The Price of Silence

 In the airport, on the airplane, in your apartment, in the subway or restaurant, in the mall or on the train-- it is often simply unbearably loud. The networked lifestyle turns any place into a workplace. No public place is spared from the noise of cell phone workers or "ipodists" (to use the French term). Public announcements have to penetrate the ears of the iPod generation.

In the New York subway it is common to wear earplugs. It saves you from musicians who ask to get paid to stop playing or energetic street preachers who try to save your soul. And of course the announcements on the train would blast your ears off without earplugs. Noise pollution is a major concern not just in NYC. Now, companies caught on to that and market noise cancelling headphones. My earplugs do just fine.  In this oversaturated environment perhaps an increasing number of technological devices will serve to shut out and filter information and stimuli rather than providing them.