In Dialogue: Two music psychology scholars discuss listening practices
Amanda E. Krause and Steven C. Brown
Conservation Transcript
[0.00] Amanda Krause: What are your research interests and what where did that come from?
[0.05] Steven Karlsson-Brown: I think I’m most interested in just what people choose to listen to, or why and then how, you know, there’s different ways to go about doing it because you’ve got infinite options. So how do you reduce that to a choice, how do you actually select what to listen to and do you even really think about it? And, certainly for me, on a given day, and this is how I know if I’m having a bad day, I usually just instinctively know exactly what I really want to listen to, but I don’t know why or I just don’t understand that, but that is interesting to me. But then there will be days, where I just can’t settle on anything. And straight in, that’s when I know that I’m not really kind of connected to myself. But yeah it’s just all one big ever kind of growing and expanding and evolving general interest which is just, you know, people and music and especially the more I learn about music because it’s an activity to learn music you play music I don’t know music so I’ve got massive limitations, but I really like the idea that through music, because at this point in the learning music all these potential benefits to do with your development and confidence and discipline and meeting people, and I just am still interested in a lot of the unknowns. Especially with the technological side of things, because that’s always going to be changing. So, it’s just chipping away trying to get a little bit closer at understanding why people do what they do and how they do it. And the fact that we’ve got this unlimited essentially free resource that we now know is just incredibly good for you in so many different ways.
[1.40] AK: I think, in some ways, we have a similar story in that we have these two interests, because I would say the same, in terms of I was really interested in psychology, and I was really interested in music. And then that led me to actually discover that I could study music psychology, which was pretty cool. I’m really glad that I did that. I think it is the right choice. I’m still ever-fascinated by questions around music identity, around use of music, around music and health and well-being. So, I feel like I chose the right discipline if I’m still interested in asking these questions and still continuing to try to discover more about it.
[2.26] SK-B: And it’s obviously picked up now and bigger than when we started out. But that’s kind of what you were playing with when I first found all of this. It was this really narrow number of people who were known for what they were doing. So it still had that sort of, niche-novel-discovery type thing for me – like it felt new, emerging, and up-and-coming, you know, like still finding its feet and all that, and even that was exciting; whereas I thought psychology was kind of more, you know, the big, broad set of approaches were all kind of cemented, but obviously evolving and things. But it felt like there was a need to sort of, you know, prove that it was its own thing, and I think that’s probably ongoing. But that was appealing in itself that there was this new, emerging discipline, a field that was highly applied in some ways, and then also extremely abstract and, you know, academic in a lot of other ways, you know so.
And I feel it’s just so woven into everyday routine that we don’t really even think about it so the magic of it is not really that obvious, but there was some crazy scenario where, like, all the music in the world was just taken offline for a couple of weeks, I think people would go crazy. It’s like some other resource, like water or something.
[3.50] AK: yeah well, I mean there’s always that metaphor that music is water and in our current (streaming) — I think that’s also why I was really interested in looking at everyday uses of music, because — To me it was just ever-present and interwoven with daily life, and it is for a lot of people. There are people who don’t listen and don’t like music, but I think that’s a smaller minority. And so, and I was sitting there going, okay, well, I know there’s a lot of people (when I was studying music therapy, for example) that were focused on music with autism or a particular, you know, highly-trained skilled classical musicians — and I just saw that I was like okay that’s interesting but that’s not everyone. And, so, I really was keen on looking at the everyday interactions that we have with music.
[4.53] SK-B: Yeah, I’m similarly interested in what most people do everyday, and the fact that it’s quite banal. That it’s just become a part of everyday routine, whether it is driving or making a playlist for doing the dishes or whatever it happens to be. And playlists are something I think we’ll come back to, but that’s something I’m interested in – that’s a creative thing that you’re doing – it’s not just listening to music or hearing it, you’re actually creating and doing things. And that interests me as well, so it’s more of a pastime, as much as a kind of thing that people do. I think there’s ways that people can have fun with music, if you like, nowadays.
[5.33] AK: yeah; so let’s focus on playlists. And I guess to start, can you tell me about how playlist feature in your own listening practices?
