How Do Music Listening Habits Change With Age? A Statistical Analysis
How does music listening change as we grow older?
Intro: How Many Times Can I Listen to the Same Song?
I am sick of my own music. Every day, I go to work, I write my Python code, and (whilst coding) I listen to My Chemical Romance's "Welcome to the Black Parade" or Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" for the 1,000th time. Then, I clock out, ready to do the same thing all over again, playing these songs for the 1,001st time.
Every once in a while, I'll get a rush of inspiration and try a new streaming service or playlist. A minute into this endeavor, I'll feel like a golden god. "I'm so brave," I'll think to myself, "I should tell people about how brave I'm being." Within ten minutes, I'll typically lose all momentum and return to my well-worn playlists and channels—retreating to a sonic prison of my own design.
A few months ago, I explored the difficulties of song discovery as we age and found that our music tastes are largely shaped during adolescence, with so-called "open-eardness" declining after our mid-twenties.
Initially, I found this data comforting. It turns out I am just like everyone else—readily bingeing music played at my middle school dances.
But my acceptance of this phenomenon can only go so far. I still go to work every day, I still write my Python code, and I still listen to "Dancing in the Dark"—and I'll probably keep doing this for a few more decades.
Am I unique in my relentless song repetition, or am I, once again, the norm? How does music consumption change as it becomes harder to discover new songs? And how do these phenomena intersect with music's role in the workplace (where it serves as a valuable distraction/aid)?
So today, we'll explore our evolving relationship with music amid declining "open-earedness," and examine how our streaming habits shift as our tastes narrow.
How Do Listening Habits Change Over Time?
AccuRadio is a free, human-curated internet radio service that offers over 1,000 customizable music channels. If Pandora's channels and Spotify's editorial playlist curation had a baby, it would look something like AccuRadio. The site logs over 1.8 billion global track plays per year and has decades' worth of data on listener behavior (vis-à-vis consumer age). I've been consulting for AccuRadio on several data projects, and they've graciously allowed access to anonymized user data for this analysis.
As a streaming listener (AccuRadio or otherwise), you have two responsibilities:
Choose a playlist, artist, or channel
Once presented with a song, you decide whether you'd like to listen or skip
If this sounds overwhelming, you can even bypass step #1 by throwing on Spotify's AI DJ—thereby ceding music selection to a large language model masquerading as a human disc jockey—which is modernity at its best and/or worst. Once a channel is launched, the streaming experience becomes an all-you-can-eat buffet offering every song in human history—all you have to do is say "yay" or "nay."
Streaming services like AccuRadio track song "skips" and "plays" as well as user age (when provided). Using this data, I analyzed listener "skip" percentages across various age groups. My initial hypothesis was that song-skipping would increase over time. I envisioned a world of hardened Gen-X-ers, Baby Boomers, and elder Millenials continuously rejecting new-fangled tracks foreign to their significantly less "open" ears. Turns out the opposite is true—younger listeners skip songs at a higher rate.
This find sent me into a minor tailspin. Was my previous research completely wrong? Are younger music consumers close-minded, while older listeners simply accept the songs served to them by algorithms and editorial teams? Not exactly.
Older listeners have lower skip rates because they put themselves in situations where they don't need to skip songs. As a person with rapidly calcifying music tastes, I typically confine my streaming activities to a handful of trusted playlists and channels—because I like what I like. I just want to be soothed or distracted by creature comforts (is that so much to ask?!).
Alas, my narrowing sonic exploration is consistent with normative behavior, as the average listener samples fewer channels with age.
Maturation begets a shrinking set of go-to channels and playlists. We don't need to skip songs because we've heard all these songs before.
Our increasingly narrow tastes also take a peculiar shape in the way we provide feedback to our streaming platforms. AccuRadio allows its users to rate songs on a scale of 1 to 5. A "5" means you will hear a lot more of that song, and a "1" or "2" means that track is effectively banned from future listening sessions.
Counterintuitively, younger users—who are more likely to encounter novel tracks—assign higher song ratings on average.
How is this possible? How can this population skip more songs AND be more favorable in their feedback?
The difference lies in the permanence (or lack thereof) associated with skips and ratings.
For Skips: The implications of song-skipping are limited. Perhaps you're not in the mood for a given track, or you've grown tired of that tune recently. Maybe you don't love that song, but you're unwilling to ban that track permanently (i.e., perhaps you'll learn to love Chappell Roan one day). I've skipped my favorite song several times because it didn't feel right at that moment.
For Ratings: Assigning a rating of "1" or "2" means you're cleansing that track from your life (at least on that streaming service). Plus, I would only rate my favorite song once, giving it a 5, while readily assigning lower scores to several tracks I dislike. Ratings are a blunt instrument for music avoidance.
Younger streaming listeners tend to exhibit a "discovery mindset," actively seeking novelty. In contrast, older listeners may approach streaming from a "maintenance mindset," knowing what they want and using a given platform to reinforce established preferences.
But does a reduced appetite for sonic exploration also signal diminished interest in music (overall)? As our tastes narrow, do we listen to less music or revel in the comfort of familiar channels and songs?
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How Much Music Do We Listen to As We Age?
A quirk of this analysis concerns a population not found in our dataset. Since we're analyzing data from a streaming platform, we're missing the preferences of those who don't regularly listen to music or use a streaming service. As such, these statistics are only representative of active streaming users. If someone has "quit" music—and I don't even know what that means—they would not be represented in our dataset.
