iPod and the End of Civilization

It is true that the present generation has become dependent on music and technology in a different way that previous generations have. People are expecting ‘connectedness’ in every aspect of their life in ways that are unprecedented. While such obsession to control through email, Internet and constant IMing can be detrimental; music may be a different case. Music describes the culture of present day generations. There are certainly extreme cases in which individuals cannot stand being without music, but I do not think that it is quite to the extreme that Rick Barry seems to believe it to be. And as long as there is proper balance, there are certainly benefits to having music available to listen to. When there is growing frustration waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, music allows a release to keep from wanting to strangle the teller who feels the need to repeat every number twenty times, a minute, at the highest volume possible. Music also allows a mood change to improve an outlook on a bad day or to appreciate the beauty around. It would seem that it is not the iPod that would be truly the problem in Barry’s eyes so much as the low attention spans that children grow up in the present day in the presence of various influences (television, advertisements, declines in reading etc), but that is another argument.