[5.46] SK-B: Oh, it’s such a huge thing, like the last thing I had done before I started to talk to you was work on a playlist and I will be doing it tomorrow, and I’ll be thinking about in bed tonight about what I’m going to do. I mostly make playlists of single artists and I have rules that I set for myself. It’s usually less about making a playlist or the actual then listening to, it’s more the fun of just kind of forcing myself to listen to entire back catalogues of artists and really explore their albums. And the playlist kind of serves as a little reminder, of, you know what, you should go check that one out again. So it’s kind of functional, but it really goes back to when I had an iPod that had 200 gigabytes and it was stolen. Then I got one that was only 20 gigabytes, so I couldn’t fit all the songs that I had in my library. So I had to create playlists so that I had the ones I wanted to hear on the move. They had to serve a very specific function. And then, on the back of that, I just got in the habit of making playlists for fun. So it’s a kind of a way of killing time, a kind of fun thing to do, to send to friends. But I really enjoy just listening to songs that I’ve heard a million times and trying to figure out interesting ways for them to kind of link together or to completely jar sometimes, especially if it’s an artist has been on the go for a long time, and you can really hear, you know, their voice has just deteriorated over time – things like that. So I find that, as a kind of fun way to sort of, I don’t know, keep engaged with the bands that I like and related artists and just find the exploration to go down all these paths. And then by logging that as a playlist, it’s there to call upon in the future, to then dig deeper because I’m a complete album guy. I can’t emphasize that enough — like my affinity for bands is built on albums, a lot of albums. So playlists are really almost like a secondary thing. Like maybe I’m driving or something – it’s there because I’d rather not cut an album halfway through. So albums are where I’m at. But I probably make and spend more time listening to playlists.
[7.53] AK: You know that’s really interesting, because it sounds like — you can think of a playlist as the process of it, plus then the end product, right? In terms of creativity process versus product. And it sounds like, for you, there’s so much more in the process, which involves listening to the full albums — you’re not necessarily getting away from the album listening by choosing to make a playlist.
[8.24] SK-B: yeah well, for sure [laughs] The thing that people always slag me off for, when I make a playlist so for number one it’s exactly 40 songs long at the most if it’s a single artist. And the reason is because that’s kind of like the upper limit of what would be a two CD ‘greatest hits’ compilation in the 90s. That’s what it is.
[8.42] AK: So it’s still even framed as an album.
[8.46] SK-B: yeah, that’s the thing is I’m still anchored on that it needs to be, you know, of a duration that you could actually get through all the songs. I mean I make longer ones and put them on shuffle but, for me, I always very painstakingly put together a playlist in a specific way and I listen to it in that order. Whereas a lot of people I know — they’ll grab a playlist that some random person at a computer’s made, and they’ll just listen to anything. And that’s the complete opposite for me, that is the polar opposite. I’m trying to take control and make this something that’s kind of unique and cool and sometimes I’ve shared it and it will be liked by 100 people and stuff and it’s just quite gratifying to do that. But I have these kind of weird rules, because otherwise I feel you will never settle on anything. So it has to be certain duration and certain songs, you know, only one song and album and all this kind of stuff.
But yeah, so it’s more the fun of doing it, and then I do listen to them. But I’ve got so many now, I just don’t have the time. So sometimes I probably haven’t ever listened to them, but I enjoy the process of doing it, and, more than that, I don’t really do it in the one sitting. It’s usually like an ongoing thing over weeks and months, you know, it’s a process and just kind of happens. And then say I’ve got one for a single artist, and then you listen to the album, “I’m going to have to revisit that going to have to make some additions, I’m gonna have to tweak it”. So, it’s just a constant way of just keeping in touch with my favourite bands. So it’s kind of functional.
[10.09] AK: But if we think about it in terms of [the fact that] these are bands that you would be really familiar with, it’s interesting because if we think, from a research standpoint, right, that inverted-U, you’re able to shift where you are in how familiar you are with that music by still continuing to engage with these favourite artists, but in finding a different way to experience that music, which I think is really interesting.
[10.40] SK-B: So I do listen to new artists and things, but I guess it just is a fun way to do the same thing, just different ways because I can, you know. At the end of the day, it’s a lifestyle thing as well. I mean I just don’t have the luxury of time to stop and listen to albums, you know. So I think that works. It’s fun to just kind of say, you know what, let’s look at an alternative history that has never happened. Sometimes it’s quite fun and satisfying to do that. But it’s never as a substitute for the record that was, that album. It’s just a fun way of playing around with it.
[11.18] AK: So I guess my follow up question, Steven, is if that practice pre-existed or has shifted throughout your research career?
