(no subject)
This is my mp3 player and the headphones that I got for my birthday ages ago. The mp3 player has a microphone in it too, and the other day I conducted my second ever journalistic interview. It went heaps better than my first interview, and I'm sure it's going to be one of those things that gets better with practise.
It's all got me thinking about iPods and mp3 players- the little gadgets that mean so much to our generation. I think that overall, the internet defines the paradoxical dilemmas of Gen-Y even more... [the fact that we have the whole world at our fingertips but we're so spoilt for choice that we don't know where to begin. Or the fact that heaps of people spend so much time on their blogs that they never go outside to do anything worthy of writing about.]
But anyway, mp3 players. Ages ago, someone said to me that iPods aren't that different to the Discmans and stuff we've always had. And with such little technological difference, there's little cultural difference, they said.
But iPods have made a huge cultural difference. With Walkmans (Walkmen sp?) we used to have to stop and swap tapes-or-CDs-or-batteries. But silence is now an option, not a necessity; your life can now have an unending soundtrack. And while a life without occasional silence would be tragic for most of us, you can't blame the iPod itself for giving us that option.
Also, with the bigger models of mp3 players, with 40gig or whatever, that's enough to carry your entire music collection. And with music being the main cultural flag of a person-or-culture... it makes a big difference that you can now carry the majority of your culture around with you, ready to share with anyone at the drop of a hat.
Theres a few issues though, but just as the Flower Children eventually worked out that being on acid ALL THE TIME isn't a good idea, we'll work out the difference between commincation and isolation.
For the time being though, it's often confusing. Like, if an old aqquaintance gets on your bus, are you socially obliged to take off your headphones to say "hi". Are they then obligated to come and talk to you? And what about if you order something at the counter of a shop? Bah.