Are you missing out on life by adding your own soundtrack?

I gave my unsolicited two cents on this person's blog concerning the following topic.

One of my old housemates from Seattle, Jeff, used to chide me because I listened to my CD player during my commute on the bus. He said that I was missing out on all the excitement and energy of city life that you miss when you have headphones cutting you off from the outside world.

My first thought was to what this statement would sound like said to a deaf person. Thus my comment, repeated hear because I might like to flesh out the idea a little more someday.

Andrew Sullivan makes a good point, but would he apply the same descriptors to a deaf person wandering about the city. It's sometimes good to totally immerse yourself in the world around you, but do buds in your ears change that much when you're alone and not talking to anyone anyway? People don't look "a little vacant" when listening to their iPod, they have simply shifted their attention. When you have ears that hear you can afford to do things like make direct eye contact with strangers and notice those subtle social cues. If you are deaf or listening to your iPod your attention is simply focused more on other things your ears would normally be ever ready to tell you about.

P.S. The supposedly theraputic quality of city sounds sounds like BS to me, admittedly a bit of a country boy. I'll take my music out of my ears for real things (e.g. people, animals, nature,the movement of earth, sea, or sky), not constructed things (e.g. machines, taxi drivers, and other dead echoes ever present in a concrete jungle).