Media Immersion Pods

While many of us long to escape our cubicles with their dreary PCs, Japanese youth are locking themselves away in rented private booths equipped with the latest electronics and gadgets. 10 cafes in Tokyo offer Media Immersion Pods to five thousand people each day:

The Gran Cyber Cafés are enshrouded in the urgent, furtive atmosphere of a hot-sheet motel. Eyes averted, customers sign in, head to the library of entertainment options, and load up on fashion magazines, video games and DVD’s of “24″ as if stocking up on Jim Beam. Then they beetle-brow it to their solitary pods.

What they do there is up to them. Some people channel-surf. Others trade stocks. You can download music, read novels, watch pornography, play video games, have sex, go to sleep.

New York Times