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Underground Magpie

Posted in Uncategorized on February 21, 2007 at 10:28 am

It’s easy, considering the environment I work in, to assume that everyone in the world uses various bits of technology, all the time. I depend on my MP3 player, mobile phone and PC to such an extent that it still shocks me slightly whenever someone I know doesn’t bother. But I do know people who don’t have (or want) an MP3 player, and whose mobile phones are held together by Sellotape, elastic bands and hope. And they’re strangely not bothered about it.

Maybe it’s because I’m constantly writing about new product launches, but I’ve found myself starting to become a bit of a magpie on the tube. This morning, for example, I counted the number of people seated in my carriage who were listening to music — five, out of twelve, counting myself — and if the person next to me pulls out their media player, I can’t help clocking it and noticing what it is. I see a lot of first generation iPod Nanos, several of the older, clunkier iPods, and no Shuffles whatsoever; lots of people using Walkman phones; and usually someone watching The Simpsons on a PSP every other day or so.

I’m not sure what the point of all this people-watching is, other than that it’s quite interesting to see what people out in the ‘real world’ actually use.