So, for those who've remained dedicated to music (by way of streaming), how much are they truly listening?
Surprisingly, middle-aged streamers exhibit higher weekly listening times and longer session lengths.
These are my favorite types of analyses: the ones where I learn how little I know.
To recap our findings so far:
Younger streaming listeners skip more songs and sample more channels while somehow consuming less music (relative to older streamer cohorts).
Older streaming users sample a smaller cohort of channels and are more likely to ban tracks misaligned with preestablished taste (via low star ratings) while somehow listening to more music.
How is this possible? The answer centers on music's role in our professional lives.
The working world introduces several situations where music is indispensable:
Commuting
Being bored at work
Drowning out loud coworkers
Long work bouts (coding, writing, strategizing, etc.)
Trying to inject joy into your day while doing activities 1, 2, 3, and 4, as well as all the time in between
To examine the interplay between streaming and work-life, I analyzed hourly music consumption across various age cohorts.
Working-age groups (highlighted in blue) exhibit a higher proportion of their music consumption during work and commuting hours, whereas adolescents and retirees are more likely to stream at night.
This graph underscores the fluid nature of our lifelong listening habits. Music begins as a means of identity formation and cultural exploration, then takes on new significance as a practical tool for everyday life before ultimately returning to its purest purpose—entertainment.
I find this trajectory comforting. Consider my ever-evolving connection to Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" at each musical life stage:
"Dancing in the Dark" Listen #1: I was an adolescent—somewhere around ten years old—raiding my dad's music in search of classic rock gems. I sampled Bruce's "Born in the U.S.A." and was immediately transfixed by "Dancing in the Dark." For the next few days, I consumed this song ad naseum—like way too much—and experienced the joy of shaping my musical tastes.
"Dancing in the Dark" Listen #1,000: I'm probably in the middle of an analysis—perhaps for this article—when "Dancing in the Dark" plays via a playlist in shuffle mode. I acknowledge the song's presence and how it playing is better than silence, and then continue my work while passively listening.
"Dancing in the Dark" Listen #5,000: I am in my twilight years, retired and stinking rich (hopefully). I sip a flavorful mocktail whilst sitting beside a crackling fire and listening to the music of my youth. "Dancing in the Dark" plays, and I think, "What a nice song." I take a moment to appreciate Springsteen's impact on my life and my consistent affection for this song. Then I die.
Perhaps decades from now, I'll no longer be sick of my music—listening for pure pleasure rather than contextual utility. That would be nice.
Final Thoughts: The Agony and Ecstacy of Noise-Cancelling Headphones
As a person who overanalyzes, I frequently retrace the evolution of my listening habits to make sense of my cultural consumption. In the end, I always come back to two moments that irrevocably reshaped my relationship with music.
Getting My First iPod: I won an iPod Mini at a school raffle—back when these gadgets were all the rage and Steve Jobs could force-install U2 albums on every device. I was captivated by my iPod Mini, spending countless hours on iTunes scouring for new tracks. At one point, I tried listening to my iPod while taking a bath, which led to the device getting wet, then breaking, and me throwing a tantrum before going to the Apple Store to get it fixed. There was an endless world of music to be sampled, and I spent every available hour in service of this quest.
Getting My First Job: My first job out of college was at a 30-person startup in an open floorplan office. Any time someone spoke, the entire company would hear their conversation. I was shocked by this behavior, "How could adults be so disrespectful?" After a few days, the office manager pulled me aside and suggested I buy noise-canceling headphones. She explained I would be unable to accomplish my work without music. How else was I supposed to concentrate? Thus began 8-hour work days defined by Spotify, Pandora, and AccuRadio listening sessions.
Of course, this inflection point was unavoidable—people have to work, and novelty doesn't last forever. Still, I'm troubled by my apparent lack of agency. Can I infuse my music listening with a sense of freshness, or should I simply accept the realities of aging?
Should I go out of my way to sample new channels (and be brave!) while rating novel songs more favorably? Or should I deepen my appreciation for well-worn favorites, savoring every replay of "Welcome to the Black Parade" and "Californication"? And most importantly, if I choose one of these options, can I fully commit for more than two minutes?
No matter what, I eagerly await the day when, as an 80 or 90-year-old retiree, I'll finally rekindle my childlike passion for Bruce Springsteen, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and My Chemical Romance—so I guess that's something to look forward to.
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Interesting, but I wonder if further analysis would reveal sub-populations of people with very different patterns. I write about music and spend a lot of time on line with fellow writers as well as streamers and musicians. They are all over the map in age, but one thing is clear: a lot of us in our 50s and 60s are listening mostly to new music. These days I would say 95% of my listening time is on artists I had not heard of 10 years ago. My old, cherished vinyl collection hasn't been touched for a long time, though I will stream an old favorite now and then if it is relevant to a story I am writing. Is it possible that people who are more engaged with music than just passively listening are also more likely to seek out new stuff? That would be an interesting analysis.
At 50, I find myself seeking out new and novel listening experiences more than ever and my music collection grows by leaps and bounds. I've tried to understand why I seem to buck the trend and all I can think of is that I got into college radio back in high school. The local college had a station and it expanded my musical world tremendously. I enrolled there and joined the station as a DJ, which only increased my hunger to know more about every artist and genre. To this day, I still feel that same joy in discovery and there's barely a genre that doesn't hold some interest for me. Take from that what you will!