The sound of the underground
Well the answer is obvious isn’t it? Bang! Crash! I’m sure you can hear the sounds of the London underground rattling around in your head as you read this. How about the sounds from inside the carriage? Hang on, I can’t hear anything over the sounds outside; but wait, that is because there is nothing to hear – the carriage is silent. Apart from the highly frequent and rude interruptions of the tannoy of cause. So are we silent due to the external racket or is it due to the fact we simply just don’t need to talk anymore?
There maybe times when you sit on the underground and you will hear something, the bass of the music from the person you are standing (sitting if your lucky enough to get a seat) next to. In fact if you look to the person next to that one your next to and the person after that one, and even after that, you will probably notice more people with their ears plugged in then not. Hence no need to talk.
Stand on an underground train during rush hour and I’m pretty sure you will see the majority of Apples range – I don’t even know why they have stores – iPods, iPhones (all various specs) and the new gadget the iPad. The conversations are all long gone and now, due to iPads, even the paper books are out of the window.
All this new technology is making our daily commutes a better experience, but will it lead to more relaxed commutes or more precious time wasted as commutes are more bearable and thus longer?
Are we less socialable now due to technology? Has Apple made us anti-social? Have a look at this article. I sit a home and with my laptop in front of me I can talk on Skype, Facebook chat or even Gmail chat. Has technology made me anti-social? No, I don’t think so I can just spend time talking to the people I want to talk to, all of the time. I don’t need to go to the pub (although it is always better to do so) which in these recession and environment friendly times it saves that little bit of petrol.
The worst bit is that due to the frequent tannoys the majority of people pass through the underground like machines programmed by the announcements which occur at every possible opportunity, removing every single moment which might require some thought. The nature of the technology is removing what makes us human – the fact we have expressions and personality. Why don’t we stand up against such environment?