Life Between Earbuds
Last week we looked at Life on Cable TV, specifically that ubiquitous genre of "reality" TV. That's the junk programming that let's us take a good long look at the (supposedly) private lives of other people who are complete strangers. Can we all agree that - apart from a curious glance or two - spending time staring at a screen watching complete strangers, most of whom proudly display a completely dysfunctional existence, can't be good for the development of reason and common sense, those two essential components of living a sane life in our media saturated and manipulated modern "culture"?
In any case, while the eyeball glue that attaches so many Americans (and others, one assumes) to TV, laptop, tablet and smart phone screens has mercifully left my own pair of ocular marbles unspoiled, it's my ears I'm worried about now. It's only recently dawned on me how much time those auditory canals host those earbuds we use to shut out all ambient sound in favor of our choice of aural stimulation. In my case, much of this consists of music from three main sources: 1) Pandora.com; 2) WQXR.org; 3) my iPod collection. While I suspect my total plugged-in time doesn't approach the creatures I've seen walking about on the street or twitching on the subway, still I wonder if it's healthy to bombard my eardrums with music so much of the time. How much? Well, maybe an hour a day, sometimes a bit more or less.
Of course, my justification for spending such a chunk of my precious waking hours revolves around a belief that the music that journeys through the 2.5 centimeters of my ear canal with my explicit permission tends to be a cut above that which can at times assault our auditory senses unfiltered. We're talking here about not so much music from unwanted sources as we are the kind of vocal input that emanates primarily from our fellow human beings with whom we come into contact each day. From the vulgarisms that comprise so much of the everyday language of men, women, boys and girls these days, to the idiotic blather that emanates across the spectrum from so-called "news" sources on the one hand to what passes for verbal communication from friends, family, co-workers and other familiar sources. Okay, I'm being a bit snobbish here. I'm not particularly known to initiate a high-level of stimulating, cultured or otherwise enriching conversation on a continual basis, but the very fact that a slug like me wants to escape what he considers an oppressive combination of vulgarity and inanity speaks volumes about the general level of verbal communication with which most of us are surrounded.
Hence the ear buds, recently, by the way, supplemented with an inexpensive but rather impressive sounding pair of headphones, brought to my attention by one of my sons who knows a lot more about such things than I. Then again, now that we've got FIOS service in our home, which includes a gazillion cable TV channels, there are times when so-and-so is watching something in which I'm not particularly interested, so I suppose the headphones - which effectively screen out the TV speaker sound - were a good investment.
Seen in that light, I suppose we might conclude there's been a certain enhancement to my quality of life. On the other hand, how all this has effected and will continue to affect my already addled brain remains to be seen.
In any case, while the eyeball glue that attaches so many Americans (and others, one assumes) to TV, laptop, tablet and smart phone screens has mercifully left my own pair of ocular marbles unspoiled, it's my ears I'm worried about now. It's only recently dawned on me how much time those auditory canals host those earbuds we use to shut out all ambient sound in favor of our choice of aural stimulation. In my case, much of this consists of music from three main sources: 1) Pandora.com; 2) WQXR.org; 3) my iPod collection. While I suspect my total plugged-in time doesn't approach the creatures I've seen walking about on the street or twitching on the subway, still I wonder if it's healthy to bombard my eardrums with music so much of the time. How much? Well, maybe an hour a day, sometimes a bit more or less.
Of course, my justification for spending such a chunk of my precious waking hours revolves around a belief that the music that journeys through the 2.5 centimeters of my ear canal with my explicit permission tends to be a cut above that which can at times assault our auditory senses unfiltered. We're talking here about not so much music from unwanted sources as we are the kind of vocal input that emanates primarily from our fellow human beings with whom we come into contact each day. From the vulgarisms that comprise so much of the everyday language of men, women, boys and girls these days, to the idiotic blather that emanates across the spectrum from so-called "news" sources on the one hand to what passes for verbal communication from friends, family, co-workers and other familiar sources. Okay, I'm being a bit snobbish here. I'm not particularly known to initiate a high-level of stimulating, cultured or otherwise enriching conversation on a continual basis, but the very fact that a slug like me wants to escape what he considers an oppressive combination of vulgarity and inanity speaks volumes about the general level of verbal communication with which most of us are surrounded.
Hence the ear buds, recently, by the way, supplemented with an inexpensive but rather impressive sounding pair of headphones, brought to my attention by one of my sons who knows a lot more about such things than I. Then again, now that we've got FIOS service in our home, which includes a gazillion cable TV channels, there are times when so-and-so is watching something in which I'm not particularly interested, so I suppose the headphones - which effectively screen out the TV speaker sound - were a good investment.
Seen in that light, I suppose we might conclude there's been a certain enhancement to my quality of life. On the other hand, how all this has effected and will continue to affect my already addled brain remains to be seen.
Comments