The ideal ratio is 20% consuming, 80% thinking — most of us have it backwards

The AirPods Effect article names what it sees as the biggest problem with constant personal audio: it “crowds out time we should properly spend with our own thoughts.” It even cites McLuhan — “the medium is the message” — which is the direct ancestor of Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, where Postman argues that entertainment-first media formats erode our capacity for sustained reflection over time.

Raffi Grinberg puts a number on the result in How to Be a Grown Up: “Seemingly everyone with an opinion tweets it or makes a TikTok video about it — as a result, it seems like the average person probably spends 80% of their time consuming content and only 20% thinking about it. I think the more ideal balance is closer to 20% consuming and 80% thinking.”

Earbuds are one of the mechanisms keeping the ratio inverted — filling commutes, walks, and waiting in line with content, eliminating the unstructured gaps where thinking would otherwise happen.