How did people survive before noise cancelling headphones? Like god damn, I would've murdered someone by now if I had no way to suppress all the noise.

You're falsely assuming that everyone has to deal with the same emotional control issues as you do.

You j...
\ BARK BARK
\ You just d...
\ BARK BARK BARK
\ You just deal w...
\ BARK BARK BAHOOO BAHOOOOOOOO
\ SSSSHHHHHHT!
\ [silence reigns in my realm again]

Anyway. I just deal with it, eventually learning how to mentally filter it. The one major exception is the neighbour's dog, goddammit I hate her owner, the dog keeps barking and howling because she's bloody bored, can't anyone take her to a walk?

You probably "unlearned" it from using the noise cancelling headphones.

The one major exception is the neighbour's dog, goddammit I hate her owner, the dog keeps barking and howling because she's bloody bored, can't anyone take her to a walk?
We have such a neighbor too. She is also also an alcoholic (and so is her adult son, btw). Which means that she will shout at any hour of the day or the night and will walk her dog likewise at any hour, it is one of those angry pocket dog that constantly barks.
It's pitiful to watch and it's a real pain to deal with them too (not mentioning they're also very... abusive). They've become sort of legendary in the neighborhood... as well as with the local police. Real sad.

The device playing sound didn't use to arbitrarily limit how high you could set the volume so you would just make it louder and damage your hearing 🤷‍♂️

My uncle has always been "a bit unique". He won't talk if there are more than two people around and he would still greatly prefer being out in the garage or in the fields on his own. I suspect if he were growing up today he'd be wearing noise-cancelling all waking hours and checking so many boxes for an autism diagnosis.

I was home when my house was broken into. I can no longer stand complete silence. I need to know what's going on around me. The idea of being lost in game/movie/show and having someone walk up on me without me knowing, completely terrifies me.

I mean that's plus side of living with family, a home invader have to get through my other family members first.
Noise Cancelling isn't perfect, there's still gonna be sound leaking through so I will hear a fight.
So I can just wait out the fight and by the time they get to me, they'll probably be injured and I can jump their ass.
My parents and older brother are abusive pieces of shit so I don't mind using them as human shield lol.

Sixteen other responses and nobody has said earplugs so far.

We used earplugs. They were uncomfortable and they sucked but it was something.

For the very basic foam one where you squeeze it and put in your ear before it expand, those one is at least comfortable, and is super cheap for a good medical one. Those with stalk sucked but it's something. There's even more fancy one that's expensive but comfortable and also work well, my friend would vouch for it as it helped my friend sleep well.
Yeah, I'm 55, I used to wear wax earplugs on the train in my 20s. Now I wear IEMs, often with no music playing!
Only bad ones are uncomfortable. They don't suck at all, they rule

I never use noise canceling, and I very rarely have earbuds on. I just ignore the noise. I feel like it is mostly a "you get used to it" thing.

But also, music is not something important to me.

Personally, I was just stressed out all the time.

I think i can survive minor daily life inconveniences such as listening to other people

It was quieter in a lot of ways. Or, I guess more specifically to my issues, there weren't likely as many conflicting sounds playing at once. You might get some asshole with a boombox on the bus or whatever, but that was rare. I also spent most of my time until uni in the countryside (and moved rural again last year).

I don know if I would have survived phones with my sanity in tact. I guess Gameboys were a thing at some point in my youth (and gamegear and game-and-watch before that), but most people were not playing them with volume in social situations. Hell I still remember when using a cellphone in public was considered dickish if you didn't excuse yourself to outside or something.

Why do you think violent crime is on the down slope?

Unleaded gasoline and unleaded everything.
Someone graph this like asap
- (This is entirely nonsense people do not take this literally)
Lmao that makes sense.
But also lead exposure is now decreased.
- And we've switched to electric vehicles: less noise and lead!

I had to go in without mine one day and immediately on the tram there was a guy making a lengthy call on the speakerphone and a sixty year old woman doing the Tiktoks with sound on.

What percent of your soul left your body that day?

Cousin, I think you have misophonia.

But also, the world used to be a lot less loud. Ubiquitous noice pollution didn't kick off until the Industrial Revolution and especially the advent of the automobile.

Jesus Christ, how old are you if you remember the world before the automobile? 🤣
- Depends on country. My parents definitely remember a world before cars became popular (they were born in some village in mainland China) cars are rare, and only in cities. The closest road was like 30min to 1 hour away by foot (if I recall correctly), which was around where the markets were.
  I was born in a city, in the 21st century so cars were already just a part of life, in rural areas (like not in the village, cars are too big to go on those rural trails, so they had motorcycles), and definitely in cities. 1.4 billion people makes parking like impossible, so public transit was the main form of transport in the cities, and motorcycle was the main form of transport near rural areas, for long distance, like between the village to a city, it was by those buses (sort of like greyhound in the USA), I remember it was like maybe 2 hours (or maybe like up to 5 hours i have no idea, I always sleep through it). But sometimes if you have a relative that has a car, driving is an option, but I never remember ever being in a car ride, its always buses. Where as now in the US, its always car rides, no matter where it is, except maybe in like center city areas, then public transit would be easier.
  Funny enough, when I first arrive in the US, the first thing I noticed was the lack of platform safety doors on the subway, where as in China (at least in GuangZhou), they were bascially on every station that I ever went to. But it make sense, China's infrastructure is new, the US has the same old trains for like 100 years, and they never got updated, sort of like early companies are still using Windows XP, but a new startup company would use Windows 11. I was always scared of falling onto the tracks, but then again, I was a kid with a lot of phobias.
- The thing is, I have these external memory devices called books.

