Research : Music Experience and Behaviour In Young People

The University of Hertfordshire carried out research into ways in which young people aged 14-24 engaged with music.

How do the findings of this research compare to your own 'music experience' as a young person?

"The computer is no longer their main entertainment hub in the past 2 years it has been superseded by the mp3 player.

 65% listen to music on their mp3 player/iPod every day. By comparison, and only 18%% use their CD player on a daily basis."

Many of the young people around me use their phones as their main entertainment hub as they are always using their phones for music however I very rarely use my phone for music, I instead use my computer as my main entertainment hub and I listen to the majority of my music on there.  

"Ownership is still important

This is still true both online and offline. Young people are using the growing range of licensed digital music stores and they still want to own music on physical formats but this has more to do with their desire get superior sound quality associated with the physical artefact"

I completely disagree with this statement because literally all of my friends download music in alternate ways and put it onto their iTunes with no problem to listen to in good quality and for free. My friends don't buy music or have any subscriptions to digital music stores and that is the same for me. If I want to listen to a song I will just listen to it on youtube and if I like it I will download it and put it onto my iTunes.

"Digital music collections are still huge

Even if the average size of these has declined as respondents move to accessing music on streaming sites as well as storing more of their music on mp3 /IPods and increasingly on mobile phone

The average computer or hard drive contains almost 4,000 tracks but the average number of tracks on mp3 players rose sharply from 2009’s 1829 to 2011’s 2796. Mobile phones are also increasingly used to store music with the average number now 527 from 2009’s average of 32"

I agree with this, the music industry is growing rapidly and all of the people around me listen to their own music every single day through the use of their phones and iPods etc. As they listen to music so much having a large digital music collection is common so they have a range to listen to during the day. I think that young peoples digital music collection will rise as time goes on.

Overall, I understand that young people very rarely have physical copies of music and instead have big digital music collections on their phones, iPods or computers that they then listen to, there are many ways to get music for free therefore young people are using these and there are also legal ways to access music easily and for free through the use of YouTube and Spotify for example. I think that in 10 years all physical copies will be very uncommon and all music will be released digitally.