Get Connected

I look at all the people wearing IPOD's on the train on the way into work and feel disconnected. I am wearing one myself and, if I wanted to, I could probably go through the whole day wearing a pair of headphones on and never speak to anyone.

It might just be the change of seasons and city-living getting to me but I increasingly find myself disconnected like this. The days of having a conversation with a stranger on the train or bus are well and truly over. If you can even find a person without headphones in their ears, the chances are that if you open your mouth and say "Hello!", they will look at you like you just crapped in their coffee.

It makes me sad and I have been making more of an effort to open my mouth and talk. Pleasantness never killed anyone and if you find me annoying then I hope that somehow, somewhere in the back of your mind, you will find it quite refreshing that someone said "Nice day isn't it?" to you this morning without making you wonder "What the fuck does this person want?".

On a related note, the claim to fame of the new Microsoft mp3 player "Zune", is that you can share music wirelessly with another user sitting close by. This is an interesting concept as it allows you to communicate without actually communicating. A modern day version of tribes using drum beats to communicate.

It's killing one of the things I love because I think A wonder of music is that once you find the scene/genre that you like, it will connect you with others like you. Your own tribe if you like. You can dance with them, you can talk to them, you can drink with them, you can have sex with them, you can marry them, you can have babies with them, you can build a lasting and meaningful relationship.

You can't do any of these things with a wireless mp3 player.

Staying on the connected note: we recently upgraded the phone line in our house and put in a phone system with additional wireless handsets, however, in case of a power cut we have kept one physically connected corded phone.

I find myself being drawn to this phone more as it forces me to stand in one place and actually listen to what the other person is saying as opposed to wandering around the house doing other things while talking wirelessly. I also feel that by holding onto this old receiver I am somehow connected to the person at the other end of it, like a soup can with a giant bit of string connecting it to another soup can thousands of miles away. Whatever happened to the old soup can phones??? Do kids still make those or do we all have "Playskool" electronic communications systems?

Listen to me, I sound like an old fogey... well in my day..........