I’m an occasional ear plug wearer. On planes and in hotel rooms, I use them to shut out unwanted background noise. I also kind of like the weird, suppressed sense of being in my own little world.
So, too, does Thomas Beller, who wrote this paean to the lowly ear plug on Slate:
I moved through the streets as though in a dream, but, as with a dream, somehow more attentive and aware than usual. Up to that point the purpose of earplugs was to keep things out. Now I perceived a new dimension to earplugsâ€â€to keep things in.
What things? Thoughts, I guess. Ideas. Equilibrium. Concentrating was easier, and I began to leave the earplugs in to write. Errands in the city, or when I had to take the subway, were much more pleasant at a slight sonic remove.
I don’t think I’ve ever worn ear plugs in public. That seems a tad bizarre, doesn’t it? Here’s another Slate article–more of a product review–on ear plugs. Personally, I favour the cheap foam ones.
I meant to add…as soon as I started reading this piece, I thought of one of my favourite novels, Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine. I was pleased to see that Beller cited it in his article.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Office noise has been really distracting me lately and I’d really like to get a pair of Shure earphones. Then I could listen to music without background noise, or if I wanted silence I could just turn the music off and keep them in my ears.
Too bad they are so expensive 😦
interesting about wearing ear phones in public. i don’t even really like to wear headphones while i’m on the street — it makes me feel that much more likely to miss things i need to know, like screeching brakes. but people seem to do it all the time without walking out into traffic, so possibly this is just the first (?) sign of impending middle age.
s.
I’ve never worn ear plugs. Ever. But I do have a set of those in-ear noise isolating headphones, so I guess that’s the same thing, except I get to enjoy my music instead of being bothered by my own thoughts.
Recently, flying has been somewhat uncomfortable for me. On a recent trip I found that wearing isolating earphones (etymonics) really made the whole experience much more tolerable.
I agree that the earphones are great, but when using earplugs (which I need to do as a drummer — and didn’t do enough early in my career, so I’ve lost some high end in my left ear), I also prefer the plain-old foam ones, which are cheap and available at any pharmacy. I also prefer the foam-style inserts for the Shure earphones, rather than the rubber/silicone ones, which bother me for some reason.
I’ve been using them as my wife goes through pregnancy (and the snoring becomes louder and louder) and afterwards as my wife does the night shift and I do the morning (we’re on our 3rd kid now).
Short message – I’ve got an ear infection after using them for about 2 months. The cheapie orange foam home depot ones rubbed an “ulcer” = blister in my ear that is now “oozing”. The doctor jumped when she found it.
That said I love the *almost* silence. Hard to sleep without them now. Also great on airplanes and hotels where you can hear people walking down the halls.
I had a professor that went up to the arctic for about a year. He said the noise was the hardest thing to get used to when he came back.
Can the foam earplugs be washed and re-used? The silicone earplugs don’t fit me well and are not very effective and I don’t want to use a new foam earplug everyday.