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The Psychology Behind Headphones
pvt_medic writes "The BBC has an interesting article today about portable music players and personal space. The article is on the research that Dr Michael Bull has done on portable music players. He analyzes them as a "tool whereby users manage space, time and the boundaries around the self." This article goes on to analyze the social and psychological aspects related to listening to music in public with headphones. A good quick read for those who do this."
Some women use earphones to deflect unwanted attention, finding it easier to avoid responding because they look already occupied.
People in general do this. I work at a technical college and see numerous students with headphones on (I don't believe I have seen earbuds recently). I see absolutely no reason for people to be listening to music while in any sort of educational institution. I would guess that would be the equivalent of someone's body languge -- showing crossed arms during a conversation.
I think that people are shy enough as it is. We do very little REAL social interaction as it is. Do we really want to become even more anti-social creatures by promoting music as some sort of "shield" from the outside world? Remember, the average person spends about 50% of their daily free time at home watching TV.
Music is something I like to enjoy with others at concerts and at home. Music is something that should be passed on to others. Nothing like finding a new genre of music you have never heard before because a friend had it playing in the car or in his house.
Just my worthless ramblings,
Dr. Michael Bull was written up in Wired magazine, too, and Slashdot carried that story last month. Here it is.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Wired ran an article on this guy a couple of weeks ago. So, if you wondering why this sounds familiar, now you know.
Some of us have to use headphones, as our music of choice violates obsenity laws and may damage small buildings...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
...because the programmer over the cube wall was constantly humming songs to herself. There's nothing more maddening than listening to someone hum while you're trying to code. Headphones were mandatory.
I dropped the headphones when I got an office. What a blessing.
I carry an MD player with me anywhere; I use it not just for music that suits my mood or for entertainment (life is more fun with its own soundtrack, don't you think?) but also to basically provide an excuse to ignore people (panhandlers, sidewalk vendors, ex-girlfriends...just kidding about the sidewalk vendors) that I don't want to interact with. But I never realized before that when I see someone else with headphones on, I've got this subconscious awareness of a kind of bubble around them which filters out certain kinds of interaction. I'd never think of asking a question or making small talk.
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He analyzes them as a "tool whereby users manage space, time and the boundaries around the self."
Or could it be that they just want to listen to music?
Nah....
I wish I had more opportunity to do this at work. Being able to separate yourself and focus on your work without being distracted it a heaven-sent.
Alas, I'm on a helpdesk. That doesn't work out too well.
thelikesofwhich.com
I don't see any empirical results. Have any experiments that he's done been reproduced? What are his methodologies.
Sounds like junk-science to me. The guy has a hypothesis. That's about it.
Here's my hypothesis: "Music sounds good. Noise sounds bad." Can someone write up an article on my thoughts? TIA.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
So maybe manufacturers should start advertising in units of personal space instead of the rounded down GB.
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Most studies sole purpose is to validate the career of the person doing the study. Any useful results are incidental.
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Because it keeps me amused in study hall. ;)
Seriously, though...this shows how much we've advanced. 100 years ago, you had to go out of your way to learn an insturment (such as a fiddle) to have music at all. Now, people have an mp3 player filled with any music they want on a whim. People can be listening to their own sort of "theme song" when they're in a certain mood. If you're bored and can't just go away (like my study hall plight), you can just flip on a song that reminds you of something that's happened or you want to happen, and slip away. It's a nice thing to be able to do.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
Wasn't the original walkman to shield the wearer from unwanted sound?
I know I need to use my headphones at work to shield myself from the disturbing noises from the nearby cubicles. Pointy hair people blabbing about pointless things, people clipping finger nails, eating, etc.
and so are personal stereos, where I work. Something about 'not being conductive to the work environment'. The problem is that there is so much racket from people around me talking on the phone, chatting, etc. that you NEED headphones (or something to block out the noise) sometimes to concentrate on the task at hand.
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
The whole reason humanity left africa and then spread out across the entire planet, is because most people would prefer to be left alone. We all want, for the most part, our own 100 acre plots of land.
This is my sig.
I thought that was what my Tardis was for.
In some (or many?) places it is illegal to ride a bicycle with earphones on. Is there a safe and legal alternative besides fixating an open air personal stereo to your handlebars? I'd love to listen to music while I cycle.
