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A few months ago I made a post about how I’d been noticing a new phenomenon in which people on public transit watch TikTok videos without earbuds/headphones, and the entire train car or bus is subjected to shitty loud random snippets of noise as they scroll through their feeds without a care in the world for other people.
It’s gotten worse. Like, exponentially worse. When I originally posted, I had been noticing the phenomenon maybe just once a day. Now it’s multiple people in the train car + multiple people on the bus + my own fucking coworkers in the fucking break room at work!!! It’s spreading like a contagion! These coworkers of mine never used to do this, not until the past month, when I guess they got exposed to it and just assumed “Oh, so this is something that’s normal to do now? Okay I guess I’ll do it.” And they give zero thought to how loudly they’re playing it.
I’m not a confrontational person, but am a massive pushover, so instead of saying something to my coworker, I’ll just get up and leave the room as soon as the TikTok videos start. I’d rather spend my break perched on a stool in my mouse room than be subjected to that. As for the people on public transit…I’m not gonna say anything to them because I have no desire to get stabbed or something.
Is anybody else noticing this??? Is this a fallout of lockdown? Did it really only take a year of people being confined to their homes to make people forget how to behave in public?
Sorry for ranting. The problem is just getting worse and worse and I think what bothers me the most about it isn’t the noise but rather what it says about society. It’s like how when I’m crossing legally as a pedestrian and have to dive out of the way of cyclists who whizz through red lights constantly. It’s less to do with the fact that I almost got mowed down and more to do with the fact that a huge percentage of cyclists just don’t give a giant fuck about pedestrians.