If you were to look around at other humans today, chances are you would see a bunch of them listening to some kind of personal music device. People have been using portable cassette players or MP3 players to tune out the world since Sony first introduced something called the “Soundabout” in 1979. In fact, a lot of us have turned into walking zombies–iPod People, if you will–oblivious to much of what’s going on around us.
Believe it or not, this very thing was the great fear of Akio Morita, the founder of Sony and the person in charge when the first Walkmans were introduced. He was said to have been so afraid of Walkmans and their descendants turning us into drones that the first devices had room for two headphone jacks and a microphone so users could share the music and talk to each other. Obviously, that approach didn’t work.
So are personal music devices creating a generation of anti-social zombies? Some people think so.
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