The Atlantic

What Happens When You Always Wear Headphones

I decided to noise-cancel life.
Source: David Mdzinarishvili / Reuters

I own three pairs of noise-canceling headphones. Two go over my ears, enveloping them in cozy tombs of silence. One pair consists of earbuds, one of which I jam into my ear to block out the world while I use my other ear for phone interviews. Besides the noise-canceling kind, I have headphones for basically every activity I do. In fact, I recently came to the disturbing realization that there’s rarely a moment of my day when my ears are filled with or covered

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