Technologies of the 21st Century

One of the most interesting aspects to me that has come out of the 21st century are MP3 files, more specifically the ipod. I can remember back to when I first started listening to music. I felt so cool with my little cassette player. It was portable music, it didn’t matter to me then that I had to continuously have to rewind the tape or flip it over to hear the rest of the music. We played cassettes in the car on long trips—how awesome! Then there was the introduction of CDs. Life just got so much better! Now the CD came with art work and pictures of the artists. There was no flipping needed and you could listen to clearer music (unless you scratched the CD). The walkman was “hip”. Then, when I thought nothing could top this, the ipod came out. At first it was if you had the money for one, now everyone has one.

Now I take my ipod with me everywhere. The convenience of it can’t even be put into words. It fits in my pocket, I can take it on the plane, I can put more music on it then I could ever possible carry with me before. But is this bad? With ipods comes the use of MP3’s. But with that comes the purchasing (or illegal downloading) of songs. But not the whole collection from an artist, just the particular songs wanted. Because of this many songs are “lost in translation”. An artist trying out a new sound may fold due to lack of circulation. To me these don’t seem like big problems. The invention of easy, portable music is just another fact of life. Change comes, it’s inevitable.