The plural iPod: A study of technology in action

•Rare study on how iPods are used in everyday contexts of users’ social lives.•Deploys an unconventional research instrument (the online blog) in its methodology.•Critically engages, supplements & extends Bull's work on users’ “auditory bubble”.•Stresses the “plural iPod” & how technologies are actioned by users and non-users.•Such actions include the ethical use of iPods & their use to build social relations. Based on a study of iPod use amongst 155 undergraduate students, the article argues that an emphasis on the mediated constitution of what Bull (2007) calls “auditory bubbles” raises limited questions around the situated and varied practices of iPod users. The article instead suggests that we need to develop more sophisticated understandings of how mobile digital devices are used and appropriated in context, not just by letting users tell their own stories but by listening carefully to how these stories point to anomalies, variations and discordances in their use and non-use.