I walk a lot more than I used to, and I see that almost everyone has their headphones on. This concerns me. It makes them completely unaware of their surroundings so that they are likely to get intro trouble. It also prevents real communication and communion with the world around them. Our devices are so ubiquitous that we no longer talk to and know about people around us while we festoon our walls with pictures and posts from "friends" we have never met. Step by step our lives become more URL than IRL as we lose the ability to be present.
Many things happen around us that we miss out on when our ears are full of electronic devices. While I exercise and talk to God or look across the valley and marvel at the snow capped peak of Mt. Charleston, I hear people on the road listening to noise that's turned up so loudly that I get to hear the profanity-laced lyrics. They don't notice things by the way that I do. Sometimes humans bring their music with them into the wilderness, and on several occasions, my buddy and I noticed that nature grows silent when they come while it continues uninterrupted in our presence. It's dissonant to nature, but we do it anyway, almost as if we don't want to be part of our surroundings. When our minds are not on where we are, on what we are doing, we miss the chance to see sunsets, to count falling stars, to look at the wildflowers, and to see rodents stuff their cheeks with nuts. There is an amazing world out there, but we like to be distracted from it.
When I start each term, I ask students to avoid using their phones and devices during class. First off, they are distractions. Secondly, they are disruptions. I have been to events where people communicate more with people who are elsewhere than with the people in the room. I consider this offensive, and so I try to not check my phone in meetings, on dates, at church, etc., because it's rude to prioritize people who are elsewhere when someone else has claim on my time and attention. My phone has gone off in class exactly twice, once in grad school and once since then. I remember Dr. Hunter say snarkily, "Are we keeping you from something?" and I brought an ice cream cake as penance to the lab class where it went off while I taught.
Perhaps the most worrisome for me is the number of people whose headphones keep them from situational awareness. Although I haven't seen anything happen, I could see someone being hurt, raped, or killed, because they were not aware. I came up behind a young fellow one morning who didn't know I was there because his music was so loud until he saw my shadow. Fortunately for him, I didn't want anything from him besides the right to pass, but I watch lots of young women in particular out in the dusk hours with earphones jammed in their ears, oblivious to the world around them. You could hurt yourself or allow someone else to hurt you. It concerns me deeply.
I know that people like to surround themselves with comforts and create a world they enjoy. Maybe we don't like what's out there, but it will not matter if we don't like it when it decides to set its sight on us. Headphones do not make you, as one song insists, invincible as much as they make you isolated. Headphones allow only one message through to your brain, the one you have in your pocket. So long as that's a good message, a harmonious message, an uplifting message, etc., it can be good, but it is not necessarily good to cut off all other competing voices. God's voice is quiet and calm, and it becomes difficult to hear among the constant and consistent competition of the devil's dissonance. In a more immediate way, it cuts you off to context clues about your surroundings that you may need to make good choices, putting you in danger physically, spiritually, ecumenically, and even grammatically. By the way, we encounter people all the time, people who need our help, people who need a smile, and people who offer us something of benefit. last night, I was so absorbed in my own thoughts, despite not having headphones, that I didn't register what some young lady said to me in the parking lot until it was too late to help. I know sometimes you don't want to be bothered. What if the roles were reversed?
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