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The iPod has become practically a staple for today's youth, and even a good
number of adults. I am an exception. They're everywhere now, the little white
buds pumping an entire media universe straight to your senses. Now for a mere
few hundred dollars, you can tune out anytime to anything you want. With your
entire musical and video library just a wheel click away, why even pay attention
to anything else? After all, your music library says so much about you that you
would surely be lost without constant access to it, since if it's not measured
in gigabytes, it's not worth your attention.
I do not want to fall victim to the convenience an iPod offers for several
reasons, the least being that I need that $350 dollars for sustenance and
mobility. Apple has done a fabulous job marketing their revolutionary new
product, penetrating into our lives so thoroughly that this luxury item is now a
necessity. On the surface, an iPod sounds like the perfect package: put all the
things that make you feel good in one place, and have a pick-me-up anytime. I
won't pretend to be a complete purist; I steal my brother's for long car rides
or workouts, but I guarantee you'll never see me violently head banging in the
crosswalk. Being a clueless pedestrian is not on my to-do list, simply because
I don't enjoy wrestling SUVs, even when that same Escalade pulls out into
oncoming traffic because the driver is too busy poppin' and lockin' to the new
Fergie release.
Even if one were somehow capable of operating a vehicle or navigating
busy streets with earbuds bumping, one is still emotionally handicapped when in
public. Say I am walking down the sidewalk in Chinatown with my earbuds pulsing
with the latest buzz. Assailing my eardrums with whatever noise I desire, I am
depriving myself of a rich sensory experience waiting in the periphery. The
sounds of traffic, the hollering of stall owners, the hiss of steam escaping
from the grates, snatches of a pedestrian's scandalous private conversation:
all of this is lost, a unique experience ignored, all for a song that isn't
going anywhere. IPods kill organic experience, and whatever I have to learn
from recorded material, I can absorb when I get home.
Also, I see what happens as more and more of my contemporaries find friends
in their sleek, white escape mechanisms. Conversation dwindles as we sit in our
separate worlds, though mine's the only one that's actually passing them by. I
am not going to buy an iPod simply because I don't need it to be happy, and I
don't need it to be whole. I will resist seeing our culture identify more with
a reflection of emotion than its expression in the present. I will also fight
against a need we have created for ourselves, one that values efficiency and
customizability over a moment that is quickly fading into the background and can
never be recreated. This is why you won't see me with an iPod. It's not the
money I would miss; it's the reality.
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