AirPods have colonized the ears of many in public transit. They have become indispensable, not for the sound they convey, but for the sound they drown out.
A few years ago, I found myself on a train in Switzerland. A country with many quirks, they do get their trains right. The train was timely, clean, and quiet — velvety quiet, like the inside of an empty movie theater. Carpeting on the walls installed to deaden the noise. On the train, a man’s phone rang — he answered and began a conversation in bright tones.
An elderly Swiss man pulled himself up out of his seat, hobbled over, and gently tapped the shoulder of the man on the phone. After speaking to him in Swiss-German — there was evidence of a language gap — the elderly man then pointed at a sign with a red “X” over a cellphone and put his finger to his lips in the universal “shushing” motion. The man on the phone understood, made a gesture of apology, and ended his call. The elderly man, contented by this manifestation of justice, hobbled back to his seat.
All of this happened quickly and gently. Passengers resumed reading their books and looking out the windows at the sublime Swiss countryside. (For the record, the train is equipped with soundproof phone booths at the end of each car for those who need to take a call in transit.)
Now, let’s contrast this with, say, a ride on the Amtrak NE Regional. I normally march all the way to the end of the train in order to snag a seat on the quiet car. I choose this spot not to avoid mellow conversations between passengers or the tender squeals of an infant, but to avoid the cacophonous blasting of different tunes and voices and sound effects, leaping out of tinny speakers and into the shared soundscape.
Why do we tolerate all this noise? Well, apparently it’s racist not to (the New Yorker wanted to make sure you knew that).
Now that we all have sound machines in our pockets — with the capacity to play an infinite variety of songs, videos, reels, etc. — should not lovers of equality advocate shared quietude over shared sound? The former can be shared by all, while the latter necessarily devolves into a competition of volume.
Of course, trains are noisy beasts to begin with — but there is a stark difference between white noise (i.e., the rhythmic chugging of the train on the track, the whir of the air conditioner, the din of conversation) and sharp bursts of digitized, human sounds. The new norm of playing music or TikTok — or even a whole movie — on speaker has fractured the common soundscape of public spaces.
AirPods, in noise-canceling mode, have colonized the ears of many in public transit. Given this function, AirPods (or, rather, expensive ear plugs) have become broadly indispensable — not for the sound they can convey, but for the sound they can drown out.
(“Hey! Not everyone can afford AirPods!”) That’s certainly true — which is why those who have none are most vulnerable to the bombardment of sound in public spaces. However, for those who are blasting sounds from their iPhones, would it be so hard to use earbuds? Standard earbuds can be purchased dirt cheap.
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority has tried to campaign against such antisocial behavior, but to no great success. The pre-Covid initiative largely sputtered out after the MTA started facing much larger challenges from the pandemic. But now, as the nation is still creaking “back to normal,” little speakers everywhere have become the new standard.
While such fusillades of sound are most egregious on public transit — where everyone is trapped together in a small, reverberant tin can — they occur in all shared spaces these days.
On a quick trip to the grocery store before picking up the kids from school? Not so fast! You’re first going to be subjected to influencer TikToks from every aisle in the store.
Enjoying a peaceful, sunny afternoon in the park, book in hand? Not after the guy on the bench next to you starts blasting highlight reels from his phone.
Waiting to board your flight in a congested seating area at the airport? Well, your patience is about to be tried further by some kid’s LeapFrog tablet, volume on full-blast, as dad looks on apathetically.
Self-enforced noise regulation, when in public, has long been a mark of an ordered society. Some cases are more obvious than others: silent somberness at a funeral, quiet attention at the theater, pleasant tones of conversation at coffee shops, etc. Public noise is particularly entrapping, for one can avert their eyes from, say, a tawdry advertisement. But one cannot avert their hearing from the sound around them.
This kind of self-regulation is social conscientiousness, pure and simple — an awareness of how your behavior will affect others around you, and then acting toward the common good rather than self-interest. This, of course, is a value that needs to be taught. I doubt I need to tell National Review readers that children are not naturally quiet. The wailing of a baby is something to be loved; the wailing of an adult’s iPhone speaker is something to be reprimanded.
As we live in a blessed, democratic republic, this is a problem that will only be solved if we solve it ourselves. I hope, like the elderly Swiss man on the train, conscientious Americans can be both quick and gentle to request that others use headphones or, at the very least, turn their volume down in shared spaces.
And hey, if that doesn’t work, time for the authorities to hand out a heck of a lot more citations.