Originally Posted by
ryry2003
It is for safety reasons that you are not supposed to be wearing headphones during take off and landing as you can't hear the verbal directions of flight attendants and the cables become trip hazards, they used to hand out headphones after the plane has reached cruising height but people now bring their own.
As I mentioned, the headphones were noise-canceling, which drown out ambient noise, yet allow voices to be heard. I understand not wearing regular headphones where you can't hear others speak, but I just wondered if there were some other reason.