James Tauber

journeyman of some

blog > 2006 > 10 > 25 >

Skipping Tracks

I've noticed for a while that I'm much more likely to skip over a good song on my iPod than I would if flicking through channels on the radio.

Thinking about it, I wondered if there's a certain loss of enjoyment in a song when you can hear it on demand.

But then on a trans-Atlantic flight on Monday, I noticed a similar phenomenon with playing my entire library versus just the playlist of my most highly rated. I'm far more tolerant of, say, a three-star song when listening to my entire library than a four-star song on my highly rated playlist.

So I've come up with the following formulation: The chance of skipping over a song is strongly positively correlated with the chance that the next song is at least as good.

With a "highly rated" playlist, there's a good chance the next song will be as least as good as the one I'm listening to, so I'm more inclined to skip the current song, even if I really like it.

With my entire library, if I'm listening to an "okay" song, there's a reasonable chance the next song will be one I like less, so I'm more inclined to enjoy the current song.

That's my current hypothesis, anyway. I haven't read George Zipf's work but I wonder if it relates to this.

Comments (4)

Carlos Eduardo on Oct. 25, 2006:

What a fantastic analysis... reading your post i saw myself listening to MP3 and radio... I just got a Sony Ericsson W810 walkman phone... and while i´m in my car listening to radio or put my small library (512mb) in shuffle, I found that i don´t skip songs as I do while I´m at work with iTunes open.

Great post....

Ian Bicking on Oct. 31, 2006:

There's also a definitely grass-is-always greener problem as a result. I find myself skipping through -- and deciding if I *should* skip through -- to the detriment of my actual listening enjoyment. To stop this I've started listening primarily to albums. I keep losing my mixes, otherwise they'd also be good.

I feel like there's some interesting problem here. Like the prisoner's dilemma, except the players are the present-self and the future-self. Our attempt to optimize this situation sometimes lead to the detriment of the present self to the advantage of the future self, except because future self becomes present self this can lead to a recursive problem where we never get satisfaction in the present.

James Tauber on Nov. 2, 2006:

It's the present-self / future-self trade-off that made me think of George Zipf. My understanding is that Zipf's Law is actually based on this idea.

pandammonium on Nov. 17, 2006:

When I'm working, I play background music. I typically use LaunchCast, sometimes Last.fm. If I'm trying to concentrate, and a song I really like comes on, then I lose my concentration, and listen at least some of the song, before getting back to work. Sometimes, I end up being totally distracted from my work.

So my theory is that maybe, if you are concentrating, you skip your favourite songs so that you won't lose your concentration as much.

Obvious flaw: you've already lost your concentration in order to skip the song.

Another thought is that if you're listening to song after song that you really like, maybe it's just too much for your brain to handle. Maybe a person can only take so much pleasure at once.

Maybe because you like the songs so much, you listen to them more carefully, perhaps sing along (hopefully in your head if you're on a plane!). That's going to require a fair amount of concentration, which your brain might not want to do.

Add a Comment

Created: Oct. 25, 2006
Last Modified: Oct. 25, 2006
Author: jtauber