Selling over 42 million iPods and a billion songs via iTunes, Apple Computer Inc. has overhauled the music world, creating a new listening trend whose hallmark is “a soundtrack for your life.” There are several reasons the iPod craze has spread like an ultra-hip wildfire: listening to music adds enjoyment to the mundane tasks people do day after day. And hailing from Apple, the technological king of cool, iPods are stylish.

Add to these a design that meshes portability, long battery life and huge storage capacity with high-quality construction and Apple has created a new mode of listening. IPods have become a way to listen to music all the time. Walking, typing, driving, jogging, shopping, reading — everything. Even swimming, with the right accessories.

As easy and hip as it is, however, 24/7 listening is not all pros. All-the-time music has created a more isolated everyday experience. Earphones are the sunglasses of the mind. When someone wears sunglasses, others wonder, “is he looking at me, or not?”

In regards to a person jamming to their most recent shuffle, one wonders, “How much can he hear? Is he paying attention or intent on his music? Is he looking at me or staring blankly?”

The result is less interaction and a social bubble people are afraid to breach. iPod time is private time. Attention is kept on a tight reign and doled out sparingly. And if it’s iPod time all the time, well, that doesn’t leave much time to talk. Does the world need 42 million people who interact with others less?

“The iPod is the perfect way to manage your experience. Music is the most powerful medium for thought, mood and movement control,” said Dr. Michael Bull, a lecturer in media and culture at the University of Sussex in Great Britain. He went on to state that iPod users “construct their moods.” People choose music to influence how they want to feel. Songs are used, just like a movie soundtrack, to create emotional effects.

Music becomes a mood-maker. Interestingly, substance abuse operates on the same principles. The drug of choice is used to alter feeling to the point that people become dependent on the substance to create desirable emotion. Don’t assume that iPods are 40GB syringes. Simply, when emotions are no longer primarily controlled internally, but instead by a user-friendly click wheel, something is awry.

What, after all, is wrong with silence? There’s something to be said for consciously doing simple tasks and hearing the accompanying sounds. Walking to school is more than a five-minute necessary evil. It involves feeling the cold on exposed cheeks, the motion of walking, overhearing an amusing bit of conversation, noticing good smells, concentrating on thoughts, saying hello. Life doesn’t need a soundtrack. It already has one.