<story><title>The Quiet Ones</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/opinion/sunday/the-quiet-ones.html?pagewanted=all</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bpatrianakos</author><text>Oh, the quiet car. I ride the quiet car every weekday to and from work into and out of Chicago (except ours is Metra, not Amtrak). His description of it is completely accurate. The people on the quiet car tend to be thinkers, readers, writers, and I dare say just a bit more intelligent than the average rider.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve had the same experience before. For some reason people think the signs and the announcements don&apos;t apply to them and it just boggles my mind how much self awareness they lack! There&apos;s been a guy I&apos;ve seen on the quiet car twice last week who for some reason had his iPhone at full volume and texted for the entire hour I was on the train. The problem wasn&apos;t the texting but that the iPhones clickers clackety keyboard sounds were on. Is that really necessary? And on the quiet car no less? A woman did the same thing a few weeks back. Of course no one said a word but we were all very annoyed. And then you get the oblivious guy who doesn&apos;t read signs or listen to the 3 announcements who talks on his cell the whole ride. And don&apos;t get me started on the teenagers who seem to be visiting the city for the first time and for some reason need to scream at each other despite being centimeters from each others face in a car full of completely silent people. The signs are obvious. The announcement are loud, clear, and numerous. So what the fuck, man?!&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s life now. It seems we have a whole generation of people who are just completely lacking self-awareness and have a serious problem with entitlement. But it&apos;s not young people this is specific to. I&apos;m only 26 and I&apos;m good on the quiet car (though I have had my moments I&apos;ll admit). There are people of all ages,miracles, and genders who behave this way and though I think humans are like this by nature anyway I also think the Internet and cell phones have made it worse. It seems like a learned behavior.&lt;p&gt;I just blamed Internet and cell phones for a portion of the world&apos;s ills. I&apos;m going to go think about how old that makes me sound now...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eupharis</author><text>This diversity of opinion about what is and is not hard to tune out is fascinating.&lt;p&gt;Also 26 here. One of the great shortcomings of youth is not being able to understand that other people can be fundamentally &lt;i&gt;different&lt;/i&gt;. Not better, not worse. Just &lt;i&gt;different&lt;/i&gt;. This is something I&apos;m only truly beginning to appreciate lately.&lt;p&gt;I had never realized until this thread that people could find typing annoying. Well, theoretically I mean I understood you could think &quot;Oh that&apos;s annoying&quot; and get on with life. But not the overwhelming, consuming pathos here.&lt;p&gt;Maybe the problem is less a lack of self-awareness and a serious problem with entitlement. Maybe the problem is this:&lt;p&gt;Their awareness of self leads them to different conclusions about what is and is not annoying. They don&apos;t see themselves as doing anything more entitled than breathing, because other people&apos;s typing bothers them about as much as your breathing.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Quiet Ones</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/opinion/sunday/the-quiet-ones.html?pagewanted=all</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bpatrianakos</author><text>Oh, the quiet car. I ride the quiet car every weekday to and from work into and out of Chicago (except ours is Metra, not Amtrak). His description of it is completely accurate. The people on the quiet car tend to be thinkers, readers, writers, and I dare say just a bit more intelligent than the average rider.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve had the same experience before. For some reason people think the signs and the announcements don&apos;t apply to them and it just boggles my mind how much self awareness they lack! There&apos;s been a guy I&apos;ve seen on the quiet car twice last week who for some reason had his iPhone at full volume and texted for the entire hour I was on the train. The problem wasn&apos;t the texting but that the iPhones clickers clackety keyboard sounds were on. Is that really necessary? And on the quiet car no less? A woman did the same thing a few weeks back. Of course no one said a word but we were all very annoyed. And then you get the oblivious guy who doesn&apos;t read signs or listen to the 3 announcements who talks on his cell the whole ride. And don&apos;t get me started on the teenagers who seem to be visiting the city for the first time and for some reason need to scream at each other despite being centimeters from each others face in a car full of completely silent people. The signs are obvious. The announcement are loud, clear, and numerous. So what the fuck, man?!&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s life now. It seems we have a whole generation of people who are just completely lacking self-awareness and have a serious problem with entitlement. But it&apos;s not young people this is specific to. I&apos;m only 26 and I&apos;m good on the quiet car (though I have had my moments I&apos;ll admit). There are people of all ages,miracles, and genders who behave this way and though I think humans are like this by nature anyway I also think the Internet and cell phones have made it worse. It seems like a learned behavior.&lt;p&gt;I just blamed Internet and cell phones for a portion of the world&apos;s ills. I&apos;m going to go think about how old that makes me sound now...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mgkimsal</author><text>&quot;I&apos;m good on the quiet car (though I have had my moments I&apos;ll admit). There are people of all ages,miracles, and genders who behave this way...&quot;&lt;p&gt;You probably don&apos;t encounter the same people all the time.  There&apos;s enough people out in the world such that each one can &quot;have their moments&quot; when they&apos;re around you, and nowhere else, and you wouldn&apos;t know the difference.&lt;p&gt;I do sympathize with you though.  I&apos;ve got a sound sensitivity problem, and lots of noises bug me way way way out of the ordinary compared to most peoples&apos; tolerance.  I know this isn&apos;t specifically related to quiet cars on trains, but noises in general still bug me (even my own oftentimes).  I&apos;m sometimes shocked how I can be on an airplane, with gigantic engines blowing away at tremendous force just 20 feet from me, yet a person a row ahead of me chewing gum or chowing down on pretzels penetrates in to my brain.</text></comment>