Yes—but music being on is not the same as giving it your full attention. Recent UK data show that music remains part of many people’s weekly routines, while a small 2024 survey suggests that its respondents spent more time listening passively than actively. The available evidence cannot tell us what share of people now deliberately sit down for undivided listening.
Music listening is common; focused listening is a different question
Ofcom’s 2025 Audio Listening in the UK report found that 61% of UK adults used online music services weekly and 62% listened to music radio weekly. Those figures show reach, not attention: someone who streams music while doing something else counts just as much as someone who listens closely. Ofcom summarized the finding as “around six in ten adults aged 16+” listening to each source weekly. Ofcom, Audio Listening in the UK 2025.
Physical formats are still part of that picture. Ofcom reported that 27% listened to CDs, vinyl records, or cassettes weekly, while 33% said they never listened to those formats. The figures do not reveal whether physical-format listeners pay closer attention than people using radio or streaming.
What a survey of active and passive listening found
A 2024 online survey by Barbara Szyca, Bartosz Wejda, Marta Muchewicz, and Bożena Kostek asked respondents about both active and passive listening. Among its 239 participants, 82 reported more than three hours of passive listening a day, compared with 13 who reported more than three hours of active listening. The responses point to passive listening being more common in this sample, not to a universal pattern: 91% of participants were from Poland and 79% were aged 20–30. Szyca et al., “Exploring music listening patterns: an online survey”.
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The survey’s other answers suggest that listening can involve different degrees of control. Eighty percent selected streaming platforms as a way they played music; 49% said they chose songs themselves, and 14% selected algorithm-proposed playlists. These are respondent counts expressed as proportions of that study’s sample, not population estimates. Choosing tracks may make listening more deliberate for some people, but the survey does not show that selecting music necessarily means listening attentively.
Listening can take several forms
- Foreground listening: music is the main activity, with attention on the sound, performance, or recording.
- Background listening: music accompanies another activity rather than taking center stage. A 2025 study of university students found that music choices while studying varied with context and perceived task difficulty; it examined study behavior, not focused listening across the public. Cheah, Randall, and Coutinho, “Help me study! Music listening habits while studying”.
- Shared or programmed listening: radio, playlists, or other programming can supply music without the listener choosing each track. The survey above found both self-selected songs and algorithm-proposed playlists among its respondents.
These are different uses, not a ranking of better and worse listeners. Music can be the activity itself or accompany study, work, commuting, or chores; the cited evidence does not quantify how often people listen in each of those settings.
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Why broad audio figures do not settle the question
Nielsen’s Q3 2024 report put U.S. audio listening at an average of 3 hours and 57 minutes a day, citing Edison Research’s Share of Ear. That total combines radio, podcasts, streaming music services, satellite radio, and other included audio. It is not a measure of music-only listening, let alone time spent listening attentively. Nielsen, “The Record: Q3 U.S. audio listening trends”.
There is also no sound year-over-year comparison between Ofcom’s 2025 weekly-reach figures and its 2024 Audio Report: Ofcom says the first question in the 2025 survey was online-only, unlike the mixed online and telephone method used in earlier years. Nor do the separate studies provide a current, representative global estimate of how many people sit down for undivided listening.
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