• earplugs. I still use them to this day. No battery required; real good noise reduction. I use them to isolate myself from the noise of the streets while I’m writing at home (a busy street, in a large city).
• There was kinda less noise too. I mean, there was traffic roaring in the streets, people being loud, and music playing like today. But seldom people owned one of those over amplified sound system that could blast music through walls, or I don’t know how much powerful car music that we can hear way before the car is in the street and long after she have passed.
• People also were not constantly talking to their hands on the streets (o be watching a movie or listen to some music), while ignoring everyone around them (polite version of what it really is: you can go all fuck yourself, I want to listen to whatever I want as loud as I want the hell with all of you). I’ve also notice more and more people (of all ages) using the loudpseaker to have actual phone conversation on the street or even in public transit, like if they were all alone. Back then, a lot more people actually talked to one another or they were silent. People also worried a lot more about disturbing their neighborhood (probably because neighbors used to talk to one another more too).

Nowadays, I see a lot of young people wearing noise canceling headsets on the streets and I do wonder if the solution to more noise is really to add even more noise, just to pretend it’s cancelling it? Shouldn’t we try to make less noise to begin with?

And what about the health risks for their hearing? I mean, I have no idea how those works, but isn’t white noise more noise?