The science behind why old people hate new music

Music is something that generally everybody finds their comfort zone in. We carry songs, artists and bands with us throughout our lives. It's a great mystery why music feels the way it does.

Most older people don't like the newer generations' music. Every parent feels that their generations’ music was more elegant and beautiful. In contrast today's fast and loud music is considered just noise by most of the older generations.

The divide between generations over not understanding music has always existed. However young people generally do enjoy music which their parents, grandparents and also great-grandparents listened to. Only the older generation seems to not catch on to modern music.

There is an actual psychological reason behind why this happens and it's called the ‘mere exposure effect’. It means more exposure to anything creates comfort and likeness towards it. 

As people grow older, their taste keeps changing with time and is finally set. After that their relationship with music gets skewed. Research says, young people listen to music more and are subjected to it for a longer period of time. 

By the time people turn 33 a huge chunk of them actually stop listening to music. Also the constant attachment we feel towards music during our teenage or youth years is psychologically influential as it has nostalgia attached to it. 

There's evidence that biologically as well the brain's ability to make subtle distinctions between chords and rhythms gets worse with age. That also explains why many of our parents feel the new generations' music is all the same. 

On top of this, these older people listened to their music on vinyls and LPs as compared to our online streaming. Their connection with music through that listening experience also affects their perspective.

Music is something that is very personal and subjective; it engages each of us on a very individual level. Siblings who grow up together also have different tastes. That's why it's not true that every old person does not enjoy new music. There are some older people who actually make an effort to understand and explore newer music without judgment. What do you feel about old people and new music?