Atira Gali had already listened to 33,500 minutes of music by mid-November of last year, according to her Spotify account’s annual recap of her user habits.
“I can’t even do the dishes without my headphones because I just get bored,” Gali said.
The 24-year-old New Yorker said she is almost always listening to music or a podcast, starting with her morning commute to her publishing job. During the workday, unless she’s in a meeting or with coworkers, she keeps her headphones on. And they stay on while she commutes home, does her nightly chores and gets ready for bed.
Many young people, like Gali, can often be found with headphones in ear or listening to their current aural fixation from their phone’s speakers. On average, people ages 13 to 34 spend 4.5 hours a day listening to something — whether it be a podcast, music or otherwise — according to a poll released in May conducted by Edison Research. About 56 per cent of Spotify’s global music streams came from Gen Z from Jan. 1 to Nov. 25, 2025, according to a spokesperson for the streaming service.
While regularly using headphones throughout daily life can feel harmless, researchers are worried that excessive use may have a negative impact on our ability to access meaningful moments of human connection and regulate our own minds.
Are your headphones isolating you?
For most people, headphone use is an ingrained habit, rather than an intentional signifier to others. However, even if inadvertently, “people are using headphones to shield themselves from other people,” said Dr. Gloria Mark, chancellor’s professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine.
By constantly wearing headphones, students are missing out on an untold number of social opportunities, said Richard Davidson, founder and director of the nonprofit Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He estimated that 90 per cent of the students getting around the Madison campus wear headphones. “Ten years ago, that wasn’t the case,” he said.
“One of the amazing opportunities in a university education is to meet people, to meet people who are often different than you are, come from different backgrounds,” said Davidson, the William James and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry. “If they’re walking around with headphones, none of them are talking to each other.”
Even in coffee shops, Davidson observed that people “just pull out their phone, and rarely do they just stand and wait. That’s just very difficult for people to do these days. Maybe even smile at someone who’s waiting with them. Maybe even chat with a stranger.”
Annabel Franklin, 24, recently watched an episode of an early 2000s television show. She said she was struck by one scene, in which the main character sat on a bench waiting for someone, “just looking around, not listening to music and not looking at her phone.”
“It’s something no one would ever do today,” said Franklin, who lives in New York. “I don’t remember the last time I saw someone kind of drifting into space voluntarily and just sitting alone with their thoughts.”
Franklin said that she listens to music immediately after waking up, estimating that she either has music or a podcast on for 12 hours of the day. “I’m not reliant on them. I just prefer to have them in,” she said, referring to her headphones. “For me, it’s more habitual. It’s part of my daily routine.”
But experts like Mark and Davidson wonder whether headphone use that may feel inconsequential can still have adverse effects.
Daily social interaction is vital
Experts say that headphone use may also contribute to loneliness, an emotion affecting as many as 1 in 5 Americans.
Even passing moments shared with strangers can improve one’s well-being, according to Davidson. Wearing headphones can block these crucial interactions.
“Those simple everyday connections, even and maybe even especially among strangers, may be something especially important for our well-being,” Davidson said. “They are common, readily available, and can sustain our well-being. But if we don’t harness those opportunities, then we’re missing out on activities that are available in our everyday life.”
The value of silence
Constant headphone use can also hinder one’s ability to fully embrace a clear presence of mind.
“I think that people have lost the ability to be able to just sit, you know, sit with silence and let their minds wander or allow themselves to be bored,” Mark said. “There is something always available at our fingertips to solve that problem. To fill that void.”
But what might be perceived as a void can actually be a deeply enriching experience, according to Mark.
Not using headphones or other distractions can help improve one’s ability to be present in the moment or be mindful of one’s surroundings.
“The muscle of awareness is our capacity to intentionally be aware without getting lost in a stream of thought,” Davidson said. “Were you paying attention to what you were doing, or was your mind somewhere else?”
“The key is blocking unwanted intrusions in their mind, unwanted thoughts, unwanted emotions, rumination, and these strategies are effective in the moment,” Davidson said, referring to listening to music or scrolling on the phone. “But they’re not enduringly effective. And so, when the music goes off or when the activity ceases, our neurotic minds come roaring back, so to speak, and so it’s a kind of false promise.”
Being able to forego headphone use, or similar distractions can ensure that one’s own thoughts “don’t hijack us from our ongoing activities of daily living,” Davidson said.
Adults spend approximately 47 per cent of their waking daily life not thinking about what is actually going on, a 2010 study found. Davidson is certain that percentage has worsened. “The average adult is not paying attention to what they’re doing.”
A ‘no headphones’ experiment
Gali had been curious about the impacts of her headphone use.
Listening to something “takes you out of the task that you’re doing and just improves the experience of doing it,” Gali said, like her “boring walk to work, or doing a chore that I don’t like, or even when I am just working.”
“But I’m also worried that it’s maybe hindering my ability to do these things without music,” she said.
A few weeks ago, Gali decided not to listen to music on her work commute. She wanted to see whether it would “make me feel more present in the world, and therefore more present in my day.”
Two days into the experiment, she had already spotted four signs for new stores coming to her neighborhood.
“I hadn’t noticed them even though I do the same walk literally every day,” she said. “I think I’m just like head down walking when my headphones are on.”.