[11.32] SK-B: I think it’s definitely evolved. I mean, I’m going to call them mix tapes because they were on tapes at the time, you know, from the radio back in the day. But as soon as I got an iPod, it was playlists because it was there. Because it was an option. It was: “what is that? Let’s do that. And then it became a strictly functional thing on this small iPod that I had. But now it’s just so simple and easy to make playlists and I do it almost all the time, just as a matter of habit. But the more I read about how people can, you know, play around with music and then assume control over their environment and use it to, you know, for the gym it’s a trainer for exercise and the kinds of tempo and all this kind of stuff. I guess it’s just, not in a direct way, I don’t aim to replicate or anything, any of these things, but I guess just knowing that other people are doing it is good to know. And to know that it’s the sort of activity that’s widely done and that there are known benefits to just general listening to music, you know, so it keeps me listening to music whereas I might not otherwise do it so it’s I guess influenced but in a fairly low-level kind of way.
[12.44] AK: Yeah; it almost sounds like the creative process was all always there, but almost your understanding of the product of these playlists continues to evolve as we continue to study more about how we use music. Yeah, that’s cool.
[13.04] SK-B: I’m happy with that. I think one of the things for sure – I say this all the time and some people take to it and some people don’t. But maybe this is the thing that’s been most directly influenced by the research is that I do consider making a playlist to be, at the bare minimum, a form of musical creativity but arguably a form of music making that you’re essentially, you know, re-shifting things to make something else which is what we’re talking about. It is creativity. And you’re taking something that was intended to be this way and playing around with it. So I’m not going to say, it’s, you know, on a par with some virtuoso pianist but I think in the same vein, there is a sort of latent elitism about what is musicianship and I think the fact that it’s just so simple and easy to get your hands on a MIDI keyboard and DJ equipment to do remixing and all these kind of things you know and you’re making YouTube videos and mashups and all this kind of stuff. I think it is something that I do consider to be of interest as an evolving practice that involves some level of creativity, thought, and attention and I don’t think I would consider in those terms, or speak of it in those terms, had I not done real reading and research of my own and really thought about it in a different way, you know, a higher order kind of way.
[14.35] AK: Yeah, and I mean, I completely agree, I think, when I started reading things when I started doing my masters, which was on people’s use of iTunes to try to understand sort of engaging with digital music collections, I started reading about sort of the blurring of music listening and making because of technology. And, like you say, re-mixing and mashups and all these ways of engaging with music that aren’t necessarily the traditional playing an instrument and singing, that need to be, I think, accounted for in how we think about music engagement broadly and what actually fits as a musical activity and where do you call musicians and non-musicians. I think that distinction is just such a fraught distinction. There’s these long-standing distinctions and definitions that I think are completely, if not gone, blurred for sure around what behaviour counts or doesn’t count towards musicianship.
[15.48] SK-B: I think you’re absolutely spot on that it’s in flux. And that has absolutely to do with technology that is extremely low cost and the ease with which you can do all these things now.
But what about you and your playlists? Because I have no doubt that you’ll have a completely different system, if indeed it is a system.
[16.10] AK: My listening practices, I wouldn’t say, like you, that I’m necessarily as tied to the album. But I liked having, for the bands that I really prefer, I like having their entire sort of catalogue collection. I would say I’m a collector. And so, I wanted to try to have a complete collection for– not every band, but the ones that I really, really like. And so I had — back in the days of those CD wallets where you had the pages of CDs and that was my collection, which I sat and fed into a computer to digitize this massive amount of music. And I think that, when I was able to do that, and had it in iTunes and had an iPod that was the iPod classic so it could hold all this music, it was so much easier than selecting a handful of CDs or trying to listen to various things — I had this all as much as I could cram on there at my fingertips, and I did start making some playlists. Similar to you, I had, you know, best of for bands, but also, I think I did also have some playlists that were sort of activity- or situation-focused where maybe it would be sort of you know, the “party playlist” or the “I’m bored” playlist and the things that we see in the research.
But what I think shifted my listening the most was having a computer that the hard drive crashed. And, so, I didn’t necessarily lose all of the music, because I had the music backed up, but when you restart iTunes, the playlists don’t always come through. And after my computer crashed about two times, I sort of stopped putting a lot of effort into making playlists because they didn’t seem to be permanent. I was less engaged in trying to continually make playlists and I think we share the same thing of we wanted — I’m far more interested in myself making a playlist or maybe one of my close friends making a playlist as opposed to just picking one off Spotify or, you know, something that’s created by someone else.
