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Spotify Data Shows How Music Preferences Change With Latitude
A paper in Nature Human Behaviour this week drew on the listening data of nearly a million Spotify listeners from around the world, describing the daily and seasonal variations in how people listen. The researchers suggest that the results point to a universal human habit that probably sounds familiar: choosing your music to both match and change your mood. Ars Technica reports: The researchers took data from listeners in 51 countries, making sure that their samples matched the demographics of each country but otherwise selecting users randomly. Using Spotify-provided data on the music, they tracked a variable they called musical intensity, "ranging from highly relaxing (acoustic, instrumental, ambient, and flat or low tempo) to highly energetic (strong beat, danceable, loud, and bouncy)." Those intensity preferences tracked daily rhythms more or less exactly as you might expect: lower-intensity songs in the morning, rising until normal work hours, then staying steady before dropping off in the evening, with weekends looking a little different. These results matched up neatly with a previous study tracking emotions in Twitter users' speech, but it differed on one point: language showed an afternoon slump, but there was no such slump in the music choices. It's possible, the authors suggest, that people might be choosing music that gives them a boost.
The data also showed some cultural differences -- more energetic music, on average, in Latin America, more relaxing music in Asia -- and a gender difference that depended on hemisphere: women listen to less intense music in the Northern Hemisphere and more intense in the Southern Hemisphere. But the annual variation is where things really get intriguing, suggesting that music choices track day length. Peaks in intensity matched the summer solstice in each hemisphere, and these swings were more extreme at more extreme latitudes. Near the equator, changes in intensity were much flatter across the whole year, while more northerly and southerly places (which have greater variation in day lengths) had larger changes in music preferences. Day length accounted for musical intensity better than a range of other options.
The data also showed some cultural differences -- more energetic music, on average, in Latin America, more relaxing music in Asia -- and a gender difference that depended on hemisphere: women listen to less intense music in the Northern Hemisphere and more intense in the Southern Hemisphere. But the annual variation is where things really get intriguing, suggesting that music choices track day length. Peaks in intensity matched the summer solstice in each hemisphere, and these swings were more extreme at more extreme latitudes. Near the equator, changes in intensity were much flatter across the whole year, while more northerly and southerly places (which have greater variation in day lengths) had larger changes in music preferences. Day length accounted for musical intensity better than a range of other options.
Could also be temperature. People feel more energetic when they can get outside more.
It's those changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Noting remains quite the same.
If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane!!
-- Jimmy Buffett
Somebody should have gotten feedback on setting up this study. I think it was utterly flawed from the beginning and there probably is a bunch of corrupt info in the analyzes data. I think the person who collared it should be fired, shunned and summarily banished or executed
"Changes in latitude
changes in attitude
nothing remains quite the same
through all of the islands and all of the highlands
if we couldn't laugh we would all go insane." -- Jimmy Buffet, "Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude"
Mexicans like whatever you call what they like (I do Zunba twice a week, music is a lot like I hear when I head into Mexico)
Americans like pop or heavy metal
Canadians like, hell, I have no idea what they like. And I even know a Canadian!
Just going to leave this here...
http://i.imgur.com/P5Yfz.png
I stopped listening to music regularly since about 2009. I'm 33.
I guess it's on in the car. Usually what my wife wants to listen to. When I'm alone I quite often turn it off. Radio DJs inane narcissism and mutterings usually cause that.
I really don't like Holywood and the mainstream music industry. I played several instruments as a child and liked symphonic usually scandanavian metal as a teenager. Now I'd probably say I prefer classic music. But I kind of just enjoy listening to the sounds of nature and civilisation around me. Whether it's the hum of traffic or the cheering of birds, I don't know I kind of get a feel for what is around me and I like that.
I don't need music and it's certainly not worth money to me.
Have gnu, will travel.
I've suspected for a long time that music preferences correlate with personality traits. I recall reading how people with different jobs were found to have different music preferences. This also seems to back up the concept, at least broadly (state of mind). Instead of just looking at tempo, I wonder what they could find correlating with other aspects of music, like dynamic range of volume, number of chords in the song, scale, or time signature. You'd probably need to filter out traditional music in order to get useful results, though.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
What I hate about my streaming provider is exactly this same sort of non-consensual use of my data to do research. Although I guess usually his point is to refer to the huge amount of music he personally owns and how he can stream it anywhere, anytime, without paying anyone anything.
Wait, did I say him? I mean me. I usually point out how superior I am.
We all kneb that Finland was a heavy-metal land.
No matter how large the data set is, wrong context simply make one produce garbage-in garbage-out conclusions.
The first context problem is spotify , i.e. mostly age 18~29 , living in urban area, influence by the regional pop music , algorithm songs suggestion.
Scientists discovered people in different countries listen to different music. Who knew!
https://xkcd.com/1138/
we would all go insane.
Proven that societies having to prepare for hypothermia weather in the winter behave differently than societies in the equatorial zone not having to prepare for cold weather.
loll around in the jungle pulling food off of trees without worry for tomorrow
vs
short growing seasons, need for food preservation, need for fire fuel stockpile.