Walkman effect

The Walkman effect is the way music listened to via headphones grants the listener more control over their environment. The term was coined by Shuhei Hosokawa, a professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, in an article published in Popular Music in 1984.^[1] While the term was named after the dominant portable music technology of the time, the Sony Walkman, it generically applies to all such devices and has been cited numerous times to refer to similar products released later, such as the Apple iPod.