If you want to know what young people are listening to in the car, ask them.
I had a group of 16 college students this past spring semester at Villanova University in my Platform Based Computing course, and as a written response assignment, I focused on each of their strategies for listening to audio in the car, through five questions.
The survey was more qualitative, versus quantitative, and it was graded but with a soft touch — as my “wave them home” reputation suggests.
But I told the students ahead of time that their responses would be featured in an article for Radio World.
The beauty of this survey, I believe, is these students were Computer Science and Computer Engineering majors. Other than hearing me wax poetic about radio on a weekly basis, they have no stake in media as a career or otherwise.
I asked about their audio content preferences, whether or not they prefer touch screens or knobs and dials, if they control what they’re listening to through voice commands, and finally, whether or not terrestrial radio plays any role while they take a cruise?
In the final question, to tie it back to software development, I referenced a gravitation in their generation toward items such as vinyl and CDs, and how the push toward technology you can “feel” might influence their approaches to building websites or mobile apps.
The class was made up of eight freshmen, five sophomores, one junior and two seniors, all between the ages of 18–21.
Q1: If you are in charge of audio listening in your car, walk me through your usual process.
The latest Edison Research “Share of Ear” revealed that 13–34 year-olds spend some 4 hours and 30 minutes daily with audio, which leads all age demographics.
So I figured that my Villanova students would offer a suitable sample for in-car audio consuming. Nearly all said that, when they’re in the car, they decide what they’re going to listen to, though if they have passengers, that can influence their mindset.
As for what they are listening to, the use of Spotify was at the top of the list. Fourteen of the 16 students said they use it at least part of the time. Some said it was due to having a premium plan through their family.
“I have multiple playlists that I like to use for different occasions,” freshman Erin Campbell said.
Sophomore Lili Valletta said her Spotify playlist depends on the length of her drive. For those greater than an hour, she’ll usually queue up a podcast. She also enjoys news recaps. “I often find myself needing to listen to the news rather than finding the time to read it,” she wrote.
Nine of the sixteen students use Apple CarPlay to project audio from their phone into their car.
Freshman Noah Taylor uses CarPlay to listen to music from Spotify and get directions from Apple Maps. His only frustration?
Sometimes the volume of Spotify’s advertisements is much higher than that of the songs, he said.
Sophomore Anthony Dell’Avvocato drives a 2013 Honda Accord. It does have Bluetooth play-through, but he said as a do-it-yourself project, he wants to perform an Apple CarPlay installation himself, the likes of which have gained popularity on TikTok. Without a screen display, he often has to resort to waiting until he stops to change a playlist or podcast.
“The ease of access of having CarPlay would be a real privilege,” he said.
Fellow sophomore Zachary Buxton, in fact, has taken it to the next level already. He performed an Apple CarPlay screen dash installation in his 2010 Toyota Camry.
“I’m very proud,” he wrote. He typically uses Apple Music, he explained, for its top-notch audio quality in the Hi-Res Lossless format.
Buxton showed this kind of craftiness throughout our semester together, and he was accepted this past spring in the U.S. Navy Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate program as a Nuclear Surface Warfare Officer. For the next two years, as he finishes his Computer Engineering degrees at Villanova, Buxton will be on active duty.
Junior Heather Stripe also uses Apple Music, citing a family subscription. Her go-to for listening is through CarPlay, but sometimes it is prone to malfunctions, causing her to just default to the use of direct Bluetooth tethering.
Sophomore Erin McFadden also does not have CarPlay in her Toyota and just tethers via Bluetooth. She engages the touch screen to advance songs on her Spotify playlist.
“Sometimes I realize the day is more of a ‘punk rock’ feel versus country music,” she wrote.
Two students deviated from consensus: Sophomore Jack Behringer wrote that, although his car has Apple CarPlay, which he will use with Apple Music, his go-to source is SiriusXM.
Andrew Cooper, a sophomore, admits he is an audiophile and he takes the time to play files, via CarPlay, that he has personally downloaded for their lossless audio quality.
Having come of age during the Napster era, I can very much appreciate still having local copies of song files!
Q2: When you want to change what you are listening to another playlist, podcast or other content form, how do you usually do so?
Most of the student responses were a good reminder that, according to the latest S&P Global Mobility data, the average age of vehicles on U.S. roads is just short of 13 years — the oldest ever recorded. While I did not deliberately ask the make and model of the cars they drove, I got the impression there weren’t too many off the lot new cars here.
I asked if any of the students use voice controls to toggle music, and nearly everyone said they did not.
“I don’t bother trying to use the speech controls much because it usually gets the command wrong,” freshman Alan Quintero wrote.
Valletta agreed. “It never finds what I am looking for and it doesn’t work as fast as when I can manually seek it out on my phone or the touch screen,” she said.
Taylor said he has Siri disabled on his phone.
Several students said that they’d quickly glance at their phone to find the button to change songs, and continue to the one they desired.
Q3: Where, if at all, does terrestrial AM/FM radio come into play?
I braced for the responses to this question. I figured my heart would be broken. But radio was not totally off the radar for my Villanova students.
