But I don’t wear headphones anywhere around town like what the article is talking about it. I see it and decided not to participate way back because of the antisocial part that was obvious so long ago.
I don’t have airpods but I still use earpods for video conferencing. Honestly they fit and sound better (louder) when I have right and left switched.