Imagine a crowded bus where passengers are talking on their cell phones. To drown out the noise, what do you do? You plyg in your headphones and turn up your MP3.

That's one technique UVU assistant professor Jeff Peterson used when he was living in Seattle. It's also a handy way to tune out peddlers and beggars who are seen more commonly in large cities, he said.

Headphones' effects

The technology may provide entertainment, but overuse may lead to isolation and a failure to develop basic social skills, said Marcia Epstein, a professor in the Faculty of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary, in the fall 2007 issue of the university's magazine.

"Use of MP3 players ... produces personal isolation to the point that interpersonal communication might prove to be endangered," she said. "Children who are raised on MP3 players have fewer opportunities to develop habitual skills, like cooperation, and might be less able to deal effectively with situations where they have to act as a group."

Bruce Weinstein, an author and public speaker known as The Ethics Guy, wrote in a BusinessWeek column in June 2007 that the misuse of electronic devices, including MP3 players, has three major drawbacks: opportunity cost, effects on psychological health and increased morbidity and mortality.

Opportunity costs deal with what could have been done rather than listening to songs or podcasts, for example. Alternatives could include speaking with others -- even those from outside our normal social circles -- Weinstein said. Psychological health is affected when one fails to make time for play or brainstorming or creative thought, even if it only involves daydreaming, Weinstein said.

"The nonstop avalanche of images and sounds from electronic media is a barrier, not a portal, to creativity," he wrote in the column.

After two MP3-player-related pedestrian deaths in New York in 2007, state Sen. Carl Kruger proposed a bill banning the use of cell phones, PDAs and other electronic devices while crossing the street in New York City and Buffalo.

Despite these incidents, Weinstein wrote that MP3 players are not necessarily bad -- only the misuse of them can be bad.

Psychologist Daniel Goleman, author of "Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships," wrote on his blog that although many iPod users may be oblivious to their environment, this may actually be a good thing; even in crowded cities, the music ringing through the headphones can preserve one's sense of personal space.

College students and MP3 use

James Davis, a recent BYU graduate, doesn't have an iPod, but has seen his share of unaware college-aged music listeners.

"My roommate listens to his iPod when he's walking on campus," Davis said. "He also plugs it in so he can use it in his car. It's kind of scary because he's more concerned about playing the song he wants to hear than watching the road. He's only 18, and he's not that good of a driver anyway."

But other students own -- and love -- their portable music players.

BYU student April O'Berry said she can't imagine life without her iPod.

"I can't get anywhere without it," O'Berry said. "I know it's bad, but on my way up the hill [to campus], I can't stand to listen to my panting breath; I have to be listening to something on my way up to school."

O'Berry is careful not to let her iPod fix interfere with her safety, she said. That's why she uses the stereo in her car instead of plugging in the headphones while driving. This way she can hear another car's horn or a siren from an ambulance or police car.

Daniel Jensen, a UVU student who works at an elementary school, said listening to his music was appropriate in many situations, but MP3 fans should pull out their headphones to show they are giving their full attention when someone wants to talk to them. In most other situations -- other than driving -- he feels OK about listening to his iPod.

"When I'm just walking down the hall, I don't need to have all five of my senses going," Jensen said.

Jensen estimated 70 percent of the students on campus have MP3 players, including those who have them on their cell phones.

Dan Bushnell, who attended BYU, says that MP3 players have changed the feel of the school's campus.

"I think people are way too plugged in to their MP3 players," Bushnell said. "To be honest, I think the campus is a whole lot less social, walking around, than it used to be when I was a freshman.

"The whole purpose is so they can be in their own little world, so a lot more people are," he said.

Jensen said many tech-device users have difficulty in real-life social situations because they're accustomed to communicating on the phone or online, where they speak differently than they would in face-to-face meetings, he said.

"I have friends on Facebook who I don't even know," Jensen said. "So, we're already seeing this move away from actual social interaction to texting, to instant messaging to whatever. We're becoming a lot more antisocial -- and we're seeing that in younger kids.

"I work at an elementary school; you see the older kids in fifth grade have a hard time interacting with other kids because when they go home -- what do they do? -- they sit and watch TV, or they text message or instant message or they're playing video games. They're doing things that don't require actually talking to people, so they don't know how to react. They're very awkward -- more awkward than they normally would be."

All things in moderation

"I think people need opportunities to learn basic social skills -- knowing when it's appropriate to have [headphones] in and when it's not appropriate," said UVU's Peterson

Peterson said he frequently sees students walking across campus with their headphones on, but has not had problems with students listening to music in his classes, where he teaches only upperclassmen.

"I wouldn't tolerate it in my class," he said. "Having headphones on in my class would be kind of a blatant form of disrespect."

BYU student Tristan Alba said he thinks some people take their MP3 passion a little too far.

"I definitely think a lot of people use them inappropriately," Alba said. "I also think people can use them appropriately. If you are in the library, I think you need to turn it down so people can't hear it. A lot of people walk around really oblivious to what's going on around them. If it's bothering other people, I think you should turn off your music or go somewhere else."

Technological generation gap?

Although Eugene Seeley, associate dean for UVU's Woodbury School of Business, has children in the MP3-listening age group, he's also plugged in. He uses his 14GB iPod for a variety of activities, such as listening to classical and Scottish bagpipe music, audio books and sending e-mail.

Seeley's freshman-level Business 1010 class will often have one or two students with headphones on, but by the time the students are juniors, they usually know better, he said. He finds ways to tease the students who are listening to music in class.

"One of the things I like to do if someone's got an iPod on -- or headphones from another MP3 player -- is look at them like I'm asking them a question, but just mouth the words so they think their headphones are too loud," he said. "I get a laugh from the class if I'm successful in getting their headphones off."

There are benefits -- and limits -- to the MP3 craze, such as the ability to podcast classes, Seeley said.

"[MP3 players] are so incredibly versatile, but like any technological item, it's not something where you say, 'Oh, I'll do everything on it,'" he said.

UVU business lecturer Leonard Pavia, 68, said his students are too busy learning and being entertained to put on their headphones during class.

"We study fun stuff like operations -- not just boring math," he said with a grin.

Still, technology has affected the social fabric of many lives -- particularly those of college age, said Pavia, who said his grandson, a BYU student, sends or receives about 1,500 text messages per month.

"It kind of isolates the person [who] wants to listen to their MP3 rather than talk to a friend, or something like that," Pavia said. "[They're] walking around with their earphones plugged in, not paying too much attention to everybody else. It has affected our interaction with each other, definitely."