Well I don't think society is dead and I don't think using an iPod or any similar Walkman-like toy is really an evil in itself; it may limit your senses, but I don't think it necessarily isolates anyone--I listen to music with other people even more often than when I didn't have an iPod; screw the sales-pitch hype, but nevertheless my library of music has become portable.

Still though, I can see how people can use such portable players to maintain the social insularity that Sullivan describes so well. And cell-phones seem to me designed from the beginning to do this, though I realize there are certain situations where the technology can be more than a convenience and actually be useful. Essentially I think it's true--what Sullivan is seeing; we're witnessing a larger shift in mentality--perhaps in America moreso than elsewhere--towards an anti-society, where anyone can screen out any inconvenient voice with caller ID.