Left To Their Own Devices.

One of the great change overe the past thirty yearss in the way that we experience music amd listen to radio, is the rise of personal listening devices from the personal stereo of the 1980s to the Ipod and the MP3 players on our phones that we know today. The first iconic listening device was the Sony Walkman cassette player which was soon followed by a host of imitators. The walkman seemed to become a particular favourite of the jogging classes who soon made it part of their uniform. It was followed in the 90s by the personal CD players which often had FM radio receivers integrated into them and then, in this decade by the Ipod and the mobile phone both of which often have enough storage to accomodate whole music libraries. We also now have MP4 players that you can store libraries of film and photographs on and devices like the Blackberry that integrate with the Internet. A long way from the humble Walkman.

Using any of these devices in public of course, creates types of behaviour, especially on public transport/ You have the type who puts on their headphones as soon as they get on the bus with the obvious intention of, by doing so, avoiding conversation with anyone in the surrounding area. Then you have the hummers and tappers and those who like to tell anyone who will listen about the extent of yjeir collection of obscure heavy metal bands, then there are, of course, those who just like to make sure that everyone on the bus is aware that they have the latest, and most trendy, listening device, not by telling people, but by having it prominently on display. I dont doubt that now we have devices that can display photos we probably have the type of bore who likes to show everyone two thousand photographs of his last holiday on the Norfolk Broads or Marbella, but luckily I have yet to meet one. Lucky also, I suppose that most public transport is designed in such a way to prevet people doing dance routines and personal Karaoke is definately frowned upon.

Myself, I just sit quietly in my corner seat and listen to whatever music takes my fancy with the simple aim of whiling the time away.