But I think when I think about my research, it was still connected to this idea that I had this massive music collection. And I wanted to start actually making sure that I was listening to all of it, as opposed to just the favourite songs. And it stemmed from the first research project I did in my Master’s — that one about iTunes because I had a question where I was asking people –actually two questions. I asked them “how big is your collection, how many songs?” and then at that time iTunes was still — if you searched for that in the menu of the information it would also tell you how many of the songs you had listened to. And so, when I realized that, for myself, I had this massive amount of music, but I hadn’t listened to all of it, I started to want to make sure that I had heard everything that I had. And so, shuffle actually became my way of trying to just introduce to myself more of the music that I had. Because, I suppose, I wasn’t tied so much to listening to an album as a concept album start to finish, I was more just I want to have all of the music these bands, artists, have done. I was okay with shuffle and I was okay, because I was trying to introduce myself to more of my collection, of that randomness behind it.
[20.25] SK-B: that’s funny and there’s a lot of things you’ve said there that are interesting to me, but having used the word random, that’s something that amuses me because I quite like when bands do albums live but then I saw one recently, and it’s not that it wasn’t good, but they played the album in order, and it was kind of boring. [AK: oh, interesting] Yeah, I’ve seen it before. It depends, I mean if it was the Jesus and Mary Chain playing Darklands and it’s great album and I really like it; and I’ve seen other bands, like, you know, Roger Waters playing The Wall live and of course he’s going to play The Wall live in order and you settle in and you hunker down and it’s the whole big show and everything.
I don’t really tend to do shuffle when I play music, but when I’m thinking about what you’re talking about, I’d specifically go and see a band live, to see them play some sort of shuffle because that’s the whole point. You don’t know what they’re going to do, and when a song comes on that you didn’t expect, the first 10 seconds are brilliant and that’s what you’ve been getting from your iTunes collection.
[21.29] AK: So, yeah, you say that, but what happened was, like you, I went from having an iPod classic to an iPod whatever that was tiny — I don’t remember which one — because my classic was stolen. And so, I, like you, I had to start really cherry-picking, as opposed to having a large portion of my collection, where I could just call up whatever. I had to start really putting stuff on. So, I had sort of, I would say, and this is probably still true to this day, I had sort of a core set of favourites and then I would swap out different albums that I knew I hadn’t heard before to try to get some more of this randomness, right. But I became increasingly convinced, as I used this shuffle every day, that it was no longer random. And I don’t think I can prove this, and it is just a, you know, mathematical algorithm of choosing what comes next, but I started to feel like the order, even though it was still on shuffle, became familiar. And I don’t know 100% that it was the same, but maybe it was just because the amount of songs was smaller or whatever it was, it seemed like actually it was becoming sort of, “oh, it played track one, it’s not necessarily then going to track two, it’s going to random track 13” but that seemed to be the same jump, where it was becoming familiar. So, it sounds crazy to say, but I feel like shuffle wasn’t random anymore.
[23.22] SK-B: Okay, thinking about stuff now, and I always come back to Spotify when I really just mean any of the subscription services, but I think now that they’re online, I’m pretty sure they’re doing all these things to keep you using the product for as long as possible, you know, so I think that they know what songs you click, and skip, and all this stuff. So, it would make sense that they would want you to be enjoying using their product rather than just skip skip skip skip skip, because then you’re not listening to anything. So, it’s less crazy than it sounds, but certainly when you frame it in the context of now and subscription services, but then it’s like the gym it’s like anything else a subscription service is going to be better value for money, if you use it more. So they want you to use it more, so they want you to be enjoying it more, so they’re going to give you more of what they know that you like, same as the news, it’s gonna be, so it seems less wild nowadays.
