> It might seem like the airpods are the issue, but they really aren't what gets in the way.
You're missing the point. Airpods are not a core issue, but people insulating themselves audibly (and maybe soon visually if the Apple Vision Pro catches on) certainly doesn't help spark up random encounters with strangers in public.
There's an employee at work and every time I've seen her she has a full headset on. Outside, inside, cafeteria, everywhere. There's something very off-putting about it, visually signalling that you are unwilling to communicate.
I'd argue you might be missing the point. There was always something, airpods are just the current 'thing'. When I moved from Australia to Canada in 08 it took a solid 24 months to meet the people that are today still my friends. It was much harder than I expected...and more than once I almost gave up.
I doubt it. If things today were just as tough as they were 20 years ago, then we wouldn't be having such a massive loneliness and mental health epidemic.
Sure, some of it is due to more awareness on mental health than in the past, but a lot of it is also due to things just being worse and more difficult.
> it is also due to things just being worse and more difficult.
Is it more difficult, or do we have greater expectations?
I look to my grandparents' generation and they "settled" for their neighbours as friends. I seriously doubt they were perfect soulmates, but they put in the effort to make it work and ended up quite close as a result. Whereas people in my generation seem to want that instant spark. If that isn't felt, they keep looking instead of working on building a relationship with who is there. Nowadays, becoming anything more than an acquaintance with your neighbour is almost unheard of.
I'd say the "missing the point" thing is that you're complaining about how hard socialization in society is now, but the solution for our own loneliness is in ourselves. We don't need to fix others or society to fix the problem we see every day.
As in - When you, the digital-first-lonely-guy, put away your phone and turn to the obviously-busy guy on his phone with earbuds in and doing super important socialdoomscroll work and you say "Hey, cool shoes!" suddenly it's not a problem anymore.
Well yeah, to an extent. But i think the elders here are also relying on their experience in the before world to calibrate their "is this socially acceptible" meters. Young people have never seen a world where strangers spoke on public transport. They have seen media where young people think it's weird that random old's try to talk to them. They went to high school where every break between class was at least as much phone checking as speaking to any other person. They've been raised to think this is normal, so to them it's simply an obvious conclusion that speaking to other people is weird.
Now, you're correct that if they just fucking did it, it'd _probably_ be fine. But what happens when they try to speak to their peers who scoff and ignore them? Or when every person they try to talk to simply can't hear them. Or when there simply isn't a place to go after school and chat, and all social interaction stands on phone organizing as a prerequisite.
Yes, if they broke the seal on interpersonal interaction they'd see that almost everyone is actually positive and happy to speak and make friends. But that seal is getting harder and harder to break every day
It reminds me of the reproductive crisis that started happening in Japan some decades ago. The blame, as I recall it, was on the rigid social norms meant that it was super uncomfortable for everyone whenever a guy tried to talk to a girl. Guys stopped trying and switched to being absorbed in jobs and increasingly niche obsessions, further from the normalcy and reality around them.
Seems like we're not taking any hints from their example and instead saying "gee, society is bigger than me, woe is me, I'll just continue digging the hole".
You alone as an individual can't change societal norms since they really are in fact, bigger than you.
It's exactly like evolution in nature. Life didn't start on land because one single fish decided to jump out of the water an breathe air then every other fish followed, no, it started because collectively millions of fishes died trying to do that at the same time over millions of years till adaptation of the species to the new environment happend.
Society is exactly like that as a collective. Going against societal norms as a lone wolf, doesn't get you seen as some sort of rebel hero who everyone looks up to, but as a weirdo/creep most of the time if you aren't handsome, rich or charismatic.
The point of the conversation is that if /you/ are feeling isolated (and, statistically speaking, YOU ARE) /you/ can affect /you/ by breaking out of your lil self-imposed isolation chamber and doing what normal humans do: communicate.
Will doing so change society? Who gives a hoot? /You'll feel better/.
Frankly these excuses are just that. Excuses. Stop catastrophizing. Start trying. And, while I'm ranting, stop encouraging others to catastrophize too.
None of the advice requires the other to person do anything, but you're doing a great job of demonstrating that they /do/!
...
Thinking about this thread... I've had another thought.
I wonder if those that're trained to primarily communicate online are trained to do so adversarially in order trigger people. Triggering people is the most effective way to keep talking to someone. Like how they say if your child or pet can't get enough attention out of you they'll do naughty things, because even getting yelled at is... attention.
You're missing the point. Airpods are not a core issue, but people insulating themselves audibly (and maybe soon visually if the Apple Vision Pro catches on) certainly doesn't help spark up random encounters with strangers in public.