Talking 'bout my Generation

Having just read Michael Bull's essay 'Thinking about sound, proximity and distance in Western experience' I have been led to think about the significance of the increased use of portable audio devices.

Firstly the Walkman and now the mp3 player provide us with the ability to aestheticise our environment, to create our own soundscape wherever we are, to create a private world within the public arena. Never before did we have such ability to control public space in the way that we control the private.

Before the Walkman we certainly didn't have the ability to shut out the sounds of our environment and overwrite them with our own personal soundtrack. The Walkman provided us with round the clock control of our environment and the choice to hear what WE wanted wherever we were. What was previously experienced in the private domain was taken to the streets.

Maybe this doesn't sound like such a big deal until you consider what would happen, if bored with seeing the same things everyday we all decide to strap TVs to our faces. Chaos. I mean it would completely change the way that we experience the world. And the sonic equivalent has already happened!!

The mp3 player is obviously very much of its time, but in terms of the Walkman I think that in providing people with the chance to finally control and aestheticise their place in the public arena was hugely significant in creating the self centred culture that we experience today.

Saturated with choice, we demand the right to choose what we do and when we do it, sped up by increasingly fast Internet, TV on demand, instantly accessible libraries of music, we long to be in control, dictated by mobile phones, laptops and wi-fi connections.

The birth of the Walkman was the birth of the private within the public, the self centred, detached from auditory contact with our surroundings and those that we share the environment with. This was the birth of the me generation.