While sitting on a cement wall beneath a row of trees a student calls out to her friend, “Alyssa! Hey!”
Alyssa offers a wave as she walks past, her backpack bouncing and thin white earphone cords swaying to the rhythm of her stride.
“Ya just going to walk on by?” the friend asks.
“I waved, didn’t I?” said Alyssa as she stops and turns around.
They quickly exchanged thoughts on a Shakespeare class they shared.
Alyssa kept her earphones in for the entire conversation.
A survey conducted by the Division of University Technology at the University of Wisconsin—Madison found that 64 percent of Madison students use iPods.
Based on the dozens of iPod-toting students crossing the courtyard, the gadget doesn’t seem to be any less popular at Winona State University.
Seventy-three percent of 1,200 students surveyed by the Student Monitor ranked the iPod player as more “in” than drinking alcohol. Only one other time in 18 years has alcohol ranked number two: In 1998, the Internet was number one.
Is having the iPod as the “big man on campus” changing college culture?
A bearded student wearing black padded headphones doesn’t think his iPod has changed his social interactions.
“I don’t think it’s really changed the feel of campus. It’s just something fun to do while you’re going from one place to the next,” he said.
Sarah Botzek, a junior at Winona State University disagrees.
“It blocks out other people. I like to say, ‘Hi’ to people and be friendly, but the iPod puts me in my own little world. And I know that the world doesn’t revolve around me,” Botzek said.
The next iPod-user encounter walked with a black and silver iPod that matched his black T-shirt, wide plastic-framed sunglasses, herringbone shorts and two metal earrings that look like washers.
He’s had his iPod for four years, making him a pioneer in the rapidly changing world of technology.
As a fifth-year “super senior,” he said most of his friends don’t spend time on campus anymore, so although he admitted wearing earphones makes him anti-social, it doesn’t bother him because there’s no one around with whom he cares to be social.
Todd Paddock, a sociology professor at Winona State, said it’s hard to tell if MP3 players have made society isolated and anti-social. Not a lot of data shows the iPod’s effect on human interaction, but in a year or so we’ll start seeing more because college trends are a popular topic for sociological research.
Paddock said silence serves a number of social functions. He uses his classroom as an example.
“I ask a question and then just sort of wait and count to myself as I wait for students to think and for someone to answer,” he says.
One belief is that students are quick to answer the question because they are the iPod generation—over stimulated and intolerant of silence.
The bearded student with the large headphones said intolerance toward silence is certainly true of him.
“I can’t even sleep without my iPod on,” he said.
Paddock covets silence and says he doesn’t carry an iPod, but he does carry a set of earplugs in his pocket at all times.