Two of them, Valletta and sophomore Carter Mui, admitted that since they earned their driver’s license, they hadn’t used terrestrial radio.
The most common use for radio? A backup plan.
“AM/FM radio usually comes into play if I can’t get Spotify working,” freshman Jake Bellenger wrote.
Sometimes, though, it’s used for convenience.
“When I am in a rush, I will not connect my phone, and I will listen to the radio in the car,” Campbell said. Living in Contra Costa County, Calif., she named several FM stations in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Dell’Avvocato, who is from Mahwah, N.J., recalled listening to a classic hits radio station occasionally around home, while his parents enjoy a SiriusXM subscription.
Buxton said that because of the ease of access of the radio from his steering wheel, he sometimes finds himself listening to sports and music stations during drives.
McFadden wrote that when she is with friends or family and just looking for more background ambience, that’s when she finds herself choosing terrestrial radio.
“When I do not know which genre would accommodate my passengers, I feel as though radio is the safest bet,” she said. Living in Bucks County, she cited Philadelphia’s WBEB(FM), in particular for its Christmas music during the holidays.
Cooper concurred. “Radio comes into play more for me when I have guests that I’m not sure which music will appease them while I am driving,” he wrote. He grew up on Philadelphia sports-talk radio, listening with his father, and he’ll sometimes resort to those habits.
Senior John Ahn, also in the Philadelphia area, cited WBEB, WIOQ and WTDY as stations he’ll seek out if he’s not using Spotify.
“But sometimes all the stations I am familiar with are on commercial breaks so I get bummed out and turn it off,” he wrote.
Quintero recalled listening to FM growing up before Bluetooth and streaming were more integrated into cars.
But selection matters.
“I don’t usually listen to the radio when I’m driving, mostly because I don’t have the choice to pick songs,” Stripe said. But again, citing the convenience of a radio button, sometimes she will just scroll through until she finds programming that is satisfying.
Behringer, who calls Chicagoland home, said that he will use AM radio specifically for sporting events. He switches between 670 WSCR(AM) and 1000 WMVP(AM) for Chicago sports games.
Taylor also cited sports as one of his uses of AM/FM radio. “For either a baseball game or for background noise,” he wrote.
Freshman Ryan Szczesny, living in Connecticut, also shares sports radio experiences with his dad.
“I grew up listening to WFAN with him, and I know their jingle by heart,” he said.
Q4: Do you make use of touch screen controls, or do you prefer tactile dials and knobs that you can turn?
Mui drives a 2009 Honda CR-V. He prefers tactile, physical controls. “I don’t have to navigate through multiple screens just to change the song,” Mui wrote.
Dell’Avvocato liked the touch screen’s level of focus to allow multitasking, requiring less precision.
But Taylor cautioned the touch screen can be distracting, and he tries to only use it when there are no other cars around. “I prefer physical dials so that I can actually know where my hand is instead of being forced to look away from the road,” he wrote.
McFadden agreed, saying the touch screen in her vehicle was easier to navigate than the selection knob. For volume, however, she uses the knob. “I don’t want to have to click the button on my steering wheel 10 times just to increase the volume,” she said.
Buxton warned of general tech fatigue. “There needs to be a healthy balance between digital and physical buttons,” he said.
Valletta sometimes found touch screens frustrating and prone to missing a button.
Q5: Recent surveys have shown a gravitation of young people toward “old tech” such as cassettes and vinyl. Where do you think this might come into play in your own software development journeys?
A Futuresource Consulting “Audio Tech Lifestyles” report described how Gen Z is fueling a revival of physical media. Some 60% of those in their age demographic said they buy vinyl, with two-thirds having done so in the past year. The survey indicated 42% of Gen Z’ers had purchased a cassette in the past year.
Bellenger believes the gravitation is real. “I have seen many young individuals appreciate the vintage and manual feel of vinyl and CDs,” he wrote.
The same tech fatigue Buxton spoke of is what he believes might be turning youth toward physical forms of media, such as CDs and vinyl.
“I think as we develop software, we should be aware of this, and perhaps shift design back to more neumorphism — or material and realistic 3D design to simulate physical buttons,” Buxton said.
Taylor suggested the idea of simplicity over flashiness in terms of application design. “But this also means less advertisements that interfere with the user experience, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon,” he wrote.
Conclusions
The class I teach is not at all written-response intensive. In fact, it’s mostly programming-based assignments, with the idea to be toward building websites and mobile apps.
But I could tell I touched on a nerve, mixing in a few essay-style questions such as these. All of my students thought through exactly what they do when they are in the car, because what they listen to matters to them.
Voice controls are a non-factor, and sometimes just choosing options can be a challenge navigating the hazards of driving highways, particularly in the northeast.
And while radio is certainly more of a “break glass” measure, it’s not totally out of the picture.
Erin McFadden summed up her position nicely.
“I love the balance between old and new technologies that modern cars incorporate,” she wrote. “I can connect my phone via Bluetooth and listen to music or podcasts and use GPS navigation. But if I want to listen to the radio, I can still get to use dials and physical features that make the process more authentic.”
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