The other day I had a near catastrophic experience: My iPod wouldn’t charge.
A look of terror spread across my face-it was that look a 5-year-old boy gives you right before he pees his pants. My whole life flashed before my eyes, and I’ve only owned the thing for two months.
How could I work out if Gloria wasn’t shouting, “One, two, three, four…come on baby say you love me…?”
I know most of you can sympathize with this nightmare, and therein lies the problem-we live in a society that demands we be entertained every moment of every day of our lives.
Have we substituted real life with a non-stop soundtrack?
Music accompaniment has become such an essential part of our lives-it even influences how fast we shop or how slowly we eat.
It’s even been suggested that music can influence your child’s intelligence.
Whatever the effect, it is clear that being entertained is one of the single most important priorities today.
Case in point: my roommate and I were driving back from a big day of grocery shopping, and having flipped through every station at least five times, we couldn’t find any satisfactory music.
“Let’s just turn it off and have a quiet moment,” she suggested.
I stared at her incredulously. My first reaction was, “Why?”
Why on earth would we turn off the radio?
The fact is that not only have we become music addicts, but we’ve also become spoiled music addicts.
We must have individual control over almost all our musical accompaniment.
For instance, if you don’t like the regular radio, you can invest in the new, exciting world of satellite radio.
Don’t like the noise of everyday bustle? Shell out a couple hundred and you’ve got a device-the almighty iPod-to tune out everything but the tunes you want.
iPods have even crept their way into daily communication. A few days ago I visited the University Bookstore, and as I waited in line, I noticed patron after patron being rung up with their earphones still in!
“Textbooks are fully refundable until Sept. 3; have a nice day.”
“Huh?”
Listening to one’s iPod is now apparently preferable to actual human interaction.
What’s more troubling, however, is that pulling out just one earphone is now considered “polite.”
Have we become so accustomed to our all-music-all-the-time lifestyle that we cannot even be bothered to take both our earphones out to interact with other people?
I’m sure many of us are familiar with that famous scene in “Clueless” in which Cher and Dionne are talking to each other on their cell phones-while walking next to each other. That was almost 10 years ago.
Today you can walk next to your best friend-and instead of hanging up when pressed for conversation, you can just pop in those little white earphones and tune him or her out entirely.