Episode #15
Sound Pollution: A Public Service Announcement
Three ways your fellow commuters are broadcasting their private lives into shared public space, whether you consented or not. Number one: loud music on public transport. Headphones exist, they're cheap, and yet every journey someone's got their phone speaker facing the carriage, playing the same 30-second clip on loop while an entire train quietly dies inside. Number two: speaker phone calls. Full conversations, both sides, completely audible — relationship problems, salary negotiations, dental appointments broadcast to sixty strangers who never asked to know any of it. Number three: notification sounds. Ding, ping, buzz - every single alert, at maximum volume, because muting a phone apparently takes more effort than subjecting an entire carriage to it, all day, every day. From a TikTok on full volume at 8:47am to the impossible social contract that says you can't ask someone to turn it down without becoming the villain — this episode is a plea for basic respect in shared space. Your convenience is not more important than everyone else's peace. There is a mute button. Use it. Featuring a bonus mini-rant on loud conversations on trains — the most innocent-seeming, hardest-to-call-out form of audio pollution of them all. Send us Fan Mail Support the show If you enjoyed the episode, go to my website and access the back catalogue at https://amioutoftouch.buzzsprout.com OR susbcribe https://bit.ly/4x7eilH
