Is it? I think that thanks to transparency mode and conversation detection people are keeping them in “full time”. In noisy environments I just keep them on without music and they help me hear people talk.
It really depends on the awareness of product features and evolution of the actively used devices. My lived experience is that those with white things in their ears can’t hear you or can barely hear you and have to pull one out to have a conversation.
Those that know you probably understand how you use them. If I were to see you walking in my neighborhood with your AirPods I would probably not bother saying hi unless I already knew you. If you were a new neighbor that always wore AirPods, that means we would probably never become more than strangers to each other unless you initiated conversation.
> If I were to see you walking in my neighborhood with your AirPods I would probably not bother saying hi unless I already knew you.
You can still do a slight but friendly wave or nod. That would open the door for them to verbalise a “hi” or “good morning” and strike up a conversation. And it only needs to happen once for you to know.
Also, anecdotally, over a decade ago I used to wear non-white headphones or earphones in public frequently. Yet I was still accosted by strangers all the time, asking for directions or other information, when there were plenty of other people around with nothing in their ears. Still I tried to always be helpful and friendly, even if it could get tiresome: I was always listening to a book, not music, so interruptions were meaningful distractions.
