![]() But is learning about the Merovingians actually better than hearing the voices of the people in my workplace, on my campus or in my home? Would I be better off hearing the proverbial bird chirping on my stroll down the idyllic campus sidewalk? So, yes, it’s great that during my idle time I am listening to podcasts that deliver an Ivy League course on the Early Middle Ages. Many of us habitually seek noise when quiet would be just as good. Even when we sleep, we cue the white noise. We are curating omnipresent soundtracks to our days, with little or no relief. The routine is so ingrained that yesterday, when a co-worker ended our conversation by leaving my office, I reflexively reached for my earbuds. When I get to my office, instrumental music plays through my office speakers. When I walk to my office, I wear earbuds with a comedian barking at me. When I drive to campus, I listen to podcasts through the car speakers. My student from the lecture hall might not have lost much from popping in her earbud that day (especially because it was me lecturing), but something was lost.Īlong with that divided attention, truly quiet time is evaporating. However, each stimulus that we invite into our perception not only stimulates but also blocks part of the real world. ![]() We listen to Beyonce while reading Karl Marx. We side-watch “Sex in the City” while doing homework. We watch sports on TV with our phone in our hand for social media. We might be tempted to simply invite more sights and sounds into our world. To hear a Taylor Swift song in one ear and the words of your co-worker in the other is to have your attention divided. This excuse ignores how earbuds encourage our sensory distance from others. “It’s not like I am wearing a huge set of noise-canceling headphones,” they seem to say. The size of earbuds leads many people to believe they aren’t distracted - and that the accessory is not distracting. Most startling, I have seen people listening to something else entirely while interacting with a client, whether at a restaurant or here at the university. Just this week, I have seen people with earbuds listening to who-knows-what while others are speaking to them, during mindless tasks at work and during meals with others. I was so surprised that I told the next 50 people what I saw. A few years ago, I heard a man conducting a work meeting while using a urinal at the airport. Such public and widespread use of earbuds has crept into locations we would never have expected. Solitary auditory clouds form around each student. In almost choreographed unison, students exit classes, meetings and buildings while reaching into their pockets to find their Bluetooth earbuds. It also says something about college campuses, where people wear earbuds as much as anywhere I have lived or visited. The fact that I didn’t confront her about the earbuds says something about me as a teacher. My curiosity about what she thought morphed into curiosity about what she was listening to.Īnd why was she listening to it in my class? ![]() I only noticed the earbuds when I pivoted to her to ask her opinion on an example that was projected on the screen. After all, they don’t have anything to do with our heads when we bloop them into our outer ears. Poking out from under her hair were tiny white speakers - so small that we can’t call them “headphones” any more. On this particular day, that up-close view revealed something about one of my students that I would have otherwise missed. The benefit of my nervous tic is this: my wanderings bring me closer to my students than if I anchored myself at the front of the classroom behind a lectern. While presenting, my habit is to wander up and down the walkways and stairways of the lecture hall like a fitness enthusiast trying to get his steps in for the day. ![]() A few semesters ago, I was lecturing to a class of about 100 students here at the University of Kansas. ![]()
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