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

Someone said it well already, we form the soundtrack of our lives when we are young, and no matter how much new music we may find, we have in our heads music that is linked to memories of previous times and places that is custom to only our personal memories. Being older now I understand when my parents would say the current music is garbage. They never listened to rock n roll, they never searched out new music. They were mentally locked in the past musically. While I will not let that happen, I still think there is a lot of garbage music out there that is simply not musical in any way. I think this is always true.

Lots of interesting comments here. I agree with many of them. Here are my two cents.

Nabokov said that you don’t really know a book, understand the artistic achievement or quality, until you’ve read it five times. We can quibble about the number of readings required, but, as a general proposition, I agree with him. Now, I don’t read very many books five times, but I usually read books I especially value a second time. And, I think Nabokov’s observation even more true of music. I discovered long ago (way before I became a septuagenarian) that I get substantially more aesthetic satisfaction and pleasure listening to the same recording 10 or 12 times than from listening to 10 or 12 new recordings one time each. For me, multiple listenings is the only way new music has any chance at all to seep into me, alter my aesthetic and expand my musical preferences. 
 

So, although I spend time most weeks listening to music new to me, especially genres I don’t know well, I’m more likely to “re-spin” a recent discovery several times in the next week or so than to search for more “new” music. Do these “re-spins” qualify as listening to new music? My answer is yes.

There is a second dynamic at work in my listening habits, and this one is definitely related to aging. I already know and own plenty of books, records and CDs to keep me blissful to the end, even if I didn’t enjoy a rich social life. So, there is no imperative to dig for more. I sign into my Tidal account less frequently each year, not because I don’t like the new stuff (I know there are lots of gems yet to be discovered), but because I don’t need it so much anymore. I enjoy the hunt less now, because I have less time left and am no longer as willing to spend my time on the throw away music one must wade through in search of the gems. I’m happy to commune with the familiar, as long as it continues to enrich my days. And, for now, it does. Hail, hail, rock ‘n’ roll! Or, whatever rings your bell.
 

@clearthinker You nailed it. 
You broke it down perfectly in terms of the machinations of distribution today compared to the past. Your comment on how relatively unrewarding it is seeking out new music today compared to the past was insightful.  
People are less likely to keep doing something when their efforts are so often unrewarded.  
Sometimes, my good faith efforts to seek out diamonds in the rough feels like something of a punishing experience. 
Just because the sea is bigger doesn’t mean finding a good fish is easier.  
The opposite is likely true.  
@dayglow I’m as anti-religion as it gets. I only considered the “religious side” of Bach’s music after I’d already been convinced of his genius. Did some reading after, research, etc…that stuff ended up having no bearing for me on his music at all. Especially when I understood the context of a musician in the early 1700s.
Some of my very favorite artists made no qualms regarding their religious piety.  
The Carter Family, Hank Williams, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, to name a small few. My favorite comedian, Norm Macdonald, is another.  
I have a ton of gospel records from the ‘40s to the ‘70s (from something like ‘Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb’ by the Charming Bells in ‘49 to ‘Like a Ship’ by Pastor T.L. Barrett and His Youth for Christ Choir in ‘71) and it is some of my favorite music.
 

If one can't find anything of interest in the music of J.S. Bach, perhaps he or she does not really love music as much as he or she thinks. JSB wrote enough music to keep one busy for at least a lifetime.

Well...

@bdp24 

I love music, but Bach bores me to tears. As does all classical music from earlier than about 1930. 

I will stick with Elliott Carter, Berg, Ligeti, Penderecki, Charles Wuorinen, Joan Tower, Schoenberg, Magnus Lingberg, Unsuk Chin, and many more.

Elliott Carter lived until the age of 102, and continued to compose brilliant music up until the day he died. 

One possible anaysis might go:

With the net and digital, production and distribution costs of publishing music are almost nil. So millions (and millions) of recordings of new music are now published annually as against certainly no more than 10,000 a year 50 years ago.

Not all music is of high quality or worth publishing at all. Most of it would not be published if publication cost what it used to. We can’t all be great composers and performers.

The fallacious conclusion is that means more music to choose from. But the correct analysis is that you are more than 100 times less likely to find you like a piece of music you try. Therefore it can be said that trying new music is an unrewarding experience, at least in terms of time spent.

@clearthinker

The problem I see with your analysis is, it seems to assume that one is parsing all of those millions and millions of recordings, in order to find the exceedingly small number of new recordings of new music that one may like.

But it is quite easy to drastically decrease the numbers one has to look through by, avoiding mainstream sources, such as Billboard, or Grammy nominated artists, etc.

Or avoiding types or genres of music, that one knows has attributes one does not like.

My batting average in sampling new music, that ends up being something I like, is very high. And I sample and buy a lot!