28 Sep 2026

Tangled earphones were a feature, not a bug.

My parents gifted me a Sony MP3 player in 10th standard, in boarding school. A bright red Walkman. Actually I got it because my elder brother had been demanding one for a while. So we both got one at the same time.

But everyone from my generation will tell you the same thing about that era. We hated the earphones. Not the music. The wires.

They had a superhuman ability to tangle. Throw them in your bag, tangled. Pocket, tangled. Leave them on the table for two minutes, tangled. Every single time.

So of course the next decade or so was spent solving the tangle. Flat wired earphones that didn’t knot. That OnePlus band around your neck. Weird Bluetooth earphones, heavy and clunky af, that frequently lost connectivity. All of it chasing the same problem. Kill the tangle.

And then Apple launched the AirPods. That was it. No wire, no tangle, no thinking. It just freaking worked.

I could feel my usage explode. More content, in more places, all the time. It was so convenient.

But after using them for 5+ years now, I am genuinely wondering if the tangle was a feature and not a bug! Every untangling was a small toll on my mind. Before I could start listening, I had to untangle the mess, plug in the headphone jack and then start consuming.

And that toll did two things.

First, the default was NOT to listen. If I was waiting in a queue, or walking somewhere, it just wasn’t worth taking out the tangled mess. So I didn’t. I just stood there. Being bored was the default.

Second, when I did listen, it was a choice. “Is this worth untangling right now?” Most times, the answer was still yes. But I was still deciding.

AirPods set this toll to absolute zero. Now there is no empty moment. Open the case, pop them in, and poof, I am in my doomscrolling world, or listening to a podcast I know I will not remember the next day. And ofcourse they even have transparency mode. So you can walk/cycle/run without getting worried. Never stopping the consumption.

And see, I love my Buds. Noise cancellation and transparency mode are really cool features. I am not quitting them. But I have started hating the noise being so much inside my head. The way it just cuts me off from everything.

So I am trying to put some of the toll back. I leave my buds at home more often. I use my speakers a lot more, and I realised I really love listening to music on a good old Bose speaker. The sound out in the room, not blasted inside my head.

And yes, I now carry a cheap ₹200 tangled earphone with me :)