I got tinitus (constant ringing for my ears) from too much heavy metal with headphones. So, be warned, it's not really worth it when you are home (I'm talking about people who use headphones in front of the computer).
on the street is when I have my headphones on. They don't care. I can be in a crowd of people and they still come to me - they guy with the headphones on to ask directions, for a cigarette, for money.
Don't these people know headphones mean Leave me alone!?
would be an analysis of how ivory-tower eggheads over-analyze ever goddamned little thing in a futile attempt to make themselves seem relevant and get one paper closer to that all-important tenure.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
is, do these same findings apply to those of us who walk around with a very large, heavy boombox on one shoulder? I would think that it should apply more since we're not only reclaiming our own space, but also the space of all of those around us...
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
Maybe we need a wearable version of those hotel 'do not disturb' signs. It would fit around your neck and display your request that you be left alone on your chest for all to see. It would also be reversible so you can let everyone know when you want your bed linens changed.
I read about this research last week and found it interesting -- so I emailed the good doctor and offered to participate. It took about 45 minutes to complete the survey that he sent, and the questions posed were, IMHO, very insightful. It made me realize just how much this simple device, the iPod, has changed how I listen to music and how I interact with the general public.
I didn't know iPods could manage Space-Time. I guess that deserves the higher price.
(I DON'T know why, but these people find me on any public transport! Do I have a friggin' stamp on my forehead stating "freaks welcome"???)
Using my walkman (or even wearing headphones with the walkman turned off) helps me cast an "anti-freak" personal wall...
...hmm... sounds like a new Angband spell! ;-)
I bet you the next article by the same author will be: "Water: It's wet" , sheesh!
I do find headphones tend to keep most of the riff-raff at bay. Similarly, I learned in college that in order to walk through the main 'square' of campus, it was advisable to be carrying things in both hands in order to avoid being flier-ed to death by eager student groups. Headphones, a cup of coffee, and a bag, along with that glazed-over 'I'm not here right now' look tend to work and keep the tree-killers at a loss, waving their fistfulls of fliers helplessly.
Amor omnia vincit. Occasionally.
I had this argument only this morning with a colleague. He shouts across the office to another colleague and has ongoing conversations with the other chap at the top of his voice.
When I asked him if he could have that conversation over IM he told me to stick my fingers in my ears or to listen to music.
The problem is that I refuse to listen to music *because* that inconsiderate prick has the manners of a five year old.
I listen to music when I know I'll be able to appreciate it fully, not as a means of protection. In the best of cases, I'm unable to concentrate on work when I have music playing : I love my tunes so much that I generally need to be able to dive into them fully. Impossible to concentrate on work when I have some lush tunes in my ears.
I guess it's really just my problem seeing how all the other people here at work are OK with wearing earphones all day in order to keep the twit's shrill nasal voice our of their heads.
Bummer.
While humanity has been spreading out to new places ever since Africa, everywhere they go, a significant number of them tend to then congregate in towns/villages/cities/mega-cities. Now, rather then flee into the wilderness again in reaction to the stressors of this (which is really difficult nowadays), people control their personal space with headphones.
One of my coworkers once said:
It's going to be a headphone day.
What he meant by that is that he needed to block out all the annoying noise coming out of other people's mouths and so on as they came back and asked questions. I do that sometimes too.
A lot of the employees where I work are Mexican and most of them have cd players/radios and listen to spanish music all day. Most of the American workers have cd players/radios to listen to music in english. What ends up happening everyday is someone turns the volume up on their radio a little bit and a chain reaction starts. By the end of the day everyone has to yell to talk to the person next to them.
"the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached to it." - Grandpa Simpson
I was just thinking about this type of habit this morning.
What genres of music do you listen to that correspond to your activities?
This is how I have my playlists setup:
gaming: Dance-hip hop-techno
coding: classical
browsing: top40 (70's, 80's & 90's)
General computer activities: all of the above
How do your activities influence what you want to listen to?
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
I recently purchased a set of quality headphones to shield my music from my neighbors - who live a thin wall of drywall away. Whenever anyone watches a movie at night or listens to their favorite songs I can hear it very well - the bass especially so.
I've complained a number of times and now the level has been brought in to check but every now and then I hear them.
