Enjoying Music in its Time and Season
Music is everywhere, and we hear it practically throughout the entire day, whether it’s at home, in our cars, at work, and more. It’s something we probably don’t pay much attention to, but many of us probably prefer certain times of the day to listen to music, and this is something that some serious academics have been studying through Spotify data.
A study from Cornell has examined the days, times and seasons we enjoy music through Spotify data. As the article begins, if you like to stay up late, you probably like what they define as “relaxing, low-intensity music.” You probably also enjoy mellow music during the winter.
As this study revealed, people of practically every walk of life like to listen to mellow music at night, and more upbeat music during the day. The study also revealed that people listen to less intense music with age. While that may not seem like such a big news flash, what is fascinating is how the data of our listening habits was gathered.
Studying How We Love Music
As Cornell Edu News reports, this study came from examining “765 million online music plays, streamed from Spotify in 2016, by 1 million people from 51 countries.” As far as how music intensity was judged, it went from a scale of “highly relaxing,” and this included acoustic and ambient music, to “highly energetic” that had a good beat you could dance to.
Close to half of people on the internet from the age of 16 to 64 will stream music during daylight hours. Around the world, women enjoy to less intense music, although the intensity of the music they enjoy increases in the Southern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, the opposite was true.
If you’re a “night owl,” you probably listen to less intense music, while “evening people” interestingly enough will play music “with the highest intensity scores.”
Streaming Running Hot and Cold
This is the first university study that not only looked at what kinds of music people enjoy during the day and night, but it also looked at how people experience music from the Northern and Southern hemispheres of the world. And indeed, the weather plays a big hand in the music people enjoy. People enjoy less intense music during cold seasons and will turn to what’s termed as “highly arousing music” when the weather gets warm.
This is another fascinating aspect of this study, especially considering how the weather can change the length of the days. As this story explains, “The interval between sunrise and sunset was the best predictor of musical intensity, as evidenced by the decrease in seasonal variation found near the equator.”
Spotify has a great deal of data on listening habits that many can view and study, and this is indeed an interesting way to examine how people listen to music. Spotify is looking to have a strong year ahead of them, so look for more analysis like this in the future.
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