Do you also need to listen to something all the time, always to the same stuff?

[AuroraBorealis]

Hi, I've been recently told that I'm very probably autistic by an experienced professional. Since then, I've been thinking about things I do and feel, trying to figure out how much I am actually masking without realizing it and what's the real me.

A thing I do is: I hate listening to songs I don't know. The thing I see other people do, putting on a song on Spotify and listening to random songs that come after that, I hate doing that. I have my long playlist of downloaded songs and I only listen to them. Sometimes I stumble over a song I like, for example in a movie, and I download it and it joins my playlist. Other than that, I barely ever listen to new songs. Those songs feel highly personal to me and I hate showing someone my music or putting on music at a party, because it feels too personal.
I read very much and have a similar thing with books. I like reading the same books over and over again in different languages, and in a bookstore, I basically only look for books I already know or have heard of. I don't like browsing for new ones, or rather I don't know how to browse for new ones, since I don't know if I'll like them.

Another thing is: I constantly listen to something, either music, an audiobook (which I also re-listen to numerous times) or a podcast, where I also love to listen to episodes I know over and over again. It's actually part of my coping strategies when I'm oversocialized/overstimulated: I put on headphones and listen to familiar songs or an audiobook. It feels both calming and comfortably stimulating at the same time. If I don't listen to anything, I watch a series and carry my laptop around with me inside our home.
I considered simply being addicted to watching/listening to something all the time. I find it hard to differentiate. When I was a child and didn't have music on my phone, I walked around reading all the time, and when I was alone, I did this self-narrative thing (like, commenting everything I do like it was written in a book). At some point, it seems to have switched to listening to something.

Do some of you people do that, too? Is it common?

 

[Judge]

I think of this whenever SiriusXM solicits me with a free 90-day trial for my car's audio system.

When I use a 16Gb flash drive with over 2000 songs of my indisputably favorite music, why would I want to hear and pay for a more random case of broadcasts which more often than not would involve songs I either never heard of, or didn't particularly like?

Then consider that IMO I felt that popular music of all kinds more or less "went over a cliff" after 1989. That ever since I have been perfectly content with music indicative of only earlier times since then.

So yes, whether through my car or my computer or living room audio systems, I listen exclusively only to music of past eras. When I rarely turn on a radio it's either to hear classical music or news broadcasts.

I also tend to watch movies and television sources that I have seen before- many times.

My bad! Do I care what anyone thinks of this? Nope...

 

[Misty Avich]

I listen to the same audiobooks when I'm going to have a nap, even though I do sometimes get bored of the same ones. But it doesn't really matter if I'm going to go to sleep anyway, I just need an easy and familiar audiobook for relaxation. When I'm doing drawing or colouring I like to listen to audiobooks I haven't listened to yet, but I have finished a whole series of audiobooks and now I don't know what to do with my life lol, as the other similar series are narrated by a different voice and I prefer the other voice.

With songs, I do have a playlist but I often go hunting for songs on YouTube to download. I get bored if I listen to a song that doesn't interest me, like a slow love song with no real rhythm.

 

[Dagan]

We're mostly all about routine likes and patterns in our lives, yes. I certainly have specific musical tastes. I will try to listen to new things, but I very quickly know what I will or won't like.

 

[NeuroVibes]

Yesss, I definitely can relate to listening/watching/reading the same things time and again. Even the idea of the "shuffle" feature on a music player horrifies me. Why would I want my favorites popping up in some weird, random order??

When people try recommending I watch a new show/movie, I think to myself, "But why though?" I'm happy and soothed by the familiar. It's comfort food for the soul.

That said, my ADHD sometimes gets in a mood for something shiny and new. Then I'll venture into the unknown. Sometimes this means adding another obsessive rewatch/re-listen. Yay!

 

[MildredHubble]

I definitely do this. I rarely listen to new music on Spotify. It's always the same thing and it makes it unusual for me to hear new music and begin to like it. It happens occasionally, but even artists that I like to listen to, it takes me a long time before I listen to their new work.

I also have something playing in the background too most the time. I feel less comfortable if there isn't something I'm interested in playing in the background. It also helps me to sleep if there's something it's I've heard a few million times. I find it comforting and relaxing, plus I'm less likely to focus on it too much preventing me from sleeping.

