About 90 percent of the students who walk on or around campus are wearing headphones, myself included. It’s a nice way to block out the unnecessary noise around us and to listen to something we enjoy. But what if someone needed help, but you couldn’t hear them because you’ve got Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” blaring into your ears? What if someone fell and hurt themselves, but you were unaware because you’ve got Beats by Dre covering your ears?

I’m not suggesting that you never listen to music, the radio, audiobooks or whatever it is you choose to listen to; that would be silly and basically not ever going to happen. However, I personally think it would be beneficial for a few reasons if we lowered our volume and paid more attention to our surroundings.

The obvious reason that turning down our music would benefit us is the medical reasons. Everyone knows that one adult, be it a parent or teacher, who has told us to turn down the volume, otherwise we’ll go deaf before we hit 30.

And this claim isn’t without evidence and medical tests to back it up. Now, saying we’ll go deaf is a little extreme, but loud music can cause hearing loss, and more than the average loss happening just because of aging. There are little tiny hairs inside your ear that control what frequencies you can hear. My grandfather has hearing loss, and can no longer hear at high frequencies, which means I have to talk in a deep voice if I want him to hear me.

The second reason that limiting the volume on our headphones is the variability of the world around us. What if you have your headphones in and you can’t hear a car honking at you as it fishtails toward the crosswalk? You may not be paying any attention, and if they can’t stop, it could end poorly.

What if there was someone who fell behind you on some black ice and hit their head and couldn’t get up? Or what if that someone was you? What if you fell, and there was only one person around, and you called out to them but they couldn’t hear you because their headphones are blaring loud music. You would be pretty upset; they should have been able to help you, or get you the help you needed.

Yes, there are a lot of what ifs, but that is how life works. What if I don’t pass this class? What if I do? What if I miss the bus, or what if I don’t?

Yes, the senseless chatter we hear all around us is annoying and sometimes we don’t want to listen to it if it’s Monday morning and we only got three hours of sleep. But it would also be annoying if someone didn’t listen, or couldn’t hear, the chatter that wasn’t senseless, or maybe even important.  

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