The other day, at my son’s 9 month checkup, the doctor asked about screen time. “No, he doesn’t get any,” I answered truthfully. “Good,” she said. “We’re just learning more and more about the dangers of screen time on developing brains.” Then, as she performed her exam on him, she said, “Oh, I can tell he doesn’t get screen time. I know the ones who do, just from my exam. They don’t interact in the same way.”
Even though I am adamantly against screen time for my children (except for Friday family movie night), I was surprised to hear that she could see a difference at only 9 months old. It got me thinking about the hazards of technology.
We hear so much about the perils of screens, but less talked about is the prevalence of headphones.
As a college professor, I have seen enormous differences in my classes over the past decade. It used to be that students came in to the classroom and actually talked to each other and the teacher. Now, when you walk into the room before class starts, it is absolutely silent. Each student has ear buds in, and they are subsequently in their own worlds, cut off from the people sitting just two feet away from them. When class starts, the vast majority leave one ear bud in.
I can remember car rides as a kid. My mom listened to soft rock and my dad listened to talk radio. While I chafed then at not being able to choose my preferred station, I look back with nostalgia and gratitude that I was forced into a united listening space. Whether I liked the genre or not, we listened to it as a family, and that’s becoming more and more rare. Now, it’s not uncommon to have a family in one car with each person tuned into their own music.
Ear phones are also ubiquitous when recreating. But having something in your ears can cut you off from your surroundings; you can’t hear what’s going on around you. If you’re jogging, hiking, or boating, you miss out on the caw of the ravens, the rustle of the squirrels, or the snap of branches. We recreate to be in nature, and then we tune nature out.
Back on campus, students often—very politely -hold the doors for others they see coming. When this happens, I always say thank you, but then there’s silence in response. I realize that they can’t hear me. The same thing happens when passing students on the sidewalk or in the hallways. I say hello but get no acknowledgment. They have tunnel vision and are unaware of the outside world.
I feel that headphones/ear buds, though not inherently bad, have made people become increasingly isolated. We aren’t having the unified experiences that we need. I might even go so far as to suggest that it’s contributing to the ever-widening divisiveness of our society. We need communal, not individual, experiences.
I’m not saying that you should have your Zoom call on full volume in public where everyone can hear your business; please, don’t be that guy. But there’s a time and a place for headphones. Maybe we should be more aware of their drawbacks. Maybe we should go back to the time when kids were forced to listen to their parents’ radio station choices (or at least the 2024 equivalent of it).