I want to listen to my music, too. Sometimes loudly. But how do I listen to my music my way without being hypocritical and by being respectful to my neighbor?
My Solution: Headphones. It was an apiphany to me. While I was in the US Navy onboard a submarine, whether at sea or in the barracks, we all had headphones and peaceful bliss listening to our music without someone threatening to float test your stereo equipment or CD player.
For those of you who live in a condo, like I do, for the sake of your neighbors and yourself, buy a set of headphones. It's a whole lot easier than explaining to the Condo Association why noise complaints are being issues against you - and in my association, the bylaws are written such that noise complaints can get your sorry butt tossed out into the street. Permenently!
I sometimes use headphones as a concentration aid when working at a computer. I found listening to music distracing so I tried listen to white noise for a while. I used a radio tuned to an empty VHF frequency, ocasionally I'd hear voices drifting in from hundreds of miles away and end up playing ham radio instead of working.
I'v now assembled a playlist of no-vocals no-beats ambient music. Classical is ok but all the well known tracks remind of of adverts.
Oftentimes I wear headphones that don't even have a player connected to them so I can actually walk more than 20 metres without some bum or charity person or club promoter hassling me.
I lived pretty much in the sticks before I came to uni. Boring it may have been but at least people leave you the hell alone. And to all the afformentioned: Look, I don't give a crap about what you think I should pay attention to at the moment. I am currently trying to get from A to B and you're in my way. You don't have some sort of fucking entitlement to my time, and at times I'm tempted to wear a "I don't give a fuck so piss off" t-shirt to get the point across.
But of course that wouldn't be very polite, would it.
personally i think people that wear headphones are inconsiderate to their fellow humans. back in high school there were kids that would wear headphones when talking to the teacher in class, which is the ultimate f-u statement if there ever was one. by wearing headphones you are telling me that you don't care to interact with me, and that's fine by me. but if you try to initiate a conversation with me i am just not going to talk to you. you are also tuning out the reality around you and indirectly making a statement that it is of lesser importantance. if you value your inner space so much perhaps you should consider moving to a sub-urban setting?
On the rare occasion I needed to go to Tijuana, I found that sunglasses were indispensable. Not so much for protecting my glazzies (important because UV is very destructive) but for controlling social interaction. I would never walk around that city with headphones on, but sunglasses are a neccessity.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
Benifits of isolated music? I am a paramedic on the overnight shift and code during the day when my shift is over, Sometimes to resist the urge of falling asleep, the earbuds and the tunes help me focus and stay awake. But the real trick for me is a playlist of songs by chick vocalist. The tone of the female vocals seem a little more pleasant than male vocals.
I now wear headphone when I walk home from work. And I'm usually not listening to music. I've discovered it's the only way to get past the numerous panhandlers I pass on the way home.
It doesn't stop them from asking for money or cigarettes. But when I'm wearing headphones, they don't scream at me for ignoring them. I've tried saying "sorry," or "not today," or something else, but they still scream at me if I don't give them money. Just ignoring them pisses them off even more. The headphones work like a charm.
A publicly traded company exists solely to make profits for shareholders.
I absolutely refuse to walk to my office without headphones. Every morning I walk north from Penn Station NY down 8th ave. I only have a few blocks to go, but it's like a gauntlet of questionable social interactions. People furiously wave papers for barbershops and other crap in your way, "Change? Change?", and the nasty people who spend all day hanging around hitting on anything in heels.
Add sunglass and headphones and the world is my music video. Not to mention I'm preserving my desire to have children some day by wearing headphones on the train.
Then I spend all day listening to internet radio so I can focus on my work and not hear the loud office gossip over from the next area. We have an open office design where teams share a large square space, all facing outward to a shared desk. Good for teamwork, bad for concentration.
I would get nothing done without headphones...and that only on the days I could bear to come to work.
yet we still want to be intimately connected to others somehow. the proliferation of things like friendster, livejournal, instant messaging have proven that.
Even in the old days, people did not see each other all the time - once a week for church, or seeing people at the store.
People do want connection - but connection that is controlled. Even IM you can shut down or choose to ignore. I would say intimately is an incrorect term - asynchronously is perhaps a more accurate way to define the kind of connection people want. connections that are instant to them, with inbound connections that can be controlled.
