Airpods take over Davis High

GRAPHIC: The many features of Airpods make them popular among high school students.

By Tom Chitwood,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

When students enter room N-07 for Timothy Nelson’s second period Spanish class, they often conceal their Airpods under hoods, hats, or long hair. Despite their best efforts to smuggle in the contraband earphone, Nelson can tell they are listening to music because they don’t write anything down or answer questions when he asks them. 

“They’re totally out of the class,” Nelson said. 

He has since implemented a strict anti-earphone policy, but that hasn’t stopped many students from loading up their playlists anyways.

Airpods, Apple’s wireless earphones, are swiftly becoming a favorite among students who listen to music and have infiltrated many classrooms around campus.

First generation Airpods dropped in 2016 to a largely critical reception, with people thinking that they were pointless and just like regular earbuds but easier to lose. Despite the initially negative reaction, they have grown in popularity to the point where they are the most popular wireless headphone of 2019, according to Apple Insider. 

Junior Melissa Karwal was sitting with her family in a restaurant. Her sister was staring off into the distance, listening to music on her new Airpods. Karwal had already lost two pairs herself, so the family started jokingly taking turns guessing how long it would take her sister to lose them.

“I gave her two weeks,” Karwal said. “My brother gave her two days. She managed to exceed all our guesses [having not yet lost them].” 

They’ve taken over in classrooms as well as homes, with English teacher Christine Baker says that she’s noticed an increase in popularity, to the point where students are listening to them in class every day.

“Sometimes I can hear [the music] and I worry the students might go deaf,” Baker said.

Two sophomore boys sat at a lab station on Friday morning, near the back of their second period chemistry class. They spoke to each other in hushed tones while their finals review packets remained untouched.

“Are those new?” one student asked, gesturing at the other’s ear.

“Want to try them?” the other students said. The first eagerly nodded and took them, while the owner of the Airpods selected some music on his phone. The two students glanced around to make sure their teacher wasn’t looking and spent the rest of the period jamming out.

Second generation Airpods dropped earlier this year, and implemented new features such as wireless charging and the ability to talk to Siri, Apple’s digital assistant.

“[The best thing about them is that] you don’t have to deal with wires,” junior Uwais Khan said. “They’re a great gift for the holidays.”