iPod with video delights and isolates

Not necessarily a good or bad thing, but certainly nothing new. As Dan says, many of us have been losing ourselves in a book for decades. What, exactly, are we missing out on? Meaningful interaction with others of our own species? On the bus?!

These sort of commentaries on the death of socialization due to iPods are ridiculous. iPod or not, I probably don't want to talk to you for most of my day. I have little enough time to myself as it is. With the increasing pace of our world it should not come as a surprise that many of us simply want to tune out at our rare convenience.

I have to deal with you day in and day out. I must tolerate your every banality. I do so with aplomb. Why should I be chastised for those times when I simply want nothing to do with you? I don't have a spa membership. I don't live on a farm that I visit from once a month to sell my carrots. I am socializing all the live long day. I'm sick of you at times.

If not for those moments when I am able to simply shut you out I would be left with no alternatives beyond homicide or commitment to an asylum.

Having my own private space where no one bugs me... definitely a good thing!

I was blocking out my surroundings with a book and a CD player ten years ago. This is no different.

Would it be a bad thing if people would mind to themselves once in awhile.

...but part of me thinks that cocooning ourselves into little private spaces defined by our iPods in very public spaces can't be a good thing. I can easily imagine a day when everyone on the train will be focused on a small screen with earbuds blocking out the noise and totally blocking out the environment around them....

like in airplanes?