But I’m laughing again, thinking about more about the research side of things, because the thing that fascinates me now. So right now, at this exact moment in time, Neil Young and then Joni Mitchell are trying to pull their catalogues from Spotify because they’ve got grievances with their alignment with a particular podcaster that it has views and [Spotify has] sided with the podcaster because Spotify is a business. But I keep reading online people saying that, you know, they would like to just struck Spotify because they also have problems with their business, but they can’t bear the thought of losing their playlists, which is what happened to you with your computer. Except this time, you can choose to put yourself through that hell or not. So, people’s convenience of having all their music that they put effort into compiling over the years is at odds with their ethics. And I know from my research that the concept of psychological ownership, which is the more effort you put into collating playlists you feel like it’s kind of like yours. And when I think about how much time and effort I put in to make my playlists, I similarly think that would kill me. But I similarly, previously used Deezer and there’s all sorts of third-party apps that can just transfer it between things. But that’s interesting the idea that, for all the time and effort you could put in, you kind of feel like you own that music but at any time, Spotify or any of these guys could go bust, or you can’t afford it or whatever, and then you’re stuck.
[25.55] AK: I actually have, and only because I got a new computer, and so all my music’s been sitting on this aging, dying laptop of which I wasn’t really engaging with much music, but by trying to transfer it over to the new one and make it work, I’m actually feeling like I’m re-discovering my music collection, which is invigorating because I was sort of not engaging in as much music listening, as I was before in my life, just in general. And I feel like this is giving me sort of a renewed interest in doing so.
But I think this idea of psychological ownership in the current news story around Spotify, and you see people who are, you know, saying “oh I’ve stopped my subscription and I’ve cancelled in solidarity with this, I never agreed with not paying artists.” But it’s a weird thing to look at in terms of ownership and access, and if somebody is just maybe not as engaged with maybe the process of making playlists or maybe the collector habit that I have or something like that. I don’t know how much the general user thinks about the ethics of it, beyond for $10 or whatever it is, I can have access to almost everything. You know, the lure of the “almost everything” seems to outstrip some of these actual debates that pop up every once in a while.
[27.42] SK-B: yeah, I’m interested to see how it plays out, but it’s just one of those things again to kind of link it back to the research and everything, it’s just an interesting area that’s live and changing all the time. And one way or another, I can have a conversation at the pub with someone and something will come up, you know — the Beatles are reissuing something again and blah blah blah, you know, and then you’ll end up an hour later talking about all manner of things, you know, and it’s interesting. But at this point in time, I mean, I don’t want to have to start again; I’ll put it that way, you know, like replacing all your files and, I don’t know, I feel like that the streaming thing has definitely stripped away a lot of the curatorship that I would have had back in the day – certainly things like we’ve just moved house recently and there’s the CDs that are in the loft that I will never play ever, I don’t have a CD player. But I spent so much money buying them and they meant a lot, a whole lot of money, a lot of time and effort, etc., that I can’t bear to get rid of them.
[28.46] AK: I think the digital revolution that we think about and talk about and write about really has changed how we access music. Just the difference in in the physical to the digital, let alone streaming, where, if you have an Internet connection then what do you do, you know. But that leads us to, I guess, I think what we can sort of end on here, is thinking about your future musical engagement and sort of hypothesizing around what might happen in the future.
[29.25] SK-B: So, I don’t really use it that much, but we do have some smart devices at home, and it’s comical to me how quickly that became, you know, not that interesting. So you go from being able to pull something up quickly on your phone to you’re not even using your fingers, you know, it’s crazy. But I think the more things become integrated, that’s what appeals to me and there’s an element of, you know, machine learning and all these computer-type things. But I like the idea that, you know, we’ve talked about, you know, less clutter, for example. Well another version of that is time. So if there’s a way to save time to get the thing that you want as quickly as possible and then that’s time saved, then that’s money well spent, for whatever gets that out of you. So I think that’s where my eyes are focused on: is there something that can help me get the music I want as quickly as possible? Because I can sometimes spend a lot of time just flicking and flicking and just not really connecting. So there’s an element of serendipity there, and probably some algorithmic sort of thing and I don’t want to go too far down that road, but I can see that being a fixture of some kind to try and get you what you want, as easy as possible, and I guess that’s been a constant for a long time.
The idea of concerts and actually seeing artists live and everything. The pandemic’s just really exposed how perilous that is and how easily that can fall apart. So, I’m convinced that they’ll need to be some sort of shuffle, to keep coming back to that word, about how artists are paid. So, I don’t think a subscription service works. I think musicians were only barely, and I mean most musicians, getting by one way or another, basically giiving away music for free on Spotify etc. So that it is a loss leader to get them then to come and see them live and they could make a lot of money that way. But that isn’t a given anymore. So I feel like the rise of Bandcamp and the (inaudible) the way fans connecting and actually paying for music and maybe spending more time listening to less music or less artists, but perhaps getting more out of it. The creation of music and all these kind of Kickstarter things I think that might represent a nice way of really connecting a bit more. Because right now I feel it’s just overwhelming to find music, that we can’t really keep on top of it and every week there’s a new album that I’m going to like that arrives in my inbox, like a bank statement — I don’t care about it, it’s not exciting to me. So I feel it’s some sort of way of making the music more exciting and meaningful and probably paying for it.
