There is no one among us who is not exposed to this situation. You are in a place and confront one of the people you know, and you are faced with two options: either you hasten to greet him and exchange a quick conversation with him, or you do not want to, and here you will resort to preoccupying yourself with something and show yourself engrossed in it. If you are in a grocery store, your sudden interest will appear in reading the expiry date of a package, or reading its components, which you do not usually do, or you will raise your phone to Your ear and talk to yourself as if you were on an important call with someone else, but a third option has recently appeared that eliminates the need for acting, which is listening to a “podcast.” An earphone that you place on your head is enough to stop you from any social interaction.
This is actually what we see a lot these days in the streets and markets, and perhaps in Western countries many times over. Putting headphones on the head is a scene that has become a phenomenon in recent years, giving the impression that its owner is busy developing himself. This may be true, but at the same time, there is a separation from the surrounding world and the reality in which he lives. It is a phenomenon because the number of podcast listeners in the world has exceeded half a billion people this year alone, which is a number that exceeds the souls of America. The North, it is a digital nation, listening to material ranging from philosophy to the scandals of artists and celebrities, and all of this happens between eight in the morning and five in the evening, that is, during peak times, and these are the same times when we exchange quick and fleeting conversations with our colleagues and those we meet in the market, the street, and public transportation. Having a headset around someone’s ear has become like a piece of paper with a circular hole that we find hanging. On the inside of the hotel door handle is written (Please do not disturb), especially when we move it to the other side of the handle. It is like an announcement of our mental absence in a moment of physical presence. We are in a market full of passers-by and their noise, but we only hear the voice of the program presenter as he analyzes a philosophical statement, or talks about a football player cheating on his fiancée. And even if someone saw us and broke into this privacy, the excuse exists. And ready, which is: (Sorry, I was merging with an important podcast).
There are many advantages to this phenomenon, accompanied by a high cost, which is the risk of losing the knowledge we gain from communicating with our social environment. There are no shared laughs over a common situation, and no additional information from the community school. Thus, we are “unavailable” to communicate with others, and we must ask ourselves as we prepare to put this headset on our heads, what are we looking for in the coming minutes or hours, is it entertainment, knowledge, or a barrier? What is the separation between us and our social environment?
