Why do we stop listening to new music as we get older?

I think the advent of streaming services has indeed helped to expose older listeners to new music…That’s been my experience at 66 yrs. old anyway.  I recently put together a playlist on Tidal that I entitled “Modern Music that Paw Paw Likes” 😂.  No hardcore Rap is represented there I’m afraid but one of Lady Gaga’s latest albums is there as is a couple of hours worth of tunes I took a shine to while perusing Tidal’s “New Arrivals” category….I can’t remember the other artists names to save my life.  Another aspect of this is that, thru music streaming services, I’ve learned (slightly to my chagrin!) that I’m a fan of Jazz, first and foremost, rather than the half-ton-stack of the Pop/Rock music I amassed on physical media pre-streaming and which I grew up with.  My theory is that being limited to physical media vs having access to a streaming service plays a significant part in whether one gets “stuck” in familiar musical genres.

I listen to a lot of new music via a great local NPR station (over airwaves).

Streaming services have also helped me discover old "new" music. Especially, 70’s soul and funk.

Streaming has opened my eyes to new music and artists I never would have heard, it’s a whole new frontier. 

My nephew and I share and swap new music all the time. Conversely, I rarely add new recordings of "old" music to my library.

Yeah, there have been several studies that show that the vast majority of people stop discovering new music around the age of 30. Some say 33.

The most likely reason, is that from about one's mid teens up through their mid to late 20's, people are experiencing some of the best times of their lives. And the music they and their peer group listen to, becomes the "soundtrack of the best times of their lives". New loves, great wild parties with friends, going away to school, newly discovered independence, etc, etc, all with the music of their time playing while it is all going on.

Their experiences become inseparable from the music.

Music that comes after that time period of their lives, even if it is qualitatively no worse (or no better), does not have the same kind of connection. It is 'only music' now, it is not their soundtrack.

I actually have hardly any nostalgic feelings connected to music at all. I am never trying to relive my youth through music.  For me, music lives or dies based on its own musical merits. Either it has the attributes I love in music, or it doesn't.