Using music players in a setting with other people around is just a way of exerting some control over physical interactivity with others.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Aye.
Nothing is better than a good playlist to get lots of desk work done. Be that coding, writing, data entry, or grinding out AA points in EverQuest.
Music just gets me "in the zone" so I can focus on the task at hand while at the same time giving coworkers and spouses a visual cue to not interrupt you.
More than half of the documentation I've done for my company is a result of a few good playlists.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
I know some people, particularly some girls, that will wear headphones and just let them dangle in their pocket. Not attached to anything. As noticed, you treat people differently when it looks like they're engaged in something else, except studying. So to keep people from bothering them (much) while trying to study they'll fake the headphones.
J
Damn those pesky terrorists
Through interviews with Walkman owners and now iPod buyers, he found that listening to music acts as a shield, aura or cocoon.
These must have been difficult interviews to get:
"Sir... uh... sir? Would you like to participate... sir? Can you hear me? Sir?!"
A very interesting study that dovetails with some thoughts I've had on the subject.
I've seen similar "control of personal space" with cell phones (and not suprisingly here in Los Angeles) automobiles.
All three offer a way to insulate yourself from your immediate surroundings, albeit in slightly different ways.
A simple example of this is driving a car thru a neighborhood, rather than driving in a neighborhood. The car is an environment unto itself that allows one to pass through another physical space with a minimum of interaction.
As an experiment, I've stopped driving my car in favor of public transportation. Granted, I listen to an iPod, as do many of my fellow riders, but even in this case, I am much less insulated. This is also the case when I walk to and from bus stops and rail stations.
I am actually preferring this mode of transport, and have a renewed love of my city. This probably has much to do with the fact that I am experiencing it differently, interacting with my fellow Angelenos more (despite my iPod), and actually being in my environment, rather than being in my car. Previously, much of my Los Angeles experience was that of being stuck on the freeway, "interacting" with other cars (and sometimes their drivers), most of which were either going too slow or too fast. There are no roses on the freeway.
I haven't owned a cell phone in several years, but I notice a similar phenomena. While one is talking on the phone, a large part of one's attention is placed on the person on the other end of the conversation. There is an overlap between one's presence in the real world and a sort of virtual telephone world. This is most noticeable with people using ear sets, and positively dangerous with people driving cars (especially SUVs, but that's another topic!).
I once watched what I thought was a crazy person walking down the street, ranting and raving about hockey of all things. It was a bit puzzling, since he seemed to be dressed to nicely to be a crazy street person. When he came close enough, I saw that he was talking on a hands-free phone, and was totally oblivious of his surroundings. Other than the fact that he was on the phone, his behavior was completely that of a mentally deranged person hearing voices.
Something of further interest that I haven't spent much time reflecting on is the passive aggressive nature of behavior I've observed in those that use these insulating technologies; especially obnoxious/oblivious drivers, loud cell phone talkers, and the now thankfully less common boom box wielders.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
"Hi"
"..."
"Great weather today!"
"..."
"..."
"..."
Everyone's already so afraid to talk to strangers regardless of headphones, I just gave up. May as well have music instead of silence.
People who commute by car shield themselves from others in a steel cocoon. When they nearly bump into someone, or get stuck behind a slower driver, it results in an outpouring of anger.
So you could say that commuting on foot and by mass transit can be more pleasant than taking a private car, and with the headphones you get a good approximation of the privacy of the car, but without the road rage.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
My working day is spent in a cubicle farm. All day long I hear multiple phone conversations going on all day around me.
I am a developer - which means I need to concentrate, very deeply at times. The background noise level is high enough that I can actually hear various conversations for cubes that are close to mine. This can be distracting particularly when you are trying to formulate an idea or write code, as you will find yourself start to listen to the conversations, instead of following your internal dialogue.
To combat this, I sometimes don headphones and get some music going to drown out the conversations (preferably music without any words).
Ideally, developers should have doors that close to block out these distractions - they would be much more productive. Unfortunately, management doesn't think that way...so productivity suffers.
I just want some silence so my mind can think. Until they make the 'cone of silence' generally available in cubicle farms, earphones and music will have to do.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
First, buy a little voice recorder and record what he says.
Then, buy the most expensive noise-blocking earphones yuo can find and bill him! If he refuses, threaten him with small claims court.