Music has become so ingrained in today’s culture that many people cannot do without it.
As a college student, I often find myself with my headphones on my head and some kind of music playing almost non-stop. The only times that I don’t have my headphones on is when I’m in class, sleeping or talking to someone about something important.
Aside from those three things, my headphones rarely come off, which is something I didn’t even realize until people started pointing it out to me. A friend of mine even told me that he has never seen me without my headphones on. Him saying this caused me to question why it is that I almost always have to have music playing, specifically from my headphones. My brother has a high quality speaker system in our suite, but I’ll only use it once a week and sometimes not at all.
I think that people listen to music for different reasons and in different quantities. For me, music is mainly just something that helps me think. Regardless of whether I’m doing creative writing, studying art history, or working on an article, I need some music in my ears in order to concentrate. Because I’m almost always doing some form of work, I by default almost always have headphones on.
Most people don’t see how the music actually helps me to concentrate because the music has lyrics to it and it can be rather difficult to concentrate when someone is talking in your ear the whole time. However, I think that everyone has been in a situation where music is playing and they are fully aware of the sound, but they aren’t paying full attention to it. For example, when people are eating at a restaurant or shopping in a store, they recognize that the music is playing in the background, but it typically doesn’t have their attention like it would if they had earbuds in. It’s the same thing for me even though the music is quite loud and not easily ignored.
To me, music is something that is just nice to indulge in, although some people like myself probably do it a bit too much. I couldn’t remember the last time I walked to class without listening to music, so I decided to give it a try the other day and I was surprised by how different the experience was as a whole.
I had almost forgotten what it’s like to hear the normal sounds of the city while walking, and I never realized how much the music disconnects me from the world as far as what my brain does and does not register. However, it was a rather refreshing experience, and one that I can recommend to anyone who constantly listens to music like me.
At the end of the day, music is something that everyone interacts with differently. This is one of the reasons why it’s such an accessible thing across the world. Some people listen to it for pure enjoyment, and others use it to help them focus. Luckily, there isn’t really a “right” way to listen to music, so everyone is free to enjoy it as they wish, which is a great thing since I would probably have a difficult time getting anything done without it.