Imagine you are out for your local bar breakfast, and not long after you settle in you realize that out of the nine people sitting on either side of you, six of them are watching videos on their phones, each having turned up the volume to hear over the general din of customer conversations and whatever music is playing on the stereo.
Even you and your brain—your very, very typical brain—would find that difficult to process, impossible to filter, and potentially painful.
So, now, picture me, out for my regular bar breakfast. As with all outings, I’ve got my ear defenders (NRR rating of 23) on, because even just the general vague racket of the world is difficult. Not long after I settle in at the bar, a single customer two seats down from me is watching videos on their phone.
That one source of out-of-place noise attacks my actually-autistic brain the way six simultaneous sources would attack yours. In a worse way, really, because of the way an autistic brain seems to hold onto sensory and environmental input for longer, and more traumatic periods, of time than does your neurotypical brain.
Now imagine that yesterday still reverberates through my psyche. It’s not even yet noon, and just this simple trip out to bar breakfast felt like the poking of a raw, exposed nerve. Coming home after, I’ve yet to remove my ear defenders, which I almost never wear in the comfort of my own apartment, because inside I still feel like glass.
There’s literally nothing you need to listen to or watch on your phone while you are in a public place that’s more important than my health. You aren’t causing an annoyance (well, you are), you’re causing damage.