BBC News - Has the iPod made us anti-social?

This story is more than just the iPod, as it applies to any device that we plug into while unplugging from our surroundings. The irony seems lost on at least some people who, while happy to unplug and listen to the birds around them, if any, prefer to drown out the noises of human beings around them. Of course, it is rather unpleasant when people nearby are loudly talking on cellphones (another irony). But I wonder if there isn't a tendency to lose empathy along the way, too. Just another mark of the excesses of individualism, I suppose.