Hanging up and tuning out

I'll be the first to admit I talk too loud on my cellular telephone.

In fact, I have been so obnoxious and inappropriate that a bus driver was forced to pull his vehicle over, remove himself from the driver's seat and personally suggest that I hang up my cell phone or remove myself from the bus -- even after I had purposefully taken a seat in the bus' empty back section in a failed attempt to spare my fellow passengers from my STD scare epic.

Despite my best efforts to keep my business to myself, I have undeniably become the classic side effect of a cell phone culture.

There is, however, a new kid on the block about to change all that.

Lucky for all the annoyed bus riders and exasperated students trying to study, the new kid is creating a cell phone counter culture.

By kid I do mean iPod, and he sure is the right stuff.

The right stuff, that is, if you want to tune out all the abrasive white noise of the world, like loud cell phone talkers for example.

Eerily mirroring the rapid rise of mobile phone usage is the explosion of these tiny portable music storehouses.

You see them everywhere, especially on the UW campus. iPods have almost instantly become a standard accessory, as common as Nalgene bottles.

While I can attest to the luxury of not listening (especially to conversations involving one-night-stands gone wrong), being surrounded by people tuned into technology is unsettling.

I mean what happens when someone yells for help or just for a friendly hello and all you hear is Beyonce's latest cut?

What happens is up to your iPod's volume level, but that's hardly the point.

The point is that the convenience of creating such a personal bubble in effect cuts a person off from the continually changing interactive world that begs to be engaged.

I was recently chatting with a local bike messenger who made a reference to the downtown Seattle nine-to-fivers only existing in their climate controlled "bubbles of apathy." Existing in these technology-induced comfort zones can come at the expense of being a conscious part of the living, breathing city life.

People go from air-conditioned cars into air-conditioned elevators and lobbies, only to spend the entire day in an air-conditioned office.

It would seem that with such an indoor daily schedule, people would be starving for the chance to hear the traffic, casual conversation and sharp breezes that brings downtown to life.

Instead they just switch on their iPods, stare apathetically at the sidewalk and gulp down their latte's while rushing between air-conditioned bubbles.

This general disengaging from the world should not just be taken for granted as the natural evolution of the modern citizen.

The apathy should instead be stopped.

It's much easier not to care about the people sharing the sidewalk, who might ask you for directions or unknowing point you in a new direction, when consumed by an iPod coma.

I mean who wants their own world invaded by outsiders, right?

Oh well, at least taking too loud on my cell phone will no longer be a problem.

I mean who can hear me over their iPods, right?