Here's a moderately interesting article on the social implications of portable music players (iPods, Walkmans, etc). To a certain extent, it states the obvious I think, but I do like the idea of portable music as a device to partly reconfigure the world when you're out in it.

Paradoxically, I'm also really nervous about that idea.

When I was in college, I was a voracious Walkman user. I had a chunky Walkman Pro, and would listen to music from the second I walked out the door till I entered the building on campus 45 minutes later...and often between classes.

I was quite conscious of how I was in effect insulating myself from the world around me, and, possibly, soundtracking the world around me even as I would have preferred to characterize my habit as a symptom of my unbounded passion for music; I couldn't live without it, ya know?

And that was a major part of why I ultimately stopped: over time, I started to feel increasingly divorced from the world while I had the earplugs in, and it made me uncomfortable. So on the one hand, I didn't want to have to have the world outside soundtrack my life, but I didn't want to not be in that world either.

Now, while owning an iPod is remotely appealing, I don't think I'd have much use for it, outside of its utility as a software transporter or for taking mixes to check elsewhere. There sure as hell is no way I'm going to encode even a fraction of my CD--and especially vinyl--collection to keep on an iPod. I don't do the online downloading thing either...and I value the time I have away from music of any kind, so what's the point?

Still, wouldn't make a bad belated birthday present! You can never have enough gadgets!

That's funny... Mexico's own Electro Fusion band has a song named, "The Headphonist". Which is about the same of what you say you did during college.