Bob Doyle, Columnist
Cumberland Times-News
March 23, 2008 12:39 am
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A decade ago, the people you saw with headphones were primarily runners or joggers, listening to their favorite music. Now it is common to see many young people wearing ear buds (miniature head phones) listening to music through MP3 or similar players. (MP3 is a kind of digital music file that allows one to store good quality music in a much smaller amount of memory than a Compact Disk. iPOD’s use similar files.)
Often as students leave class, out come either their ear buds or their cell phones. It seems as if some can’t deal with the silence of their own thoughts; they must be “plugged in” to entertainment or needing to talk with a peer.
A decade ago, most of the cell phone users then were medical or business personnel, who were on call while they were away from the office, hospital or business. Now more than half the people I see at the Mall or on college campuses have their cell phones attached to their jeans, or in their purses. It is considered “cool” to walk up and down the Mall, talking on a cell phone. At shopping centers, I have frequently seen adult drivers get out their cell phones as they drive out of the parking area.
Being on a cell phone when you have to look for other cars, make turns and make decisions on whether to proceed doesn’t allow one to devote one’s full attention to driving. I frequently see adults in grocery stores conversing on their cell phones as they walk up and down the aisles, apparently unaware of what to buy. This need to be continually “in touch” with others is a dependent behavior where a person loses a sense of oneself.
So it becomes more difficult to listen (other than to a friend who you can respond to) to a teacher, to a supervisor, to a clergy or a news person on television. A one way flow of information seems awkward compared to the back and forth chatter of informal conversation on a cell phone.
So I attribute the poor listening ability of many, both young and middle aged due to the heavy use cell phones. A cell phone addict will be constantly looking for stimulation and affirmation, asking themselves while they listen, “Is this what I really want to hear?” “I wish I could tell this person that their talking is so boring to me, I couldn’t care less!” and “Please get to the important stuff that applies to me!”
The MP3 players are less intrusive but also have negative consequences. As a student leaves a class, putting in the ear buds will completely remove any thoughts of the class material as they listen to rap music, jazz, country, or rock that engages their emotions in a way that a class on economics, statistics, history, biology or ethics wouldn’t.
My feeling is that when one hears new ideas either through a presentation or group discussion, you need some time to reflect and let it soak in. You are not going to hear students talking about the ideas of class afterwards if they quickly get out their ear buds or flip open their cell phones. Some kinds of music on MP3 players is violent and out of character with the students’ every day lives.
Is listening to the bottled up anger in these songs a sort of drug that the listeners need to feel more alive? In some sports, the players in the locker rooms listen to strong rock music to stir up their emotions so they come out on the field ready to engage the opposing team. How can listening before class to such music help a student follow an argument or line of thought?
I know that when I am tired late at night and trying to get a test or class presentation ready, I will play on my computer some rock music that engages me as I am typing on the keyboard.
Today’s MP3 players can store thousands of songs in a unit that takes less volume than a pack of cigarettes. One of the real advantages of a MP3 player over other media is the ability to quickly change the music or song to suit one’s mood. But when you are listening to another person, you can’t press a button to have them speak about something else. You just must stay on focus to their message, likely difficult if you listen to MP3 type devices hours every day where you can flip back and forth.
Planets mingle at dawn
We have a very early Easter this year due to our early spring full moon last Friday night. For the rest of this century, there will be no Easter as early as today. (The last Easter as early as today was in 1913, 95 years ago.) Because of the Easter holiday, there will be no planetarium shows or Exploratorium tours today, but our programs will resume next Sunday.
Tomorrow morning, the brilliant planet Venus and the planet Mercury will be less than a degree apart (two moon widths) very low in the eastern dawn (may be seen with binoculars about 6:45 to 6:55 a.m. from places with a very flat eastern horizon). On Thursday and Friday, the planet Uranus will join Mercury and Venus. Uranus is less than 1/100 as bright as Mercury and about 1/10,000 as bright as Venus. The three planets will then fit in a circle that’s two degrees across. (Your index finger width at arm’s length is about one degree across.)
Bob Doyle invites comments and queries from readers; email him at rdoyle@frostburg.edu .
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