"Make the World Go Away..."

From a Fortune magazine article by David Kirkpatrick:

We're living in a device-centric age. Technology may not yet fully define us, but it increasingly defines how we behave and spend our time. In New York City, I notice that subway riders are quieter than they once were. More and more, I see little white earphone wires emerging from their hats and hair--the telltale sign that they're listening to iPods. Sometimes I'd estimate that as many as 25% of all the commuters either in the cars or on the platforms are listening to music, an audio book, or a Podcast. And in the Tokyo subway, I'm told, silence descends when the doors close. Almost all the commuters in that city pull out cellphones or other electronic devices and peck at their miniature keyboards, sending messages or playing games.

I notice a similar phenomenon at the Y. It is unusual to actually see people talking there. Headphones are in and focused on what they are doing. And yes, I'm as guilty as anyone.

And the title is from a great Country & Western ("We have both kinds." Extra points for naming the film in which THAT line appears and references C&W music.) song written by Hank Cochran, as performed by Eddie Arnold. It also contains one of the best sincere, tearjerker lines from a C&W song, "Say the things we used to say, and make the world, make it go away."