 

[Gerontius]

I do not do this.
Music is something I enjoy actually listening to, not something I use as background noise. Background noise itself bothers me.

What I do relate to is the desire for listening to familiar music or at least familiar genres of music.

Sometimes now and then a long compilation or long radio program will be nice but it is not all the time.

 

[NDR2]

I’m always glad to listen to new songs. I may end up discovering something new I like.

 

[Mary Terry]

I'm fairly adventurous with new music, but not very adventurous with television shows or movies. I play the same shows every night on Netflix or BritBox to put myself to sleep. They are like a soft, familiar lullaby in the background that lulls me to sleep.

 

[MNAus]

I do listen to new things sometimes, but my regular listening is a fairly limited set of tracks. I'll also listen to the same song many times on repeat. I like having music on or other noise, because it drowns out whatever is on repeat in my head. Most the time that's a few lines from a song, but can also be a line from film/TV or something someone said to me. I thought it was normal to wake up with 2 lines from a song going round and round in your head, but apparently it's not?

 

[Rodafina]

I thought it was normal to wake up with 2 lines from a song going round and round in your head, but apparently it's not?

Definitely normal for me.

 

[Outdated]

I've never used spotify or any other streaming services. I watched a few youtube videos recently for the first time in my life but I'm pretty sure that's just a passing interest. There's very little new stuff that captures my attention.

As Judge mentioned, for me the world of music pretty much ends after the 80s. I also grew up in an era when musicians produced Albums. These weren't usually just random collections of a few songs, they were deliberately chosen because they were relevant to each other so that the album had a theme. With bands like Pink Floyd each song bled in to the next so that there were no breaks in the music between songs, instead it was one continuous 40 minute piece of music.

I have a very large collection of music on my harddrive, mostly whole albums and complete collections. One song of this and three songs of that doesn't excite me, I like listening to albums. I'm the same with TV shows, I'm not going to wait until next week to see the next episode, and I'm certainly not going to watch if it keeps getting interrupted by adverts. So instead I wait until a series is complete, then download the lot and watch it from my harddrive.

Some TV shows get replayed again and again and again. Top Gear is a classic example of this, 20 years old now and I still keep replaying it, it makes something pleasant in the background when I'm cooking and eating. Mostly British shows because the US ones are usually very annoying.

A "half hour" program is really only 18 minutes long to leave room for adverts, then they spend 5 minutes of that telling you what happened last week, and another 5 minutes at the end telling what's going to happen next week, so there's really only about 8 minutes of content in a half hour show. To me this is incredibly condescending, not all of us have the memory of a goldfish.

A lot of US comedies also have canned laughter, I enjoyed bits of The Big Bang Theory but the canned laughter destroyed it for me. People have tried to convince me that a show is funnier if you can hear other people laughing.... yeh, right. Maybe if they only used the canned laughter on comments that are actually funny instead of at the end of every sentence.

 

[ThanosTheDwarf]

I have my list of songs that I listen to and I don't like surprises / unknown songs - Which also means most of my music is curated from many years ago.

I also watch the same series when I go to bed - usually for a least a year or so every night, I have a number of docu series I like so I rotate to another one then.

 

[Tom]

Don't know how common it is but what you describe is very similar to my norm. I do however at times specifically listen to music compilations of vatious genres hoping to find songs I like. But I only listen to a few seconds of each in a few spots perhaps. I can tell very quickly if I like things or not.

 

[Progster]

I used to do that - listen to the same song over and over again. But that was back in the 70s/80s when the was no internet, no streaming, no YouTube. When I got a recordd, it was very precious and I just about wore my records out.

I think I have ADHD as well as ASD, though I'm not diagnosed with that. So there's a part of ne that craves novelty, new, shiny, stimulation and I'm curious, I want to know what this band I hear about sounds like. So part of my time is given over to finding and listening to new music.

It's actually part of my coping strategies when I'm oversocialized/overstimulated: I put on headphones and listen to familiar songs or an audiobook. It feels both calming and comfortably stimulating at the same time.

