Posted by Greg at August 5th, 2005

The iPod has certainly changed the way people listen to music, but what has the effect been? Stayfree Magazine’s blog has suggested that iPod usage and addiction has turned into “Musical Attention Deficit Disorder” and wonder if a slow culture reversal is in order– a return to the Walkman or Discman.

As I commented there, I don’t think there’s an ‘attention deficit’ in iPod listening habits– that would suggest that the music we don’t want to hear deserves attention just because it’s there. I think it’s a whole new way of listening to music, and this is not a bad thing.

In the past, we only had music when someone played it live for us. Recorded music and radio brought music into our homes and cars for the first time, but it wasn’t until the Walkman that we could engineer our own soundtrack. The sheer selection offered by the iPod has changed music once again, and I think we should be looking for opportunities rather than forcing ourselves to listen to things that we just aren’t enjoying for whatever reason.

What’s so bad about fast culture?