My, oh my, from iPod to whyPod in the twinkling of an eye
By Richard Glover
October 22, 2005
The new generation iPod, just unveiled, comes with a screen. We can now sit on the bus and watch our favourite sit-com or music video. What a relief. There was a danger, just for a moment, we might be left alone for a moment with our own thoughts.
It's a new age for the screen idol. Or perhaps the screen idle: a population that just loves to watch. Many of us spend our working days in front of one screen, and arrive home only to install ourselves in front of another. Apple has spotted the opportunity: the few minutes during which we are between screens. Arise the new iPod.
Or should we call it the "whyPod", as in the phrase "why do we need it?" When you listen to music on the bus, or as you walk, your mind can wander. A screen is different - it demands all your attention, even though, so often, it offers so little in return.
With the tiny screen held in front of our faces, and the headphones plugged in, we are entirely cocooned. Like medieval monks - heads bowed and prayer books held up - we'll be fully engaged in our act of worship.
Why are we so afraid of a few moments in which our minds can float, and thoughts can bubble up? And what are people going to watch on all these multiplying screens anyway?
At night, we search the TV program for anything that is neither grisly forensics nor plain dull.
Already, at the video store, we walk the aisles, unable to find anything worth watching. Some Friday nights there, I see people on their mobile phones, trying to explain the situation to their partner back home: yes, the video store has thousands of titles; yes, Hollywood produces fresh mountains of this stuff every month; but, no, there's not one single title worth borrowing that everyone in the household hasn't seen 10 times before.
But still the screens multiply, as if there's so much good stuff to watch we must cram it into every corner of our lives.
The screens get bigger, and at the same time smaller. Somehow both are marketed as "must haves". The airlines have installed screens in the back of each seat even for the shortest of trips. There's hardly a pub without about five of them. And new cars now come with them fitted in the back seat in order to anaesthetise the children during journeys. This had been one of the few remaining periods in which children and parents talked and interrelated - sometimes even played games and sang - so you can see why a screen had to be rushed into service to stop all of that.
My local bank has even installed a screen next to the queue in order to entertain the waiting crowd. The video tells you what great service the bank offers, while you simultaneously experience the appalling reality. It's all very Brechtian.
There was even talk this week of supermarket products with throwaway screens built into the packaging, so that products could sing and dance on the shelves, enticing shoppers. Once there's a screen on every packet of chips and bottle of Coke, I don't see why all of us can't have one installed in the back of our heads. Stuck in a queue, you could catch up on a few old episodes of M*A*S*H, buried within the head of the bloke in front of you.
"Portability", of course, is the new word in marketing: "Now that Apple owns portability..." begins a particularly inscrutable sentence in this week's Time magazine. But why is portability such a great thing? Do we feel nude without our gadgets? Are we afraid of being alone for a moment without our friends Mr Mobile, Ms Laptop and Master myPod?
Why this reluctance to do one thing at a time? It's as if we are trying to distract ourselves from some terrible realisation. As if we are trying to stave off some monster that lurks just out of view. People walk the dog and talk on the mobile. They drive and shave and drink coffee. They eat and walk. Eat and read. Watch and eat. We marinate ourselves in noise and activity.
Not convinced yet that we've gone complete mental? Consider this: last week I made a phone call to a colleague who, I have reason to believe, answered my call while engaged in the bathroom.
Can I make the important point: this is multitasking gone too far. Way too far.
I'm now considering buying this guy the new iPod. At least that way he could occupy himself while on the dunny watching a few old episodes of Seinfeld. Instead of answering his phone. | 
