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09 March 2004
using an iPod to "regain your personal space"
From the BBC, an article about how iPods help listeners reclaim their personal space in a world that visually and aurally pummels us. I've found this to be true, and am going to seek out more information on Dr. Bull's research in this area.
Perhaps this explains why I enjoy riding the metro in Paris and the u-bahn in Frankfurt: while there are still advertisements and conversations, I'm able to tune them out because I'm not fluent in either French or German. More snippets sneak through in French, but unless I overhear something really interesting I'm able to shut it out. That's not always the case on the home front.
Lewis Black has famously (and comedically) commented on this subject of unwanted communication. In one of his monologues, he opines that brain aneurisms might be caused by hearing something stupid. That stupidity finds its way into your brain. You can't get it out of your head and some time later--blam!--it destroys a blood vessel. As an example he mentions a snippet of a conversation he overheard at an IHOP, where a woman says: "If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college." This causes Black great consternation, but serves as wonderful fodder for the rest of the monologue (available on The White Album). Not for the faint of heart, or ear...