Tinnitus means noise cancelling on its own just makes the whine louder

Enough background noise and it kinda disappears

You learn to tune it out.

And use of noise cancelling may actually make this more difficult to learn.
Edit: or maybe not.
- I'm pretty sure audio processing disorder is a different thing.

most people dont prioritize audio to the point of homicide

earplugs. I still use them to this day. No battery required; real good noise reduction. I use them to isolate myself from the noise of the streets while I'm writing at home (a busy street, in a large city).
There was kinda less noise too. I mean, there was traffic roaring in the streets, people being loud, and music playing like today. But seldom people owned one of those over amplified sound system that could blast music through walls, or I don't know how much powerful car music that we can hear way before the car is in the street and long after she have passed.
People also were not constantly talking to their hands on the streets (o be watching a movie or listen to some music), while ignoring everyone around them (polite version of what it really is: you can go all fuck yourself, I want to listen to whatever I want as loud as I want the hell with all of you). I've also notice more and more people (of all ages) using the loudpseaker to have actual phone conversation on the street or even in public transit, like if they were all alone. Back then, a lot more people actually talked to one another or they were silent. People also worried a lot more about disturbing their neighborhood (probably because neighbors used to talk to one another more too).

Nowadays, I see a lot of young people wearing noise canceling headsets on the streets and I do wonder if the solution to more noise is really to add even more noise, just to pretend it's cancelling it? Shouldn't we try to make less noise to begin with?

And what about the health risks for their hearing? I mean, I have no idea how those works, but isn't white noise more noise?

From my research noise cancelling isn't harmful to your ears, since it doesn't introduce any additional noise. However, if you blast your music on top of it, that will most definitely damage your hearing 🙃

Exposure therapy > blocking reality, IMO. But I'm an ADHD enjoyer, not autistic, and I understand it's not as easy for others.

Idk I used headphones? Still don't understand what the noise cancelling is for, good fitting ear tips and IEMs or closed-back over-ear headphones with good form fitting pads do the trick just as well?

Without noise cancelling, that background argument leaks through and kinda ruins your music, I mean even with noice cancelling, its still not perfect, but without it is like 10x worse.
- Why are there background arguments in your place?
Still don’t understand what the noise cancelling is for
Regular, low-frequency sounds. I have a pair of Sennheiser Momentum 4s --- which I don't recommend buying, for anyone else looking for headphones, though the ANC is pretty good --- and if I'm around a fan when the ANC is flipped on, it fades in. From a listener perspective, it sounds very much like the fans are powering off. It's quite eerie --- I have on more than one occasion looked over to see what had just happened to a fan and then realized that it's just the ANC.
Doesn't work as well with some other things, like speech, but it'll still tend to help them move into the background.
The downside of using headphones with ANC is that they have to have power to do their thing, since they need to do audio processing at the headphones. That means that you can't just plug something into a headphones jack and have that take care of power, the way you can with traditional headphones. Have to have batteries or be USB-powered or something.

I think it’s just called being alive

Active noise cancellation does better on low-frequency sound. Passive stuff, like more sound absorbing material, and a thicker, hard shell does better with high-frequency sound. So they aren't really perfect drop-in replacements for each other, more complement each other...but they do do some of the same job.

One day, I hope that there'll be something like those 3M Peltor sound protector things --- which have very good passive sound isolation --- with good ANC on them (3M did apparently go out and do ANC on a Peltor ear protector, but I understand that the ANC there isn't very good).

I find ANC does far better with upper frequencies. Blocking your ear canal works for lower frequencies, but only to a point, since the lower it is, the more it'll simply conduct via your body.
Like a fire truck horn I "hear" through my body with earplugs and well-fitting ANC headphones (ones that cover ears entirely).
You can get anc earbuds and wear those ear protectors over them
- Yeah, I've read about some people doing that, but I don't really like earbuds in general, just don't like wearing them for long periods of time. I'll use them if I can't carry headphones and need a compact option, but I really prefer having headphones. Might be a good option for some folks, though.

Are you my wife?

Menopause causes mysphonia. Sleep with your eyes open.

I have never used noise cancelling and it's never been an issue? What's the problem, just turn it up

Music isn't just about loudness, there is contrast between the loud and quieter parts, if its too loud, it ruins the music, and it also hurts your ears.
Like try blasting a loud speaker while someone is yelling, that's what it feels like.
- Good earbud in library kinda solve the issue tbh.