How much things have changed.

I was on the bus this morning. It was not any bus, but a loud, messy, claustrophobia-inducing one. This seems like the perfect place for some meaningless social interaction. Let me rephrase: meaningless is everything (feel free to quote that). Huh? Alright. Fine. I’ll explain what I mean.

Saying “hi” to the local barista every morning as you grab your coffee, bumping into someone on the subway and apologizing, and dealing when your boss comes angrily over to you desk to scold you for a failure are all very normal things. Or they were ten years ago.

Ten years ago, the first iPod was in development, 9/11 had not yet happened, and the world had a very different view of America. Well, maybe not too different, but you get the point. While the latter two points are important, I’m going to focus on the first one.

I heard the first iPod was a bit box-shaped...

Before iPods existed, people used mp3 players with a whopping 128mb of storage! That means you could only take 32 of your favorite songs along with you. While some today consider this tragic, I take the opposite view. When you only had 2-3 CDs worth of music under your belt (or on it), you were not constantly listening to music. And your cell phone didn’t provided nearly the same level of entertainment that it does today. All this means that people had fewer distractions.

I don’t think anyone noticed. If someone stole your iPhone/iPod/Android/etc. today, you’d be heartbroken and very bored. You’d have no one to talk to on the bus, nothing to listen to on the way to work, and would have very little social interaction. Ten years ago, people talked to each other on the bus, or if they didn’t do that, they mused about their lives.

And everyone was John Lennon.

I’d like to argue that things were better then. On my bus to work today, every single person was wearing headphones or absorbed in their handheld device. No one was talking. Remember those “meaningless” interactions I discussed before? They’ve become diminished as people look for quick and easy entertainment. Who needs to talk to the barista when your employer gives you five different types of coffee from machines? If the guy who I barge into on the subway and I are both wearing headphones, is a simple nod as good as saying sorry? If my boss can ping me on Skype to yell at me for blogging at work, will I really get the message with the same importance that he intended to convey?

I wish I knew more about this subject in order to discuss it further. There are numerous books and articles that inspired this post, and more directly served as catalysts for this train of thought. Feel free to find your own answers. I’m not looking for zealots about my ideas, but those who try to find real truths for themselves rather than simply tuning out the world.