Advice for iPod addicts

I will preface this by saying I am a huge music fan, I play music constantly in my car and while I work, I dont however use an iPod and refuse to buy one, and heres why:

- If you live in a large city (or even if you don't) you are making yourself an easy target for muggers, thieves, and even sexual assault (especially if you are lady). Being wrapped up in your own little world of the iPod does not allow you to be fully aware of your surroundings and goes against one of the most basic tenets of self-defence
- You are going to suffer hearing loss in 20/30 years time. Hearing loss takes many years for its effect to be apparent and playing music directly into the ears especially at high-volume has been proven to be extremely damaging. If you have to wear ear-phones get traditional ones preferably of the 'open-ear' type.
- If your a guy trying to pick up women (or vice-versa) you are making a difficult proposition even harder. Wearing an iPod while you might think it labels you as 'cool' and 'current' it also labels you as someone who wants to be left alone, in fact trying to have even a normal discussion (as I tried to recently) with someone in a gym is impossible when every 5 secs they have to take their earphones out.

One final thought. If you bought your iPod to make a statement about your individuality, now that we are reaching the end of 2006, and Apple have sold almost 40 million iPods how individual are you REALLY being....