The Mere-Exposure Effect is a phenomenon stating that the more you are exposed to something, the more you develop an affinity for it. Lately, I’ve been using Spotify’s “Songs for You” feature, which creates a playlist of songs based on your past listening habits. I’ve noticed that it recommends earworms – catchy tunes that get stuck in my head. While these songs are somewhat similar to my usual music preferences, they’re not what I would expect to discover during my musical explorations.
This makes me wonder if there is some hidden option within Spotify’s corporate structure, or perhaps even the Illuminati, where artists can pay to have their songs promoted more frequently. As a result, listeners experience the mere exposure effect and ultimately develop a liking for the song, wanting to listen to it more.
Taking inspiration from Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, I made a grave error when rearranging the family room to move my music production gear for our Christmas tree. I relocated everything into the living room, now dubbed the music room, filled with production equipment, a grand piano, children’s orchestra instruments, and more. But we hardly enter that room, and since removing the tree, I haven’t returned my DJ table to its original spot.
Duhigg’s book mentions learning guitar by incorporating it into his daily routine. He’d pass the guitar on his way to getting coffee each morning, strumming for a bit. Five minutes a day can lead to improvement. However, I’m not progressing in music production since my equipment is in the music room – ironically not where I produce music.
Microsoft killed Zune, and now I'm using WinAmp... again. I'm not surprised. I suppose that somewhere deep in their accounting department they were showing losses, or maybe not enough gains, and word worked its way out of Accounting and up to Management and eventually down to the users. Canceled.
It's not really canceled. You can still use it. You can still pay them. But they're not bothering to update the Zune software, which is what made paying them worthwhile. I should explain.
