Doctor Says iPod Helps Us Find Our Personal Space, No Bull

by , 10:00 AM EST, March 9th, 2004

Feeling cramped? Is the world pressing in on you? Does it seem that your personal space, that imagined aura that separates you from the next guy, is shrinking?

Maybe you should get an iPod.

According to a BBC News report, Dr. Michael Bull, a lecturer in Culture and Media Studies at the University of Sussex, claims that people use devices like the iPod to help reclaim personal space. Dr. Bull say that we are overloaded with visual inputs, and we use the iPod and a set of headphones to shut out the world, wrapping ourselves in a sphere of music. From the BBC article:

We live in a visually dominated culture and suffer constant bombardment by visible messages.

Adverts, shop fascias, street signs, the clothes of fellow pedestrians, newspaper headlines, magazine front covers, car designs create a visual cacophony.

But, says Dr. Bull, it is because of this deafening visual chorus that exercising choice over what we listen to is so important.

Through interviews with Walkman owners and now iPod buyers, he found that listening to music acts as a shield, aura or cocoon.

Using headphones helps to keep the world at bay and reclaim some space.

"They construct their moods, they re-make the time of their day," says Dr. Bull., "It's a much more active process even though it's dependent on the machinery."

Choice is the key factor, he says. By choosing the music, you reclaim some of the world - it's no longer dominated by messages pointed at you.

There's more in the full article at the BBC Web site.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Don't push me cuz I'm close to the edge.
I'm try-ing not to lose my head!
- Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five

Our society exacts a heavy toll from us for the privilege of living in it. More and more we find ourselves shoehorned, crammed, and queued as we go through our daily existence. We rub shoulders with strangers, breathe their air, and they ours, and not all of it is entirely pleasant. Our space, that ever present personal real estate, gets smaller as we accept the fact that we must share in order to get along.

So, how do we cope? For some, it's apparently by immersing ourselves in the sounds that make us happy, by surrounding ourselves with our tunes; iTunes.

Perhaps Apple had this figured all along: iTunes, meaning personal music, and iPod, a personal enclosure, a cocoon of music. If you think about it in that respect, US$249 isn't much at all for such prime space, and there's always the fact that the iPod family is selling like hot cakes.

Maybe Dr. Bull is right, despite his unfortunate name.

More than just a pretty interface