Arts & Life

Plugged in and tuned out

You’ve all seen them: a horde of music aficionados making their way around the Cal State Long Beach campus with something in common — their headphones seem like an almost permanent appendage connecting a music-playing device to their ears.

There was a time where music was used as a means for social interaction. Before the advent of personal music-playing devices, boomboxes united communities and shaped the soundscape of entire cities.   

In a Van Winkle article by Seth Porges, Smithsonian museum specialist Timothy Anne Burnside said, “If you carry this thing (a boombox) around, you’re sharing it with others and they don’t have a choice. They represent mobility and the freedom to express your personal taste in music and share it with immediate neighbors.”

In the late ‘70s Sony introduced the Walkman — a personal, portable stereo — and the world of individual music consumption began. It wasn’t until the iPod however, that music players started to really interfere with social behavior.

The first iPod was introduced in 2001 and sold a modest 390 million units over 15 years. In 2007 the first iPhone hit the shelves. In just nine years over 1 billion units have been sold marking a massive increase in easy access to music through applications like iTunes, Pandora and Spotify.

Now, when someone purchases a smartphone, they are gifted a personal pair of noise cancelers and a platform to easily download their means to blissful isolation. For some, their phones help them utilize music as a means to not participate in a public setting.

“I don’t really feel like talking to people,” said kinesiology major Joshua Batista. “I just kind of want to be on my own. I don’t really want people to just come up and talk to me. I enjoy listening to music more than I enjoy listening to people.”     

Recent psychology studies have shown that the constant use of individual tech devices and headphone usage have made people, particularly young adults, more socially isolated.

“In the positive psychology movement, those who report being the happiest tend to appreciate and focus on the little things they have in life,” said Anila Bhagavatula, a professor of psychology at CSULB. “When you isolate yourself, you are not able focus on the foundation of what makes us happy. Texting and listening to headphones removes us from the present and ultimately chips away from what makes us happy.”

So why are college students, who one would suppose are at the height of their networking potential, placing proverbial “do not disturb” signs over their heads?

“I’m in a lot of classes that are very heavy emotionally,” said theatre major Victoria Melkonyan. “I’m always listening to music in between classes and I use it as a time of recuperating, staying in the zone, and getting ready for what’s next.”

Is failing to live in the moment all bad? As Melkonyan alluded to, her use of personal earphones is to escape and simply find a time to cope with the barrage of “junk” she deals with on a daily basis. Bhagavatula says that sometimes headphone usage is a positive means to escape.

“The defense is not so much against other people,” Bhagavatula said. “Social contact is the only part of our environment that we can dilute. We’re assailed by constant information overload. There is so much of this onslaught that we can’t stop and for people who hunch over and listen to their headphones, they see it as the only way they can get a break.”

In an article written by University of Miami professor and music therapist Kimberly Sena Moore, she says that daily headphone usage is fine so long as you can find a balance. She says the thought of new experiences, new sounds and new encounters that may emerge when we expose ourselves to our auditory environment and interact with what’s around us should be motivating.

“I’ve had experiences where people are like, ‘I’ve seen you around campus but you had your headphones in and I didn’t want to bother you,’” Melkonyan said. “I know there’s a balance. But I’d want people to know that’s it’s fine. You can come talk to me. I don’t want you to think I’m blocking out the world. Wearing headphones is just what I do.”

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