Technology can dramatically improve one’s quality of life. And for many music lovers, the iPod and other MP3 players exemplify this in a big way. When you can take hundreds (or thousands) of songs with you anywhere, how bad can things ever really get?
Take exercise. Literally – I mean please take it because I don’t want it. It’s too much work and it hurts. But not when I have my iPod blasting inspirational Zeppelin and Clapton in my ears – then I can run forever (well, for 35 minutes anyway). Even better, I can tune out all the other joggers who are able to chat amiably about their day, work, spouse or whatever, while I’m struggling to suck in enough oxygen just to remain conscious. (Of course they do it with one ear bud in place so they can listen to music while conversing and jogging and leaping tall buildings…)
Now for the really bad news: the latest iPod nano includes a few new features that have just about ruined my day. The dastardly devious designers have added a video camera and microphone! This means that, no doubt within days, half the joggers and other exercise nuts (er, sorry, people) will be taking video of everything around them, while listening to music, conversing, jogging and doing their online banking all at the same time.
So I just want to make one thing perfectly clear: that video you’ll soon see on YouTube, of a guy with little hair, sucking in air, listening to an antique (more than 3 months old) iPod and jogging at the speed of snail, is not me.
