Disruptions in Music Listening Behaviors During Lockdowns

This study examines how individual music listening behaviors evolved during the COVID-19 lockdowns in France, focusing on both listening volumes and rhythms. We combine passively collected individual listening history data, provided by a music streaming service and covering the 2019-2023 period, with survey data collected from the same users (n ≈ 10000). Using the Dynamic Time Warping method, we develop a typology of listening trajectories during the first lockdown. The results reveal significant and heterogeneous changes in listening behavior, with approximately one-third of respondents experiencing a significant decrease in listening volume, while a quarter experienced an increase. We then analyze the evolution of the intervals between consecutive music listening sessions — so called inter-session times — to assess disruptions in individual listening rhythms. We uncover an unprecedented shift in the listening rhythms at the onset of first lockdown, reflecting varying degrees of disruption in daily life rhythms. For half of the individuals this disruption lasted more than four weeks. Finally we show that age, educational attainment and household structure unevenly influence the reorganization of music listening activity during this period, shedding light on the social differentiations at work in the reorganization of an ordinary activity during this crisis period.