About a year ago at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, some wonks presented a paper that concluded coworkers who share their music via iTunes form opinions about each other based upon the musical selections.
For those unfamiliar with the inner-workings of iTunes, there’s a feature that lets you listen to (but not download) music on other people’s computers within a Local Area Network (i.e. pretty much within any office) via a Shared Music tab.
Most importantly, the study found that employees used their shared music libraries to consciously portray an self-image, adding songs they thought would make them seem more cool or removing embarrassing ones. I admit that I did the latter at one point to shield others and myself from the potential uncoolness associated with my mighty collection of ’80s pop. But sometimes, one finds oneself thirsting for the synthesized drama of Cutting Crew, Bananarama or Glenn Frey.
Also, as you might expect, the study discovered that many people think their musical preferences are unique when in fact they’re not. As I like to put it, if your musical preferences are centered around CDs you bought online or in a store, then your preferences are unlikely unique. The only way your preferences are remotely unique is if your chief outlet for purchased music is wax cylinders proffered by some drunk with a hurdy gurdy on a street corner in Selma, Alabama.
Finally, the study says it drives people nuts when music is shared anonymously; people want to associate musical preferences with a face, presumably so they can mock it. The two people sharing music in my office today weren’t anonymous, but if they were or you didn’t know them, you probably still wouldn’t get a very clear picture of their personality judging them by the bulk of their musical selections.
My previous boss shares her music, and here are her top-five most-represented artists, with the number of songs in her library by each:
- 77 Steely Dan
- 42 Elvis Costello
- 28 Michael McDonald
- 25 John Fogerty
- 23 Paul Simon
O.K., so you know how old she is. (Answer: roughly as old as your Mom.) But Elvis lurking there like that is a sort of strange inclusion.
The only other music-sharer today was a girl probably in her late-20s that works on the magazines:
- 25 Billy Joel
- 25 Radiohead
- 21 John Coltrane
- 20 The Who
- 14 Bob Dylan
Again, all big names, but an intriguing mix.
If I shared my music, which I don’t, my top-five list would be:
- 46 PJ Harvey
- 33 The Rolling Stones
- 32 Sonic Youth
- 28 Madonna
- 26 David Bowie
Again with the big names, and expected from a guy with black plastic frame glasses, even if the bulk of my collection is comprised of one or two tracks by assorted and sometimes more-obscure artists.
So it doesn’t seem in the case of the two ladies in my office that they’re attempting to cultivate any cool via their shared playlists. I certainly don’t begrudge them for their Michael McDonald or Billy Joel, as I trust they would not begrudge my Madonna.