I think that might be a part of it, but also it is also kind of the equivalent of the guy in the 1980s and 1990s with a boombox making you listen to music on the metro, or in the 2000's/2010s making you listen to his music from his cellphone/bluetooth speaker.. but now its like every single person is cabable of doing this..

My roommates 35 year old brother from russia stayed on our couch for a few months(escaping the draft) and didn't have a laptop, just his iphone.. He would just spend hours watching tiktok with that annoying bro-step/ableton core tik tok crap on his iphone speakers.. completely unphased by it... eventually I got used to hearing it in the background as well. The guy has headphones but this is something that seems to be normalizing. I see this on the bus and train as well