Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Sound(ing) Off

In my new position at work, I get the pleasure of *not* having to answer the phone all day. It's an amazing freedom after having been the de facto "receptionist" for the past 2 years.

Since the office space I'm now in has 3 of the louder voices from our company in it, and since I'm spending my days trying to focus on editing, that means that I can now take advantage of listening to music all day using headphones (or, rather, earphones... or earbuds... or whatever they're called).

And, since I've been using them - and having to take at least one of them out of my ear so that I can have conversations with people - I've started noticing how many people wear them out in the "real world."

Maybe it's just me, but I kind of like hearing the world around me when I'm walking down the street. And - even more important - I like hearing things like sirens, and other warnings. All of which (the mundane and the critical) become muted when you've got your own music in your head.

Which brings me to one thing that I've noticed a lot, lately: drivers with earbuds.

That scares the bejeezus out of me. I know that it's sometimes hard for me to hear sirens when I'm driving with the radio on - but at least then the music is coming from my car and not being blasted directly into my ears. How can we expect that people with earbuds in can hear anything at all? I can barely hear people talking directly at me from 6 feet away.

It almost makes talking on the phone seem incredibly safe and boring - after all, in most cases, that only takes one ear at a time.

And texting? Heck. That doesn't take any ears at all - just at least one hand and both eyes...

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