Are Headphones Ruining America?

They are in everyone's ears. They are used for CD players, computers, handheld assistants, mp3 players, portable DVD players, and virtually every other electronic device on the planet that features sound. Headphones are everywhere! They're known by many names that range from headphones and earbuds to "cans", headsets, and speakerbuds, but no matter what you call them, chances are that you have a pair of your own.

Headphones are the craze these days (pardon the rhyme time) and no one knows it. Headphones are the essential component to the lives of many Americans, and yet we don't often seem to hear people say, "I'd like a new pair of earbuds for my birthday this year." Headphones get lost in the shuffle when it comes to electronics. Without thought, most Americans just mentally combine them to object of their use. For example, when you buy an Apple Ipod, everyone can presume that you will also then have a set of headphones. The headphones are always the overshadowed component in the acquisition of new electronic gear that offers sound. But have we unknowingly turned America over to an epidemic of headphone usage?

If you take a walk on any college campus in America, what you will find is a population of students that all own the latest Ipod model as well as the headphones that come along with the popular product. No study session would be fully complete without a set of headphones in everyone's ears. Why, you may ask? Because headphones and the latest tunes are just the sort of privacy to do the trick for studying. Headphones are a full fledged means to isolate yourself from those around you. But at what cost? The headphones that we so easily look over are the same ones that just may be ruining America.

Now we can all hear the cynic screaming, "Ruining America? Is this guy crazy?" The fact is that headphones are isolating a population of Americans at schools and work places around the country. In a world that seriously lacks the people skills that used to be valued during the rise of America, the isolation that headphones provide is detrimental. By isolating yourself from the world, we spend less time conversing and more time tucked away in our own thoughts. Music is a wonderful thing, but the isolation it provides is ruining Americans and teaching us to dwell in our minds. America needs more extroverts and less introverts and more do-ers and less isolationists. Headphones are just the start to many bigger social problems, so next time you slap on your favorite pair of headphones with your Ipod, think of the social injustice you may be doing yourself.