The hell of aural leakage and imposition

A thought provoking piece from Kester, here: Kester Brewin � Tsskk Tsskk… Why Do Kids Play Music on Buses?
As a teacher Kester is rightly concerned in this article to understand the thing from the participant-actor's point of view. First of all on 'aural imposition' (my term): "Some students who were interviewed for the piece didn’t think that playing music was antisocial, just that the bus was too quiet and they wanted something to listen to. However, a sociologist sees it being more about marking out ownership of space. This can be done physically – by lolling out and taking up a number of seats. It could also be done graphically by ‘tagging’ around various places. But the most immediate and obvious way of stating that you have control over a space is aurally because it flows so widely."
Now this is relatively rare in my experience (mercifully). And I think that I disagree with the sociologist's interpretation. Drawing on my own youth when, I confess, I went through a phase of doing rather similar things (only the technology was different -remember cassettes?) what I was doing was not claiming space. In the exuberance of youth I wanted to share what I enjoyed musically. I just didn't really have any idea that -as I now realise- if others didn't really like Wishbone Ash or Pink Floyd that I'd be vexing them greatly. So that's what I've assumed is going on. However, it hasn't helped me devise an intervention that I could feel would work without getting awkward or nasty. Sometimes bus drivers intervene to enforce no-music, often not.

Aural leakage, on the other hand is when someone has the ear-buds in but they are in the process of going deaf (and there is a chicken-and-egg conundrum in that) because the thin, tinny, escaped sound is irritating fellow passengers. Sometimes I've seen this challenged, particularly in the quiet carriage on a train. It seems easier to challenge: after all the user by having ear-buds in signals that they are trying to be considerate of others, so there is a basis on which to approach them to ask for the volume to be turned down.

So maybe the leakage scenario helps us to understand the imposition scenario. In the latter there is clearly no attempt to use means to minimise intrusion on others: it is desired that we should hear. Well, perhaps not always; quite often what is happening is that a handful of teens (in my experience) are sharing snippets of stuff they like with one another; perhaps they aren't really considering the wider impact at all, or if they do they may consider that they are educating the rest of us in what real music is.
I'm considering carrying around a set of those cheap £1 earbud sets and offering them to the polluters so they can share in private.