I don’t like where portable electronic entertainment is headed. It’s too instant-gratification-y for my tastes. Call me an old-style teenager of 19, but I don’t like the idea of constant electronic entertainment everywhere I go.

It’s more like constant electronic enslavement.

Sure, I’ll play a match of “Guitar Hero” when I get the chance, and I love watching a really good film every now and then, but the ways we go about playing video games and watching films, among other things, is making me a little bit sicker every day.

The electronic entertainment devices we use to communicate, listen to music, play games and watch videos are so ubiquitous in modern society that it’s hard for me to find anyone on campus without a cellular phone or media player on his or her person at all times.

See what I meant when I said I don’t like instant gratification?

The lines between home entertainment and portable entertainment have been blurred in recent years due to the prevalence of these versatile electronic devices, which allow us to entertain ourselves anywhere we go. MP3 players, for example, can be used on the go (with headphones), and at home as well (with a stereo dock).

And with the iTunes digital distribution model, we can download movies for a fee to watch at home (on the computer) or when outside the home (uploading the movie to an iPod). How’s that for adaptability?

The creation of technologies that allow us to use our portable devices in all sorts of places (car, home, outdoors, bathroom – I’m not kidding) has not only given us the ability to take our electronic devices everywhere we go, but has actively played a part in changing entertainment industries. Record labels and film publishers must now take steps to make their products more download-friendly to maximize potential profits from cell phone and iPod-wielding teenagers.

Furthermore, the trend of making these electronic entertainment devices smaller, sexier and less battery-hungry helps to send out the idea that those with old versions of these electronic devices must update to the new ones as soon as possible.

When the iPod first came out, it was a bulky white brick with an internal hard drive that whined like three spoiled kids in the back seat of a Hummer – and it sold like crazy.

Now, the modern iPod Nano is roughly the size of a book of matches, has more efficient storage technology than its previous iterations and even plays video on its convenient, slightly-bigger-than-a-postage-stamp-yet-so-small-it-will-make-your-eyeballs-bleed, full-color screen!

And this new iPod is selling like crazy as well.

I remember back when computers had hard drives with maximum capacities of around four to five gigabytes of space.

Store a truckload of videos and music on your hard drive? Ha.

Good luck.

Now, with our 200-plus gigabyte laptop hard drives, we can store tons of videos and music on our hard drives. And we can take all that music and all those videos almost anywhere we want to go that has a power outlet. Laptop computers continue to be hot-ticket items these days, especially with the whole “take-your-electronics-with-you-everywhere” motto that’s sweeping the nation.

Video game players were previously monochrome display-laden plastic bricks with two buttons and a directional pad. You could play Tetris on it, and you were happy.

Now, with powerhouse multimedia gaming devices like the Playstation Portable on the market today, the ante for portable entertainment has been raised. Endless music, video, pictures and video games are at your fingertips with a PSP, and sales are still pretty strong for Sony’s little widescreen game system.

All these reasons help me understand why so many people have these devices today. As electronic devices become cheaper, smaller, more energy-efficient and more accessible, an increasing number of people will buy them.

As commercials and advertisements extol the awesomeness of owning Steve Jobs’s latest handheld device, more people will buy the iTV, or iBrick, or whatever.

As more and more wireless hot spots spring up around the nation, the sales of laptop computers will continue to climb.

As digital distribution continues to take over the traditional retail business for music and movies, iPod and iTune download sales will flourish.

But just because portable electronic entertainment is moving toward eyeball-embedded LCD screens each day, doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Although it may be convenient and enjoyable to watch a movie on a 1.5 inch iPod screen or play video games anywhere, it seems a little excessive in my opinion. Besides, do we really need to watch the pirate version of Johnny Depp on an iPod screen on the way to work? Not in my opinion.

Whatever happened to enjoying the scenery?