This bit is crucial; it's all about regulating stimulation levels. When you're overestimulated, then you crave or need something familiar that will calm you down and not stimulate you further. The last thing you want is something new to have to process. I'm the same way - I don't want anything new when I'm trying to deal with stuff. It's all about managing stimulation levels. Not too much and not too little. When I'm at home alone and there's nothing else going on to take up 'broadband width' then I feel I need stimulation and start to look for new music.

 

[SusanLR]

The same music, tv shows, relaxation audio CDs by the same person.
The familiar voice is calming no matter how many times I listen to it.
The same music also. All the older genres- pre90's- especially when driving.

I have ambient music playing in the background at home all day, unless I'm watching TV.
I will watch new TV shows to see if I like them. Others I can watch repeatedly forever.

 

[Progster]

US legislation wants us to pay separately for each copy of the information we produce, that's not going to happen.

Yeah, they are over-optimistic if they are expecting people to pay everytime they make a copy of a CD to back up and/or play on their computer at home. Not going to happen.

Though I thought that in the US, you can make a copy for personal use as long as you have the CD, but if you sell the CD and no longer own the physical copy, you are expected to delete the backup copy? Again, not going to happen.

Back in the day as kids, we would make copies of cassettes and share music and nobody questioned whether this was legal or not.

 

[Mary Terry]

Yeah, they are over-optimistic if they are expecting people to pay everytime they make a copy of a CD to back up and/or play on their computer at home. Not going to happen.

Though I thought that in the US, you can make a copy for personal use as long as you have the CD, but if you sell the CD and no longer own the physical copy, you are expected to delete the backup copy? Again, not going to happen.

Back in the day as kids, we would make copies of cassettes and share music and nobody questioned whether this was legal or not.

Hmmmm. Many people make personal copies of CDs, etc. in the US and I've heard of any kind of law enforcement action to collect money for it. It is illegal to make copies of copyrighted movies such as on streaming services but, again, I'm unaware of any prosecution for doing it. Lack of prosecution may be due to the practical impossibility of identifying people who make copies. There have been prosecuted cases of people who secretly recorded newly released movies in theaters and sold them as bootleg copies.

Isn't it like ripping the tag off a mattress or pillow, totally unenforceable in the real world?

 

[Progster]

Hmmmm. Many people make personal copies of CDs, etc. in the US and I've heard of any kind of law enforcement action to collect money for it. It is illegal to make copies of copyrighted movies such as on streaming services but, again, I'm unaware of any prosecution for doing it. Lack of prosecution may be due to the practical impossibility of identifying people who make copies. There have been prosecuted cases of people who secretly recorded newly released movies in theaters and sold them as bootleg copies.

Isn't it like ripping the tag off a mattress or pillow, totally unenforceable in the real world?

I don't understand your comment about ripping the tag off a mattress or pillow. Probably I'm missing some context.

Yes, in most cases such a law is unenforceable. Unless they're going to sell all new laptops, desktops, tablets and phones with microchips to spy on people's activity, which would be unethical and violate privacy laws.

When I was a kid, I my parents bought me a tape recorder and I used to record songs from the radio. The sound quality was awful, but I it meant I could listen to the song as often as I liked without waiting for it to be played on the radio.

 

[Mary Terry]

I don't understand your comment about ripping the tag off a mattress or pillow. Probably I'm missing some context.

Yes, in most cases such a law is unenforceable. Unless they're going to sell all new laptops, desktops, tablets and phones with microchips to spy on people's activity, which would be unethical and violate privacy laws.

When I was a kid, I my parents bought me a tape recorder and I used to record songs from the radio. The sound quality was awful, but I it meant I could listen to the song as often as I liked without waiting for it to be played on the radio.

There's a US law that requires tags on new mattresses and items such as pillows and upholstery that are stuffed with something to inform consumers exactly what the stuffing is made of and to assure consumers that the item is not previously used. (Yuck, previously used mattresses offered for sale!) The tags say something like "it is against the law to remove this tag." The law is intended to apply to sellers, not consumers who are free to remove the tags. I think most new tags these days state "do not remove under penalty of law except by the consumer" which is much clearer. But the old confusion about who is subject to the law has long been the butt of jokes in the US.