I keep losing my wireless headphones. When I do have them with me, they’re often out of battery. So one day earlier this summer, I decided to ditch them.

It felt like a huge step, as I’d long used in-ear tech as a shield from the auditory chaos of London. But what happened felt transformative. I was surprised at how present I was without them. 

During my first headphones-free commute, I smiled at strangers. I noticed the stops on the train line, something I never do when I rely on an app to tell me when to get off the train through my earphones. That one journey made me wonder if I had accidentally outsourced the joys of my city life to my phone. 

In 2026, we have become remarkably good at filling every quiet moment: Spotify on the train, podcasts while walking, Google Maps telling us where to go, our phones providing something to look at whenever there’s a lull.

The scale of this is striking. Ofcom’s latest research found that 93% of U.K. adults listen to some form of audio every week, and more than a quarter listen to podcasts weekly. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide listen to podcasts. 

There’s also a fascinating social angle. Research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that people often avoid talking to strangers because they underestimate how enjoyable those interactions will be. And research into constant smartphone connectivity published in Current Directions in Psychological Science suggests that our devices can cause us to miss the emotional benefits of casual interactions by........

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