It would be no great claim to suggest that technological evolution is changing the ways that we listen to music. When changes in our listening experiences do occur, however, it is often so difficult to discern precisely what they are. This is largely because, as media consumers, people, especially young people, adapt so quickly to alterations in the media environment that surrounds them. As technology and culture evolve hand in hand, we become so accustomed to the end results of this evolutionary process that it can become difficult to consciously recognize, on a day-to-day basis, that anything ever existed in a different form.
This process of change is a phenomenon shared by technology, culture, and human consciousness. Consciousness may change over time, but it is nearly impossible to track this change with any precision, since we are always engaged in the present, with the past existing only as a sequence of personal memories or as the words and images recorded by others.