iPod, Therefore I Am.

On a recent trip to the campus library I encountered another example of a growing trend at MSSU: students walking around in public, plugged into their iPods, loudly singing or rapping along with the lyrics they are apparently listening to.

It's a strange phenomenon to experience from the outside, and can be quite disturbing until you notice the headphones. This is similar to the experience of being in the same general area as a person having a cell phone conversation on a hands-free set. In both cases, I initially experience a sense of disorientation: public space is not supposed to operate this way, with people carrying on loud conversations with unknown interlocutors or singing Karoke with backup bands that are silent (to us anyway). It could be argued, in fact, that such acts destroy public space, and substitute a cacaphony of competing private spaces, each trying to drown the other out.

If you haven't guessed by now, I find this new trend depressing and disturbing. As much as I love my personal MP3 player and can relate to the joy of blasting my own tunes on the car stereo loud enough to let the world know my tastes, I feel acutely aware of how my presence in public space affects others. I cannot keep my headphones on, for instance, if there is another person nearby who may need or expect my attention. Even if I can actually hear the other person and take part in a conversation (because the sound is low), there is something offputting about the headphones----a barrier to the other---that I am conscious of.

Am I a member of the last generation to feel a sense of melancholy ambivalence to the "privatization" of public space by these new technologies? Will we come to accept as entirely normal public spaces full of people cut off from one another, indifferent and even hostile to how their presence (talking, singing, rapping, etc.) affects others?

Are institutions like MSSU encouraging this kind of thinking when we promote the wonders of technology (like distance learning) which allows everyone to have their own privately-tailored personal educational experience? Is this creating the expectation that wrapped in our technological cocoons, each of us has a right to our own personally-tailored reality, with little regard to how this might affect others around us?

I wonder if others have thought about this---and whether they share my concerns.