IPod, how it changes our perspective of music and how it affects the society.

"The iPod is the first cultural icon of the 21st century. There is nothing else like it in terms of the mix of style, functionality and consumer desire. The technology is appealing because it can be programmed very quickly and easily. ----------Dr Michael Bull "Without music, life would be a mistake." ----------Friedrich Nietzsche For every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage. ----------Neil Postman [3]

IPod, how it changes our perspective of music and how it affects the society.

Carlos Llosa EGR 102 Profesor 09/07/2011

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IPod, how it changes our perspective of music and how it affects the society. During the past years, many people have acquired new devices with which you can load your music, videos, pictures, etc. One of the best known devices in this competition are the iPods. iPods are small, affordable, and have a large memory capacity. With some versions, you can even surf the web, watch You Tube videos, or check your Facebook page. These products are probably the invention of the decade, but many people are not comfortable with them because of the effects they have on society. According to www.itunes.com, there is an average of 21 songs legally downloaded on every iPod, while the maximum number of songs that the iPod with the least memory can carry is 500. The maximum number of songs that the iPod with the most memory can carry is 50,000. Some professionals say that there is no way to eliminate illegal music from iPods, since the internet is full of illegal music. This would be like expecting people not to touch wallets full of cash that are dropped in the streets. Some iPods can store up to 50,000 songs, how many people are willing to pay $50,000 in filling their iPods? Downloading music without paying for it is totally illegal and is considered theft, but people do not care about this until they get a letter that states that they are being sued. There is an overwhelming increase in illegal downloaded music in the past years because iPod makes it possible and easy to store music and because there is no way iTunes can know where your music comes from. Some people even say that the iPod promotes stealing music via sharing systems, such as Lime Wire or Ares. It is obvious that there is a strong relationship between the number of iPods sold and the easy ways to fill them up with music. This has an impact in the way we perceive music. Our parents used to save money in order to buy the new disc of The Beatles or AC/DC, and now everybody can make and sell music with a computer. This is not done only by means of illegal music, but also affects the way people see music itself.
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IPod, how it changes our perspective of music and how it affects the society. In the past, a trip to the music store required a purchase of the whole album. Buying specific titles of iTunes has greatly affected the way music is perceived in society. There is also the question about the value of an iPod to society. How does it help or hinder society? IPods are not only affecting people in a social way, but also physically. Listening to music too loudly with headphones may harm or diminish your hearing; it could even break your eardrums and leave you deaf. This means that people will spend more money on doctors because of the useful iPod. Does society want to do this? Can it afford it? It is also important to consider that people are having more accidents because they are driving cars, riding bikes, or walking with earphones. Is society ready to live with thousands of new deaf people? According to Michael Bull, author of Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience and professor at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom [1], It [the iPod] gives people totally private worlds. Personal stereos reflect a cultural drift. There's a long history of individualized listening -- kids with stereos in their bedrooms, for example. In the '20s people listened to radios with headphones . I think music has become more personal, the music on their personal stereos was different to the music they listened to at home. The music often reminded them of something nice. It was very personal. They don't want others listening to it.... We can infer from this statement that the iPods have made people more isolated from other people, and that definitely affects the society. Having less shared musical experiences may lead to a more individualistic based society rather than a sharing one where people feel responsible for each other. Warren St. John, in an article published in the New York Times [2], classify them as: They [The New Yorkers with iPods] stand in line at Starbucks and at banks, unaware that the person at the counter is yelling ''Next!'' No matter how loudly you shuffle your feet on the
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IPod, how it changes our perspective of music and how it affects the society. sidewalk behind them -- making the scrunchy sole-on-cement sound that New Yorkers instinctively understand as ''Move!'' -- they won't step aside. And as the less fortunate among us know, forget asking these people if they can spare some change. They can't hear you! Since people can isolate the world with iPods, they feel they can enjoy themselves in their own way, while not disturbing others. This could result in a reduced sense of shared experience of music, changing the whole idea of music from a social aspect, to an individual aspect. For example it may reduce the tendency to listen to radio or a shared concert. What is different about the iPod that wasn't true of the Walkman when it first came out? Was it not the same? The last problem of iPods with society is that the iPod has reduced artistic talents. Some very nice music groups, such as Tool, refuse to sell their albums online because they do not want them broken into individual tracks; the result is that many bands are absent of internet sites and fewer people are aware of them. Therefore, we can imply that the iPod has also changed the music. Some groups like Pink Floyd or Radiohead do very ugly songs, but when you listen to them in the order given on the discs, they make. Because of the iPod, this cannot be possible. People prefer to buy individual tracks from iTunes instead of whole discs. When criticizing a technological artifact, we have to consider its pros and cons to both the people and the planet. One clear example is that the automobile has poisoned our air, choked our cities, and degraded the beauty of our natural landscape [3]. The Automobile has now changed to be more nature friendly. Is this going to happen with the iPod? Who needs to adapt to whom? The iPod to the society or the society to the iPod? Sources:

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IPod, how it changes our perspective of music and how it affects the society. [1] Michael Bull (2004). Personal Interview, Wired Magazine, February 25, 2004. [2] [3] Warren St. Johns (2004). The World at Ears' Length. (Article) New York Times, February 15, 2004. Postman, N. (1998). Five things we need to know about technological change. (Conference) Denver, CO March 27, 1998.

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