[32.10] AK: I wanted to pick up on one thing you mentioned, which is sort of around the Pandemic and live music; and so I think one thing I’m interested in is re-engaging with live music. The pandemic has only showed just how much people have gravitated towards music for their well-being. And, I mean, it’s been amazing to see what people can do in an online space. But I’m really fascinated in — like we’ve already done some research around why do people go to concerts, what do they get out of them, why are you choosing one format or the other? I think, coming hopefully out of this pandemic situation, I’m hoping that sort of live concert space is reinvigorated with, you know, some changes to sustainability, to support these artists and everybody, you know, in the industries. I don’t have, I guess, a hypothesis for what will happen, but I’m really interested to see people’s responses to re-engaging with live music and I know it’s starting to come back, but it’s just not yet a way of being in big social crowds and spaces. That I don’t think we’ll see what will happen yet. And I think that’s an interesting question for me, both in terms of the audience and the concert-goer as well as these artists, and just sort of the whole ecosystem of that experience.
[33.54] SK-B: I’m getting old so I feel this sort of thing [trails off] Yeah, I mean that’s been so many the most positive memories I’ve got and having met people and things it’s been live music. And the last few concerts I’ve been to — I just haven’t been able to connect the same way it’s just been gone. The idea that it may not really — I mean you would like to think that, if you take it away, the demand would surge somewhere, and it would elevate. But I think the climate crisis, which is all woven into this in sort of a big way might really, really create big changes. So, Adele’s currently, it’s not really happening right now, which is basically just doing a residency in Vegas instead of touring, which makes complete sense: “that I’m here and you can come and see me, instead of me coming to see you,” and then you don’t need to travel all over the world and things. So, I don’t know, maybe there’s a lot of learning to come from the kind of webcast and things that’s happened the last year; I can’t say I’ve had an experience that in anyway could compete or in any way just be worth the money basically. But, yeah, that is an interesting one: how to get back to what we did, but better or differently in a meaningful way because it’s unbeatable, that live experience that happens once. You’re there, and the artist is right in front of you, and you don’t know what’s going to happen, and that is what you’re paying for—you’re paying for the unpredictability and everything, you know. But, yeah, I think if you try and trace constants and things that I think the fact that the bands and musicians need to be paid, and the fact that touring is unsustainable, that should set up some sort of parameters for where things are going.
[35.39] AK: Because we do talk about technology and obviously technology is changing, and this idea of being out of date or old fashioned, but I think that’s also why I really like that we’ve taken a psychological approach to trying to understand people’s behaviours. Because while we might say, “okay we see this with Spotify or whatever”, if we extrapolate up, and we think about psychological ownership or the idea of selection and control, we might be putting that in the context of a playlist or the idea of selection and control, we might be putting that in the context of a playlist or streaming or shuffle or whatever it is, but I think it’s — while it’s tied to that, it’s also not. So that I’m hopeful that the research that we are doing and have done is still relevant to understanding people and their behaviours even if it’s not somebody playing a record or using an iPod or whatever Meta future technology VR thing it is.
[36.44] SK-B: I agree, I think that’s the real asset with psychology, there’s (inaudible) some theory and I could name a few — obviously uses and gratifications, so the idea that you know people are making that decision, that is a conscious decision, trying to achieve something, you know, and it’s probably some sort of hedonistic, you know, avoidance of pain and pleasure kind of thing you know, probably more complicated than that. But certainly, by keeping things broad enough at that top label you get enough room to play around with to try and draw parallels across things that are fairly micro-level different, but really if you zoom out, people are clearly trying to achieve something kind of fun, kind of happiness, trying to enjoy the time that we’ve got, we’re trying to connect, you know. These are the constants I think I’ve been alluding to, and I doubt that will change very much. It might just be the medium we access, or the core kind of parameters that will change. But, yeah, there you go.
[37.39] AK: yeah well, time will tell.
[37.41] SK-B: Time will tell.
Audio recording available here.