I’m addicted to my headphones. They’re in all the time. Not just walking the dogs, or when I’m popping to the shop for milk and eggs. I mean all day, every day.
I know it’s a cliché that the youth of today are always plugged in, AirPods constantly in their ears, and I hate seeing people glued to their phones as much as you do. But let me explain.
I spend a lot of time at home alone. Listening to podcasts keeps me sane, whether it’s Bob Mortimer and Andy Dawson’s surreal football-adjacent comedy in Athletico Mince, or film-bro insights from The Ringer network’s The Big Picture.
They make me laugh and remind me that there’s more to life than whatever I’m stressed out about. Then again, sometimes I’ll be making dinner and listening to The New Yorker podcast on the latest global atrocity, which is less good for my mood.
It isn’t just the content that can be problematic. I use my headphones to block out much of the outside world – but that includes my girlfriend. Usually she doesn’t mind, but lately I’ve kept catching myself offering just a cursory greeting or enquiry about her day, and realised it wasn’t on.
This led to a moment of clarity about my headphone addiction. It wasn’t entirely driven by guilt. I found myself wearing headphones without even realising I had them in. I wasn’t even listening to anything. I just hadn’t taken them out after having walked the dog.
There was no one around, but I was embarrassed. Was I becoming part-man, part-machine? Was I on the verge of surgically attaching them to my ears? Something had to be done.
I resolved to spend the next 24 hours headphone-free. Just to prove – to myself – that I wasn’t addicted, that I could stop at any time.
It didn’t start well. I took the dogs out the next morning, waiting impatiently for them to do their business. This isn’t a favourite part of my day, due to all the general chicanery the dogs get up to, on purpose, and a podcast usually helps me get through it. Now what was I supposed to do? Listen to the birds? Look at flowers? Appreciate squirrels?
square TOM WARD
My mate is always eight minutes late - it's the worst thing to do to a friend
Read MoreBut somehow I did it. At this stage, there was absolutely no benefi – podcasts are better than barking dogs at 8am. Then I went for a run, silent save for the laboured wheeze of my own breathing. It too was less than pleasant, but I did, perhaps, notice that the sun was shining and the day was cheerful. Arriving back home, I was beginning to feel cheerful too.
I spent the morning working. Without any distraction on my bathroom trips, I found myself looking elsewhere for it, right up to reading the ingredients list on the back of my girlfriend’s conditioner. I was less than halfway through my experiment, and I was already expanding my mind.
Then later, walking the dogs again, an old woman tried to talk to me. Usually, wrapped up in my own world, I’d give a smile, a nod, maybe a fake “ha” if it looked like she was making a joke. This time, this particular woman told me: “I have to congratulate you – usually I see young people on their phone, dragging their dogs along.”
Yesterday, that was me. But she was right, I did deserve congratulating. Here I was, interacting with the world. We chatted about the dogs she’d owned. I didn’t get the impression this was making her day – she didn’t linger. But this small sliver of human interaction cheered me up again.
Another woman came along with her dog. Usually we nod at each other as we pass. I can’t remember what we said – probably something completely mundane – but the act of engaging with another person had strangely lifted me up. I felt like a force for good in my community, instead of the guy with his head down, closed off from the world.
That night, when my girlfriend came home, I was listening to a podcast about the poet John Cooper Clarke – but on the speaker, not in my ears. This usually would have been a private moment, but we ended up listening to it together while we told each other about our days.
It was great. In fact, after listening to that podcast together we booked tickets to see the Bard of Salford this week. Had I been plugged in, we would have missed that conversation and that opportunity entirely.
Twenty-four hours unplugged has taught me I was being a bit excessive before. I know now that I can stand silence, I can stand my own company, and I can stand a bit of small talk with strangers – in fact, I kind of enjoyed it. Maybe it’s time I started listening more often.
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