My mom died yesterday. What? My mom... nevermind.

There is a blog on slate.com written my Nikki Saval that gives some pretty insightful points to the obstruction of the iPod. With the birth of anything there is radical change created for those in its immediate proximity so it is true with the iPod. The iPod has revolutionized culture only for those who can get their hands on an iPod. In her article Nikki Saval discusses George Steiner and Alan Bloom discussing recorded music and its affect on society even in the 1960's and 70's. She mentions that the panopticon of the theatre began to lose ground to the privacy of the home stereo and the gramophone.

In my experience with the iPod life is introverted. I am connected to a device that bends to my will and expresses me to me whenever I want and without questions. My iPod allows me to show myself what I want and I can administer that in the form of music. I ask my self the question, "What are you feeling like right now?" and I can answer myself with, "angry". Then I can satisfy my desire for an angry companion by turning on death-core or any of the other obnoxiously disinfranchised bands that whine and complain about life's miseries. This is the same argument that President Obama brought of in his commencement speech to the University of Michigan a year into his presidency. He voiced that he worries that the highly polarized few can hide themselves in the far reaches of misinformation and validate themselves in their behavior because media has become so large and so polarized and uses such ambiguous information that the angry can stay angry and the corrupt can stay corrupt and never have to face the fact that they might be fueled by false allegations.

My iPod allows me to travel alongside thousands without having to deal with a single soul. I can listen to this device and it articulates my deepest desires directly back into the drum of my ear. I don't have to look anywhere else for relationship or connection that might make me uncomfortable but instead through my iPod I can isolate myself from the world around when all gets too overwhelming.

I can not begin to fathom the neurological weaknesses created by this mental and social pacifier. This, however, is not only an implication I have developed, but the authors of our book write this piece into even the introduction when they say, "Even the lines between industrial technology, communication technology and biology have been blurred beyond meaningful distinction." The problem is this, the iPod from my understanding was never created to be biological technology but somehow it has become a medicine that need not be prescribed. Parents use this technology to pacify their children at restaurants, individuals use it to cope with the world around them, and I use it because I have an obsession with music that can not be quenched by a single cd or the radio, I need to be in control of this device.

This technology is nonparticipatory in some regards in that I do not get to choose what the headphones feel like, I don't get to choose how to input the music, I don't get to choose the shape, or features of this device and I certainly don't get to choose its price. This however, does not stop me from surrendering to the hours of learning how to make it function properly, the sore ear holes because they were not made to fit mine, the awkward shape of the device and not knowing how to carry it because if its in my pocket the cord yanks on my ears and if its in my hands I am restricted from doing particular things. I don't want to lose it because it is expensive and so I have to constantly be watching it if I am not using it. Somehow even though this technology is suppose to be convenient I allow it to inconvenience me because the opportunity cost of those inconveniences far out weighs having to strike up a conversation with a long lost friend on campus or having to engage in the classroom with information that might actually put my brain to work. We no longer enjoy conversations on long car rides and listen to each other and the depthful things we might need to share, but instead sit back, plug the ears in and drown in a sea of musical solitude.