'Do you mind listening to that with headphones?' How one little phrase revolutionised my commute | Hannah Ewens

Earlier in the summer I started a social experiment – one you might consider ingenious or insufferable, depending on how much you prioritise a peaceful life. It began with a fragmented journey from north to south London, during which at each section of the journey (bus, overground, bus), someone was playing content on their phone, loudly.

First there was a woman flicking impatiently through TikTok videos: four-second assaults of traditional Chinese medicine tutorials, girls pranking their boyfriends and self-help tips. The woman next to her put in her earbuds, but said nothing. Next, there was a woman listening to a nearly 20-minute long voice note from a friend out loud that all of us could hear. This is the life of the passenger in our new ambient hell.

At the front of the otherwise empty top deck of the final bus, a man sat on the seats adjacent to me – the best in the house. He immediately got out his phone, loaded a podcast on YouTube and sat there, his device blaring. I knew this was my chance to tell him, to practise without an audience and so with little risk of him feeling publicly shamed. Just me and him in the ring, so: “Mate, do you mind listening with headphones on?”

I had thought carefully about the best way to do this. I would neutralise my voice so my judgment could not poison the tone. I would smile with an open face and think positive thoughts about this man, so he would intuitively feel that I was friend not foe. And then I’d strip the message back to a basic sentence, not cushion it with an apology (an apology – from me !) or explain why I wanted the antisocial behaviour to stop.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve done this every time the opportunity unreasonably presents itself. People generally respond well. Not just the noisy content fiends either, but typically, as is the repressed passive-aggressive British way, the other passengers who nod or give me an encouraging look. The only angry response came from a man who was, inexplicably, watching Jeremy Kyle clips on YouTube, which, sort of makes sense. “What’s it to you,” he asked rhetorically before probably wishing he hadn’t.

Related: Noises off: the battle to save our quiet places

Things used to be very different. Back in the 2000s, there’d typically be a kid or two playing music on their phone at the back of the bus to school. Adults would tell them to stop and the kids would laugh but probably turn it off or down. Five years ago, everyone might have been glued to their phones in public and on commutes – but you would rarely find someone playing anything out loud, or at least for more than a few seconds, without it held close to their ear.

Now it’s not just younger people polluting our public spaces with Joe Rogan interviews and biohacking how-tos – it’s everyone. I don’t think people even realise they are doing this. Somewhere along the line this became normal – almost certainly during the pandemic, when we collectively decided that every conscious moment had to be filled with visual and audio content, before we were told to return to society. Let’s just say we’ve struggled. I believe this because when I’ve asked people to turn their devices down, they make one of two faces: either they look as if they are rousing from a century’s slumber or appear shocked at themselves, as if they don’t know how they got to this moment.

You might argue that in theory this disturbance is no different from overhearing people have loud conversations or being harmlessly drunk and boisterous. But it is different. That tinny quality to the noise, the abrupt stop and start of video and audio, the chaotic nature of each content type happening at once in the same tube carriage: it’s distracting and disorientating. It stops you from being in the present, and has the perverse effect of forcing you into your own headphones and content bubble, when you might be – at least in my case – trying to reduce your own screen time. The only thing worse than being a slave to your own device and its incessant chatter is being forced to hear other people’s. The best way I can describe the sensation is that it feels as though I’m being attacked by some electrical leaching process; jacking up my already dysregulated nervous system.

It doesn’t have to be this way. If enough people join me then eventually Transport for London or whoever your local transport body is will pay for a new advertisement: “Please give your seat up to pregnant women, please don’t sexually harass people, and no mid-tier content out loud please!” Imagine how clearly we would be able to think. Maybe we could even have pleasant interactions with each other.

When I told that man on the top deck of the bus to listen to YouTube with headphones, he looked at me incredulously for a moment. Then, when what I’d asked of him finally sank in, he immediately blushed. “God, sorry,” he said. “Was in my own little world there.”

• Hannah Ewens is a freelance editor and writer, and the author of Fangirls: Scenes From Modern Music Culture