How noise-cancelling tech is turning us into sound 'consumers'

Noise canceling headphones are only becoming more sophisticated, but media studies professor Mack Hagood is concerned about the consequences of picking and choosing which sounds we get to hear.

Hagood is the author of Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control. Even though he enjoys listening to podcasts and music on his headphones, he says they cut off the possibility of “sonic spontaneity.”

“We've really become consumers of sound, rather than people who just simply experience the sounds around us,” he said.

Brother Phap Huu is a buddhist monk who left his family in Mississauga, Ont. to study under Vietnamese peace activist and monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Huu tells us what drew him to make that fateful choice when he was only 13 years old.