This Sonos And Apple
Experiment Demonstrates How Music Changes Your Behavior At Home
Well, here you are once
again, staring at a screen. It's okay, we all do it. Constantly. In fact,
there's a good chance you're sitting in a room with somebody else who is also
gazing into the blue light of a smartphone or some other gadget right now. All
of this technology, the common complaint goes, appears to be driving a wedge
between us.
Surely, there must be a
way to bring us back together. Would you believe the answer is... more
technology?
Music, to be more
specific. And insofar as technology has made music easier to create, find, and
listen to, the very same networks and gadgets that seem to drive us apart may
actually wind up making us feel closer, both physically and emotionally.
That's among the key findings from a study recently conducted by smart speaker manufacturer Sonos in partnership with
Apple Music and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin—the guy who literally wrote the book on how
music affects our brains.
Through a research partner, Sonos polled 30,000 music listeners about the
affects that music has on their lives. From there, the researchers did
something that hasn't really been done before: In 30 homes throughout the
world, they conducted an experiment. For one week, the members of each
household didn't listen to any music out loud. The following week, they did.
And the researchers rigged up each home with Sonos sound systems, Apple
Watches, iBeacons, and Nest cams to observe what happened when the music
started playing throughout the home. Families and housemates were free to put
on whatever music they wanted whenever they wanted.
"The thing I'm most excited about is that the experiment is
being done on this scale," says Levitin, whose best-selling book This
Is Your Brain On Music came out 10 years ago. "This is the kind
of thing that it would be very difficult to do in a university setting or a
research lab. This kind of work is very labor intensive."
By observing people in
their natural habitat—their homes—researchers were able to get a unique look
into the impact that music has on their day-to-day behaviors. "Music
historically has been a group experience," Levitin points out. And one, he
argues, that serves an evolutionary purpose.
Some of the most notable
findings of this research fall into what Levitin calls "a nexus of
intimacy and togetherness." When music is playing at home, people become
physically closer. The average distance between household members decreased by
12% during the in-home study. In the U.S., housemates (usually family members),
spent four and a half more hours together with music playing than without it.
With music on, people were 33% more likely to cook together and 85% more likely
to invite people over. They were 15% more likely to laugh together and 18% more
likely to utter the words "I love you."
People also have sex
more, thanks to music. In Sonos's initial survey, couples reported 66% more
intimacy when music is playing. And indeed, the in-home experiment found
couples spending 37% more "awake time" in bed. You know what that
means.
It only makes sense. Music has long been a part of physical
attraction and sexuality. Charles Darwin, wrote that
"musical notes and rhythm were first acquired by the male and female
progenitors of mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex."
It's not just musical skill that lures the opposite sex. The mere
presence of music can help serve as an aphrodisiac. And not just any music: In
recent years, science has found
correlations between musical taste and sexual attraction.
There's apparently a neurochemical basis for all of this, Levitin
says. Listening to music out loud together triggers the hormones oxytocin (the
so-called "love hormone" and serotonin. So it's no wonder cranking "Hotline
Bling" makes us feel randy.
And it doesn't stop in
the bedroom. Throughout the day, human beings use music as a way to regulate
their mood, not unlike a drug.
"We find from
studies that people listen to a different kind of music when they're cleaning
the house," says Levitin. "Then there's a different kind of music to
help motivate you through your exercise workout. The same way we use coffee to
get stimulated or alcohol or pot to get calm, we have music that fits these
different moods or alters these different moods and alters their
neurochemistry."
The Sonos study
confirmed this connection between music and mood. When music was playing,
respondents were 24% less irritable on average and felt 25% more inspired. In
general, they reported a 16% increase in positive feelings overall. But it
isn't just the brain that changes when music starts playing: Participants were
22% more physically active. As you might imagine, spontaneous dance parties
were much more common in households that listen to music out loud.
Music doesn't just encourage us to do more, it actually makes
activities more enjoyable as well. In this new study, 80% of respondents
reported that household chores were easier to complete when music was playing.
Eighteen percent said sex was better with music. Another 58% said food actually
tasted better when music was playing. This finding confirms something
psychologists have already been investigating: the use of music as a sort of
"digital seasoning" than can actually affect how our food tastes.
So why would Sonos
spearhead a study like this? Obviously, the company's chief motivation is to
sell speakers. And geeky experiments like this have a way of grabbing
headlines, especially if you can work in the sex angle. But beyond the
promotional value, there's a long-term advantage to gathering data like this,
both for Sonos and for others in the radically changing music industry. During
the course of the study, Sonos was able to gather intelligence on how people
actually use their products in the wild. They already conduct consumer research
all the time—for instance, when designing new speakers
like the Play:5 they released last fall. But this is the first time they've taken such a broad
look at music consumption and behavior at home, rather than simply conducting
user tests on a new interface or specific piece of hardware.
"It kind of
influences the ways that we’ll approach our product development," says
Michael Papish, head of global product marketing at Sonos. "Do we want to
make it easier for them to control Sonos? Do we want to add Sonos to more rooms
like hallways or the laundry room? Could you use it as part of reading a story
to your kids? Could it play a playlist of music to help someone fall
asleep?"
Observing families and
housemates in the wild allows the company to learn more about how their
products are used, in addition to feeding scientific data into our
understanding of music and behavior more broadly. To lend legitimacy to the
project, the company enlisted Levitin, who was asked to critique the design of
the study and help the researchers read and understand the resulting data
without drawing faulty conclusions.
"I see this as a
golden age for music unlike any other," says Levitin, who is also a
musician and record producer. "I'm carrying around a two-year-old MacBook.
I've got the capacity to make a record that sounds better than any Rolling
Stones record."
Not only has music become much easier to create and share, but now
it's becoming even easier to consume. All-you-can-stream music subscription
services are becoming mainstream, a trend that Apple is widely expected to help
accelerate with its recent launch of Apple Music (which, as of today, is
available on Sonos wireless speaker systems). The rise of the streaming
services and these types of hardware integrations—like the recent arrival
of Spotify on the Amazon Echo—help shift some music listening out of our white earbuds and
toward a more shared experience.
"I'm old enough to
remember having record listening parties where people would come over and we'd
turn out the lights and we'd put on side A of a vinyl," says Levitin.
"Nobody would talk. Then it was over, we'd talk about it." The
ubiquity of streaming services, coupled with dead-simple-to-use products from
companies like Sonos, Bose, and Amazon, Levitin hopes, will bring that communal
experience of music listening that he once enjoyed, perhaps even making it more
common than ever. And, if this research is any indication, that could have a
marked impact on people's lives.
"If music actually
causes people to have sex more often, we could see a change in the
birthrate," says Levitin. "Or we could also see a change in the
divorce rate. I think the next five to 10 years are going to be
interesting."
JOHN PAUL TITLOW
http://www.fastcompany.com/3056554/how-music-changes-our-behavior-at-home?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-weekly-newsletter&position=4&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=02122016
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