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I can only speak for myself but I like to listen to music because when I don't my mind starts blaring its own music at me from within. On repeat. All day. It can actually get really distracting (I'll start singing instead of programming) and I have to start up some music to distract that part of my brain and let the rest of it work on whatever I'm supposed to be doing. I find that certain music (psytrance and goa, the louder the better) distract just the smallest part of the brain, maximizing the part that that can work on whatever problem I need it to.

Similarly, I watch TV at night to dull the inner monologue in my head so I can fall asleep. If I don't my stupid mind fixates on the most negative aspects of my life (even when things are going well) and I stay awake for hours feeling horrible. TV, music, and reading can distract me and let me fall asleep peacefully.

I had the same problem for most of my life, I was unable to stop listening to music in my head.

The solution was surprisingly simple. When I wanted to stop the internal music, I focused on ambient noise. The leaves rustling in the trees. Passing cars: their tires on the pavement, brakes, engine, the exhaust note. There are quite a few things to notice. While focusing, the music stopped.

At first it took great deliberate effort to quiet the music in my head. But eventually it just went away, within a matter of weeks. I no longer need to exert effort, I have conscious control over whether I want to replay a song in my head, or just have silence.

My meditation teacher Gil Fronsdal thought of it. He's a genius.

Thanks Paul, never thought I'd come across the name Gil Fronsdal name here. I used to listen to Zencast a lot, I should do that again some time.

I can quite relate to you, music is around me whole day, otherwise I fidget, hum, whistle, tap, sing...

What I prefer over TV for killing the brain noise before sleep is, again, music.

Music is the best.

My theory is that this would die down after a while if you don't "feed" it.. at least for most people. What is your experience? Have you ever tried to force silence upon yourself?

I've actually done this thing, as in I've participated in a 10-day Vipassana meditation course, during which participants cannot listen to music or interact with each other.

I can say that forcing silence upon myself resulted in a "mental withdrawal", if you will. It wasn't very pleasant, the music gets louder and louder and quite unbearable at times. That said, I did indeed see some effects at the end, in a form of periods of silence in my mind(which was kind of spectacular for me; there's some music in the back of my head at all times). My opinion is that even longer period of non-listening would yield even bigger results.

I really recommend the experience(the deprivation, I mean; the Vipassana part is also cool, but kind of orthogonal). Even though it's very demanding, you can really put things into perspective and learn a lot about how your body reacts to things. It also gives you a completely different outlook on stuff like solitary confinement.

What do you mean force silence upon myself? Are we talking meditation or just working/reading in quiet places? For minutes or hours (or days)? I first noticed the music thing when I was on the high school swim team and would swim for multiple hours every day. Under water it's not quiet, but there are no discernible sounds beyond the water itself--all I would hear was the music in my head.

I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining. I love music and it's been a huge part of my life since I can remember (and I'm old).

But from my experience, I don't buy your theory. I think I'm just wired different than people that seek out quiet places.

Force silence upon oneself is to shut up the mind as soon as it starts blabbering. There are means to ease this up, like counting or looking at things and focusing on their characteristics (green jacket, yellow leave, noisy car) or feeling your body (my thumb tickles, my stomach feels empty).

Just stop when the brain starts picking up from there: "My stomach feels empty (BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T EATEN AND WHENEVER YOU DO YOU EAT TRASH)" you just stop the thought on the BE and focus on the next inner or outer thing or on the next number of the count. When you can't stop the thought on time, just ignore it and move on.

At first is hard, especially with a noisy brain, but it gets easier and easier.

You do realize that there is always external stimulus around right?

Be it the noise of the ventilation system, or car horns outside, true silence rarely exists.

That said, when I am at home there is little else except for the sound of my computer fans as I read a book. But when I am at work, I most certainly choose to control what background noises I listen to. Music is most certainly a part of that.

As for stimulus shutting down self reflection, I find that quite the opposite is true. Different forms of stimulus encourage different forms of self reflection.

In fact, true silence is so rare, it is perceived as noise.

In fact, true silence will make you insane. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_deprivation

Can't find the article right now, but they once put people in a completely soundproof room; their minds started to make up sounds and increased their hearing sensitivity to the point where they could hear their own muscles move. I believe the longest one lasted 45 minutes.

This may be the article you were looking for: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2124581/The-w...

True silence for long periods of time makes you insane. For a minute or two it's awesome how you start hearing "the sound of silence".

"young women especially" really?

Should he disregard his observations because it offends your sensibilities?

No, he should disregard them because as written they're sexist, and don't even have good methodology to try and stand in their defense. His confirmation bias is one thing, the assertion that these women "literally feel a compulsion" that he hasn't justified is another thing entirely.

It was more ageist than sexist. It was a pretty standard "get off my lawn and turn down that music" comment.

> No, he should disregard them because as written they're sexist, and don't even have good methodology to try and stand in their defense.

So... If he had a sufficiently good methodology which proved his assertions, they would cease to be sexist and you politically correct lot would approve of them? Somehow I doubt it.

Yes, if proven they would cease to be sexist, because they'd be discriminating based on facts, not based on his apparent prejudice. (However, since the conjecture does seem to come from a combination of sexism/ageism/confirmation bias, it would be surprising if they were proved.)

BTW: Are you proud not to be in the politically correct "lot"? All it really amounts to is trying not to be unnecessarily hateful or demeaning to one another.

I'm not sure that stating an observation that a certain tendency "seems to be" more common among a particular subgroup really counts as discrimination.

> Yes, if proven they would cease to be sexist, because they'd be discriminating based on facts, not based on his apparent prejudice. (However, since the conjecture does seem to come from a combination of sexism/ageism/confirmation bias, it would be surprising if they were proved.)

I see. It's good to know that employers are now free to throw out all applications from Ethiopians, because of the fact that the average IQ in Ethiopia is 63.

> BTW: Are you proud not to be in the politically correct "lot"? All it really amounts to is trying not to be unnecessarily hateful or demeaning to one another.

Please. Political correctness amounts to much more than that.

There needs to be a logically-valid reason to bring gender/age/country of origin/etc. into the discussion at all.

I.e., if you're interviewing an individual for a job, that means you're evaluating that individual's ability to fulfill the job requirements.

You'll get a hell of a lot better mileage out of, say, talking to them about complicated problems than you could ever get from even the average IQ in their family, let alone country or some other ridiculously large group like that. No need to get into the discussion of how valid that number is -- it's irrelevant to a job interview.

To the original point -- if maybe some large-scale study does show that young women tend to make more "social noise" than young men, I'm still having trouble imagining ways that might be relevant when noisy people enter a room I'm in.

Logic fail. But there is a difference between your (uncited) claim and "all Ethiopians I've met are thick", no?

Sure. Why not? Listening to music while in public sends the clear signal that she doesn't want to talk to you or anyone else. I think young people use earphones as a way of finding some privacy in an over socialized world. A pretty good adaptation, I would say.

The first weeks when I was living in Bangkok the busy, nosiy, smelly environment really drained my energy. Using headphones and music to escape the noise pollution of downtown Bangkok really helped me.

Later on I developed some sort of tolerance to the constant noise. Anyway I had the choice to move to a city or to the countryside last year when I decided to go back to Europe and the absolute silence at 3am out here, next to the mountains in southern Germany, is amazing.

I don't think it's for privacy, unless you're in a situation where social interaction is expected (you don't expect much of it on a daily commute, for example). Music adds comfort to an environment which is usually quite hostile: traffic noise, flashing adverts and constant movement, etc.

That's the pattern I've noticed as well.