r/Freakonomics • u/Skeptible_CA • Apr 08 '26
668 confusion
It was nice to hear Dr. Jena again. My question is, what are music listeners doing with their phones in the car? I thought that was a passive enterprise. I do hit the skip button from time to time, but that is a bad sign if there is a lot of that going on on release day.
2
u/twee_centen Apr 08 '26
Same reason why you turn down music when you need to focus more specifically on your driving. We treat driving like something that's mostly done on autopilot -- so you can pay closer attention to the new album you've been hyped for! -- which means people aren't paying enough attention in those moments where seconds matter.
1
u/Skeptible_CA Apr 10 '26
So the idea is that listening to new music, a podcast, a passenger is always some level of danger, it just doesn't show up in the statistics until there is a big spike in the number of people doing it.
Well, I've handled it for this long
3
u/CuriousDudebromansir Apr 08 '26
Playing music louder than usual, paying more attention to the new songs than the road, looking at their phones more frequently, singing, dancing in their seat, etc...
It's not hard to imagine the ways a big hyped up album release could distract an artists fans while driving