Gen Z and their headphones

0:00are you only able to work with headphones on? Because 64% of Gen Z says they need to have their headphones in to be able to work. Do you find that interesting? I do. I think that that's a bunch of hooy to be honest. Because first of all, I can't really work while listening to music. I get too distracted. I end up making up my own words to the songs sometimes, which is what I like to do. And I am not getting any work done. And like, oh, great. Now I've listened to a whole M&M album or something, and you've gotten absolutely nothing done. 64% of Gen Z says they need to be plugged in when working. 27% of Gen X said the same. And 35% of workers struggle to work without headphones. This reminds me of working in retail, whenever I was working with primarily younger people. And they didn't seem to understand why they couldn't have a customer service job and wear headphones at the same time.

1:00Yeah, I mean, you do need to be able to hear customers if they ask a question and also be able to actually have that conversation with the customer and a customer service position. And not to be a boomer about it, but I get irritated if I go to the grocery store or something and go to pay in the cashier has headphones in. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Never seen it. No. Oh, my gosh, it drives me nuts. Yeah, that would throw me for a little bit of a loop. And I understand, I understand where we have issues with it, but I also understand that like Gen Z grew up in a totally different world than even Millennials grew up with. And I think there was a misunderstanding from previous generations and how the world worked to how it was growing up as a millennial where there was just so much more coming at you all the time because technology was having so many advancements. And it was harder to focus. I can't even imagine Gen Z who grew up in the time

2:02where like information was always coming at you. Technology was always crazy and how your brain would work or try to cope with that growing up like that. Text message from Ridge. It says the thing with headphones in it work is that if you're just jamming out during your workday and someone's talking to you, that would be annoying. Yeah, 34% of people who wear the headphones at work or listen to the pop music, then the next most popular thing to listen to is podcasts. That's another thing, like how are you gonna work while you're listening to conversations or are you able to do it? I can't. That's where Kimmy comes in. She says I have neurodivergent friends, ADHD and autistic and they commonly listen with headphones to get anything done. It's usually a comfort playlist or something. They know every word, every line so their brain doesn't think of it. It's more static in the background that quiet's the loud in their brain. And that isn't for me as an ADHD person. That isn't what it is. I heard somebody describe it the best way ever,

3:02but I need my brain to be at 100% capacity all the time. Otherwise, my brain is gonna fill the gaps and music helps fill those gaps. Interesting. This was interesting too. 9% of people who were wearing headphones at work are just listening to ambient sounds, like rainfall or a crackling fire. Perfect.