Young People’s Musical Engagement and Technologies of Taste

Abstract

The relationship between youth and music, as mediated through technology, has been evolving since the advent of transistor technology and the production of portable music players. With the ability to take music into personal spaces, such as the bedroom, youth’s relationship with music began to alter dramatically. Today, smartphones, MP3 players and iPods, complete with ear buds and built-in speakers, dominate the technological landscape. The ways in which these technologies are incorporated into social relationships reshape not only how youth listen to and find meaning in music, but also how they define their musical tastes and, to a large extent, their behaviour in social situations. Through the results of a large-scale, empirical study, this chapter explores how taste and sociability are highly intertwined, with boundaries becoming increasingly blurred between people and technology, music and genre definitions, and artist and fan. Throughout, youth are categorised as those under 30, and while having only two broad demographics can be seen as problematic, the dataset showed statistically significant differences in mobile music device use and behaviours between those over and under the age of 30.