Time spent wearing headphones

The students we work with in Salt Lake are a really friendly and outgoing bunch of kids.  Whenever I head out to our schools, it’s easy to strike up conversations with them and easy to get them to play games.  There are a few kids I know by name and more that I know by sight. We usually smile and wave at each other whenever I’m out at recess, but outside of school, things are different.  I see a lot of kids I know from school in grocery stores and parks, but I hardly ever get to talk with them because they’re wearing headphones.

The schools we work in here all have policies that ban headphones on school grounds, which I think is great, but it seems to me that as soon as kids step over the line that divides the blacktop playground from the sidewalk, their ears are suddenly filled with plastic.  I can relate.

I forgot my headphones this morning and so my mp3 player is pretty much useless.  I am still keeping it in my pocket like a child's security blanket, but the comfort it gives me is somewhat limited.  Typically, I wear headphones most of the day.  I go to the store in headphones.  I snowboard in headphones.  When I ride my bike to work, I wear them.  If I go on a walk I wear them.  I wear them at my desk whenever I don't need to talk to others.  I even wear them sometimes when I watch TV.  

There are a number of reasons I love my headphones.  I love music.  That's number one.  I'll listen to just about anything, but a good two part harmony between a lead female vocalist and a male backup is, perhaps the best sound I can think of, followed closely by a really good electric guitar solo.  I listen to music a lot and it gives me great joy, which seems perfectly healthy to me.  Music has a lot of benefits.  It relieves stress, it lowers blood pressure, and it makes people feel good.  Studies show that listening to music in early childhood improves kids aptitude for math later in life.  Music is good.

But my headphones are not all about music.  They are also a way for me to avoid social interaction, and they couch me in a world that is both personal and generic.  I don't pay nearly as much attention to my surroundings when I wear my headphones, nor do I pay as much attention to my fellow human beings.  As a result, I think I may be less sympathetic, less friendly, and less aware than I ought to be.   

This morning, for example, as I was biking to work, I noticed myself looking around much more than I normally do because of the noise of engines approaching from behind.  At times, I slowed down to allow a car to merge or waited longer than normal to make a turn because I could hear a car coming from an unexpected direction.  It occurred to me that I may be less safe in traffic on days when I remember my headphones.

I also said hello to the receptionist in our building this morning.  She smiled and returned the greeting.  On other days, I would have missed that interaction.  This one day without headphones had me wondering what else I've been missing.

What does this have to do with play?  Well, it's not just me who's been wearing headphones.  More and more I notice kids (and adults too) wearing headphones in public places like grocery stores, sidewalks, and playgrounds.  I see them wearing headphones while talking to their parents, interacting with their siblings and hanging out with their friends.  Personal music has become ubiquitous.

It's as if all of us have begun to exist in our own personal worlds of sound.  We interact with other people, but at the same time we're shielded from social obligations and if we don't seem fully engaged, we have an excuse.  It's the music.

Play requires us to be engaged, and the games I love most require complex social interactions.  Headphones make this kind of interaction impossible.  So more headphones means fewer awesome group games.  More importantly, playing games is one of the best ways I know to start deep, meaningful friendships.  Without the possibility of play, I find that I am lonely and isolated.  I'm not great friends with everyone I've ever interacted with or everyone who’s ever played a game with me, but people who have cut themselves off from the possibility of talking with me, seem to be poor candidates for a friendship.  Plus, the friends I do have, including some of the students I know here in Salt Lake seem cut off from me.  We choose to be cut off from each other.  I find myself wondering if this is healthy, and, I wonder, what (and who) I’ve missed out on because I had plastic in my ears?