Pod People
That self-described crank is our resident chin-scratcher and pad-scribbler, Dick Meyer, who puts his talents to good use every week with his column at CBSNews.com, Against the Grain.
This week, Dick takes on the iPod and people who use it:
Portable devices such as the iPod and the cell phone are dangerous to the mental health of homo sapiens living together in crowded quarters, if not to actual life and limb. They foster rudeness and public narcissism at a time when those vices need no encouragement. Kruger aptly calls it "iPod Oblivion."There's more, much more, and we think it would be worth your while to check it out. Sometimes a little crank can produce something rich.Many mobile technologies foster this obliviousness: BlackBerrys, GameBoys, those hideous Bluetooth dealies that jut from your ears like Frankenstein plugs, portable mini-DVD players and cell phones have some tactile, addictive quality that makes people fondle them incessantly.
These devices not only "connect" people, they disconnect them, too. Talking full volume on a phone in a crowded waiting room to your old roommate about his long battle with eczema may connect you to your faraway friend, but it alienates you from the people in the room. Indeed, it signals disrespect to them and their privacy.
Now, it appears these mobile e-tools of Satan provide precisely what many people navigating the outside world want and need: obliviousness. Indeed, young people see it as a basic human right, like free speech and gun-toting.