Same as it always was with new technology. On a side note, I wish these were still made like they were. New portable cassette players all have the same terrible tape heads and the models from the glory days are really starting to fall to disrepair as time passes. I just had to cannibalize one of my Walkmans to fix the other, only to have the same issue resurface nearly immediately.

Honestly there were some food points back then. A lot of people simply are not able to wear headphones responsibly. It’s only gotten worse with noise cancelling technology. The ability to ignore the outside world is great when you’re in a safe space to do so, but people doing it out in public or while driving are absolutely mad.

The quotes about “breaking societal connections” or whatever are funny to me though. Because that was happening at the time, but it had far more to do with the erosion of 3rd places and the rise of car-centric infrastructure than it did headphones.