Australian school bans iPod

By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco

Published Thursday 24th March 2005 12:15 GMT

A private school in Australia has banned its pupils from listening
to their iPods. The yuppie consumer gadget will not be permitted in
class, because it encourages kids to be selfish and lonely, according
to the school principal. That’s the perfect preparation for the life
of David Brent-style bullshit and self-deception that lies ahead of
them, you’d think, but amazingly, the principal of the International
Grammar School has higher hopes for her brood.

Principal Kerrie Murphy noticed that iPod-toting children were
isolating themselves into a cocoon of solipsism.

“People were not tuning into other people because they’re tuned into
themselves,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Meanwhile, the school teachers’ quango for the district is sitting
on the fence.

“It’s an emerging issue for schools,” was the best a rather hopeless
Geoff Newcombe could offer. He’s the executive director of the
Association of Independent Schools in New South Wales, and if this
is the best he can do, he should retire gracefully. (‘Emerging’ is
a very flexible word these days, and in this case it means “someone
has to deal with this eventually – don’t shoot me!”)

Banning fashion items is of course the school’s historical duty,
but you have to admit that Principal Murphy has a point. Apple’s
advertising for the iPod makes a virtue of people dancing on their
own, locked up in a private world only they understand. And what can
this lead to, but anti-social values later in life?

How? Because every second spent with an iPod is an opportunity lost.

Take one example. Riding back from the Sunset tonight on a busy MUNI
bus, the 71 that goes through Haight, a guy got on with a tripod –
a very unassuming and busy guy. The sweet girl opposite, who was with
three friends, struck up a conversation with him. The bus trundled
on and on, as MUNI does, but these strangers were getting on really
well. And when they got off, he picked up his tripod and got off
the bus with them, having found .. who knows what? This could be the
best thing that ever happened to them . both. We just don’t know. But
they certainly appeared to have the faculties to look after each other
really well, so we could wind forward ten years and discover a couple
with beaming kids who still look after each other very nicely. Isn’t
it nice when that happens?

But it wouldn’t have happened at all, if they’d been locked up in
their private worlds, in their respective private iPod torments. For
sure, if these iPod people might also be Blog people: they could have
gone home alone, and broadcast these near misses on their weblogs,
or posted hopeful messages to the tiny classified “Close Encounters”
sections of newspapers, or Craigslist. But neither would have been
alive with the possibilities of you know, actually getting laid.

Which brings us to the broader point of what “openness” – a value
often-toted by Internet evangelists – really means. Openness for one
person can mean shutting off every one else, and all their irritating
mannerisms and annoying opinions. Freedom, in practice, is a case of
how much you want to indulge the ego.

What Principal Murphy seems to be saying is very straightforward.

These ego-centric “social minimizers”, for want of a better word, like
the iPod and the Blog, are really like the little sick notes that us
nerds or bookish types used to create to get out of some strenuous
physical exercise at school. They nevertheless define and limit all
the possibilities we have on offer to us. So socially, they’re really
rubbish – no more than expensive dongles, and only good for avoiding
girls and boys we can have fun with. It’s simple common sense.

Whether you’re sharing a jar of water in Zaire or in a tent in Armenia,
you know that music, not the physical process of transferring bits, is
what’s really important. Music’s potency to express the metaphysical,
or emotions beyond language, is universally understood, wherever you
go. At which point we can mark off the technologies we’re expected
to use – they pop up every day – as either useful, or useless.

Principal Murphy is about to be the most pilloried “Luddite” in the
world, but deep down, you know she’s right. Far from being a draconian
adminstrator, she’s simply encouraging her pupils to get laid, and
be happy. And surely a tiny part of you really wants her to win,
doesn’t it?