There are different kinds of enjoyment. On a certain level in our brains, we have different kinds of needs.
One need is for novelty. The other is a need for familiarity or confirmation.
When we enjoy something, when we feel something that is fun, it goes along in this process: We encounter something new, we remember it, we predict a result, and we have that response confirmed or we are surprised. If we are surprised, we learn the new result, and next time we try to use that experience to predict the next result. When we are right, we are satisfied that we predicted the correct response and that feels good.
It's both the surprise, and the confirming of expectation that feels good in different ways. Music follows this pattern too. You listen to a song, if you've heard it before it triggers a memory and you sing along as much as you can remember. If you listen to a song for the first time, it repeats itself, so you learn the first verse, and then you recall it for the second one.
Music that is too unpredictable is just noise, it's not as easily enjoyable as normal music. Music that is too repetitive is not enjoyable either, it gets annoying and tiresome.
And that's sort of the thing. As you are satisfied with your recall, the good feelings from that start to fade. Hearing the refrain and then signing along the next time you hear it is satisfying. Hearing it 60 times makes you really wish you could listen to a different song.
But if you are with a friend who skips through the first measures of 60 songs, you're going to go nuts and want him to just stop and pick some song to listen to fully.
We balance the desire for novelty and for familiarity. This isn't just in music or entertainment or books. This is also in life. When we turn to entertainment, we look for things that fill the needs that we're otherwise missing.
If you hate to re-read books, you have little craving for familiarity, and you are seeking novelty. You probably don't enjoy listening to the same music album over and over either.
This might just be your personality, some people just crave novelty more than others. It might be because of what you do with the rest of your time, you might have a really repetitive day job and want some kind of novelty in your spare time.
My day job is pretty dynamic. It alternates between nose-to-the-grindstone drudgery and constantly dealing with new problems and coming up with new solutions.
If I have a day where I'm going through paperwork, and doing data entry for hours, then when I get home I really need to do something new. I need to find a new movie. I need to play a game I've never played before. I need to go somewhere or do something new.
On the other hand, if I've had a week where I'm constantly doing new things, solving new unexpected problems, I come home tired and I want to watch Star Trek, I want to play a game that I've finished. I want to remember, to do better, but not see something necessarily brand new.
I'd recommend that you try to do it anyways. It might be something you enjoy.
Perhaps I just don't have the familiarity desire gene at all.
In work I actually don't have any drudgery, that's why I picked this job -- I work for a small tech company, and spend each day on vastly different things: programming small applications, design/UX, cartooning/animating, writing, teaching courses, travelling, researching new technologies, etc. I was hired because that's the sort of environment in which I thrive, and the company needed that kind of person. During the interview, they asked if I would go to Botswana next week if I got hired today. I told them I would die to go to Botswana next week.
Before this I was a private investigator for 3 years, it wasn't boring, before that was 2 years of working in publishing, before that a year as a horse handler for a police force, before that I worked as a horticulturist for a rare plants business, and so on. I like to move around.
And I am that friend who skips through the first measures of 60 songs looking for something interesting. I usually find listening to entire pieces of music excruciatingly boring.
Sure, I understand that there's more content to be found by digging down into the piece, but I find I get much more content by just moving on and listening to something new. Yes, 10 minutes of Bach is great, but I feel like I get more out of splitting my time between 2 minutes of Bach, 2 minutes of Hip-Hop, 2 minutes of Chinese Classical, 2 minutes of African Blues, and 2 minutes of Progressive Noise music.
In college I was in a program that let you build your own major. I was taking coursework in 5 majors in three years. It was too repetitive for me, so I dropped out so I could study many more things in as little time.
So, absolutely, I'm the sort of person who likes novelty. I'd like to understand where you guys are coming from with the re-reading/re-watching thing.
It's always been a great mystery to me, but maybe its something bigger than just media, maybe it's ADD!
One need is for novelty. The other is a need for familiarity or confirmation.
When we enjoy something, when we feel something that is fun, it goes along in this process: We encounter something new, we remember it, we predict a result, and we have that response confirmed or we are surprised. If we are surprised, we learn the new result, and next time we try to use that experience to predict the next result. When we are right, we are satisfied that we predicted the correct response and that feels good.
It's both the surprise, and the confirming of expectation that feels good in different ways. Music follows this pattern too. You listen to a song, if you've heard it before it triggers a memory and you sing along as much as you can remember. If you listen to a song for the first time, it repeats itself, so you learn the first verse, and then you recall it for the second one.
Music that is too unpredictable is just noise, it's not as easily enjoyable as normal music. Music that is too repetitive is not enjoyable either, it gets annoying and tiresome.
And that's sort of the thing. As you are satisfied with your recall, the good feelings from that start to fade. Hearing the refrain and then signing along the next time you hear it is satisfying. Hearing it 60 times makes you really wish you could listen to a different song.
But if you are with a friend who skips through the first measures of 60 songs, you're going to go nuts and want him to just stop and pick some song to listen to fully.
We balance the desire for novelty and for familiarity. This isn't just in music or entertainment or books. This is also in life. When we turn to entertainment, we look for things that fill the needs that we're otherwise missing.
If you hate to re-read books, you have little craving for familiarity, and you are seeking novelty. You probably don't enjoy listening to the same music album over and over either.
This might just be your personality, some people just crave novelty more than others. It might be because of what you do with the rest of your time, you might have a really repetitive day job and want some kind of novelty in your spare time.
My day job is pretty dynamic. It alternates between nose-to-the-grindstone drudgery and constantly dealing with new problems and coming up with new solutions.
If I have a day where I'm going through paperwork, and doing data entry for hours, then when I get home I really need to do something new. I need to find a new movie. I need to play a game I've never played before. I need to go somewhere or do something new.
On the other hand, if I've had a week where I'm constantly doing new things, solving new unexpected problems, I come home tired and I want to watch Star Trek, I want to play a game that I've finished. I want to remember, to do better, but not see something necessarily brand new.
I'd recommend that you try to do it anyways. It might be something you enjoy.