Alex Pang, my colleague at the Institute For The Future, has written an excellent personal essay for the San Jose Mercury News about the joy of the iPod. From the article:
…Making media experiences private often seems to raise concerns about the consequences of isolation.
Usually the fears seem misplaced in retrospect. In the Middle Ages, reading had been a public, group experience; the rise of literacy rates and diffusion of cheap books sparked worries that people would start reading and thinking for themselves — and deviate from religious teachings. Society survived, and people have found a way of reconnecting over books: book clubs.
More recently, in the 1950s, people lamented that the transistor radio would spell the end of families gathered around the radio; it did, but it didn't stop families from listening to music and talking together. Parents were no longer able to prevent their children from secretly listening to rock 'n' roll, or doo-wop, or even jazz, but that hasn't pulled families apart, either.
Some technologies even move from one extreme to the other. Parents who used to worry that the personal computer would isolate their kids now fret about them spending too much time instant messaging.
Link (free reg. required but BugMeNot.com's login seems to work: FrodoBaggins@mailinator.com, valinor1)
