Music's Anesthesia
Stop all that you are doing right now, and look around you.
Do You, or Are you:
A) Wearing Headphones
B) Have a Stereo nearby, playing.
C) Have a music playing program running on your system (winamp, itunes, wmp, or the like)
D) Listening to the music playing at the coffee shop/internet cafe you are currently occupying. (let me dream that many people read this.)
I'm willing to bet that most of you are doing one of the above (over 70%). And this, really, is what's provoking this entry. Now, before I get starte, let me admit this: I am as guilty as anyone else. I carry an iPod, filled to the brim, with headphones or a radio adapter which could nearly as efficently plug directly into my skull. Though, as much as it would cut midle man, I've seen ghost in the shell enough times to fear having any sort of plug in my body, anywhere. ut thats besides the point. Lets get into it.
Are our own thoughts really so boring? It's gotten to the point where the very idea of walking someplace alone without some kind of audio device pushing lyric into our ears is almost frightening. I can only imagine the corallary between this and iPod sales. As technology allows us to constantly become more dependent upon it, it will take shape in more ways that we view as nessessary. I can only imagine whats next. I mean sure, Sony put walkmans on the market in the 80's, but the clutter of carrying around tapes (and later, cds) kept them limited, to a degree. They were popular, without a doubt, but not to the point of near saturation. I predict that, within five years (a wide margin, I'm willing to go as low as two), Not only will iPods become as common as cell phones (as if they aren't already), but that the two will likely have fused. I've heard talk that the next generation of iPods will feature satillite radio compatibility, so perhaps my two year guess was closer. Considering that mp3 playing cell phones have existed for a couple years now (with a small amount of space, and more problems to boot), the idea hardly seems like a prediction so much as something that I patiently wait for.
But why? Are we so intent upon drowning out everyone else? Are our own thoughts so boring? Or the reverse? Are they so engaging that we wish to be constantly maranading in them? Like some sort of Brain Stew. (ha. ha.) Or, perhaps, do we simply have a constant need to continue assaulting our brains with an endless feed of stimulation? As much as I would like to hope that we're becoming more introspective as a people, I fear it is likely the latter. It was once feared that television would eat our brains if we watched for too long, and we were assaulted with numbers from all sorts of companies and groups with acronyms for names that we watched as absurd amount of tv every day, and were in danger of becoming mindless slugs which lived and died bathed in the cold glow of a tv screeen. I talk to more people these days who watch little to no tv anymore. The reason I'm generally given is the lack of stimulating material, or just a lack of time. (I disagree. I don't watch much tv, but thanks to DVR (or tivo, or whichever you may get) I can almost always find time to relax and catch up on The Office. Or Adult Swim)
In relation to the iPod angle, is television being phased out as our most recent mind filler/killer? (I've some ideas on TV being deregulated and becoming something new soon, but thats an entirely different rant) The majority of music that becomes popular these days is overglossed crap, save some few gems that rise to the surface. Thats all I'll say on that, see my last post for my ideas on what constitutes popular these days. Point is, alot of what most people are piping into their brains is over glossed crap. (to complete the formula) So perhaps soon we'll get those same group with acronyms telling us of ear damage (which they have been forever), and or melting our brains with all this music. I doubt it, but imagine the silliness.
Should I make these into a pod cast? haha.
Incidentally, the thought that spurned this was on a walk home today, without an iPod, in which I thought to myself "How horrible, to have only our own thoughts to keep us company."
One more Blog, down and out.
Do You, or Are you:
A) Wearing Headphones
B) Have a Stereo nearby, playing.
C) Have a music playing program running on your system (winamp, itunes, wmp, or the like)
D) Listening to the music playing at the coffee shop/internet cafe you are currently occupying. (let me dream that many people read this.)
I'm willing to bet that most of you are doing one of the above (over 70%). And this, really, is what's provoking this entry. Now, before I get starte, let me admit this: I am as guilty as anyone else. I carry an iPod, filled to the brim, with headphones or a radio adapter which could nearly as efficently plug directly into my skull. Though, as much as it would cut midle man, I've seen ghost in the shell enough times to fear having any sort of plug in my body, anywhere. ut thats besides the point. Lets get into it.
Are our own thoughts really so boring? It's gotten to the point where the very idea of walking someplace alone without some kind of audio device pushing lyric into our ears is almost frightening. I can only imagine the corallary between this and iPod sales. As technology allows us to constantly become more dependent upon it, it will take shape in more ways that we view as nessessary. I can only imagine whats next. I mean sure, Sony put walkmans on the market in the 80's, but the clutter of carrying around tapes (and later, cds) kept them limited, to a degree. They were popular, without a doubt, but not to the point of near saturation. I predict that, within five years (a wide margin, I'm willing to go as low as two), Not only will iPods become as common as cell phones (as if they aren't already), but that the two will likely have fused. I've heard talk that the next generation of iPods will feature satillite radio compatibility, so perhaps my two year guess was closer. Considering that mp3 playing cell phones have existed for a couple years now (with a small amount of space, and more problems to boot), the idea hardly seems like a prediction so much as something that I patiently wait for.
But why? Are we so intent upon drowning out everyone else? Are our own thoughts so boring? Or the reverse? Are they so engaging that we wish to be constantly maranading in them? Like some sort of Brain Stew. (ha. ha.) Or, perhaps, do we simply have a constant need to continue assaulting our brains with an endless feed of stimulation? As much as I would like to hope that we're becoming more introspective as a people, I fear it is likely the latter. It was once feared that television would eat our brains if we watched for too long, and we were assaulted with numbers from all sorts of companies and groups with acronyms for names that we watched as absurd amount of tv every day, and were in danger of becoming mindless slugs which lived and died bathed in the cold glow of a tv screeen. I talk to more people these days who watch little to no tv anymore. The reason I'm generally given is the lack of stimulating material, or just a lack of time. (I disagree. I don't watch much tv, but thanks to DVR (or tivo, or whichever you may get) I can almost always find time to relax and catch up on The Office. Or Adult Swim)
In relation to the iPod angle, is television being phased out as our most recent mind filler/killer? (I've some ideas on TV being deregulated and becoming something new soon, but thats an entirely different rant) The majority of music that becomes popular these days is overglossed crap, save some few gems that rise to the surface. Thats all I'll say on that, see my last post for my ideas on what constitutes popular these days. Point is, alot of what most people are piping into their brains is over glossed crap. (to complete the formula) So perhaps soon we'll get those same group with acronyms telling us of ear damage (which they have been forever), and or melting our brains with all this music. I doubt it, but imagine the silliness.
Should I make these into a pod cast? haha.
Incidentally, the thought that spurned this was on a walk home today, without an iPod, in which I thought to myself "How horrible, to have only our own thoughts to keep us company."
One more Blog, down and out.
posted by MarcSeveral at 9:32 PM
1 Comments:
i'm one of the 30% at the moment who is not listening to anything at the moment. however, i don't really use music anymore as something to absorb myself in more than i use it as something to buffer between the noise of my thoughts and the noise outside. music is put on when i feel like thinking. music thinks i'm ignoring her.
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