And I thought it was simply canned music.
The New Yorker recently posted a
fascinating profile on Muzak. While many of us still carry the association
of "elevator music" around with us, the company has undergone incredible
specialization, becoming aural experience technicians, able to orchestrate a particular
attitude. In that article we read, for instance, that:...
some customers want to establish different moods at different times of the day;
some want current hits to repeat frequently, as they do on Top Forty radio stations;
some want programs that are closely geared to the seasons. At some retailers,
one of the biggest changes occurs at closing time, when the music becomes louder,
more intense, and presumably more likely to include lyrics that could be mistaken
for profanity. That’s an after-hours program, designed by Muzak’s audio
architects for employees who restock the shelves.
In this case,
the distinction being made influences productivity or sales. It seems very purposeful
- a particular aural atmosphere generates sales, or makes workers do their work
more quickly. My own choices of which tool to use for storing a particular snippet
of information seem more along the lines of the paint color example, where the
particular color that gets used in the end is less important than the simple fact
that a change is being made.
Go to: Who has the advantage here?, or
Go to: Making
a distinction, or
Go to: Doing things
the hard way.