Aspergers and radio

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Something been on my mind a while. I'm a big fan of radio, especially the classic "old-time" radio stuff from the 40s and 50s. Originally I think I got into it because so much of what we get to hear on radio today is crappy songs played several times a day for the rest of your life by machines with very little human input into the programming. But I'm beginning to think there may be an AS connection to it: specifically the fact that it's non-visual. When you're watching something on TV, you have to try to pay attention to the look of the program (visual elements like makeup, wardrobe, face and body gestures, as well as backgrounds). But I wonder if all that's too much information for some people to process and, because it does away with all that, radio is a more fitting entertainment medium.

my mother - who admits to some AS traits - listens to radio all the time. She walks around most places with her transistor and takes it away with her wherever she goes.

I can relate. Although I do every once in a while watch TV, I love listening to the radio. Until I got my mp3 player, I always listened to the radio while away from home. I listened predominantly to two stations:
1. the local public radio station, run through the University. News + classical music + cultural programming.
and
2. the local independent community radio station, run by donations from listeners and social activist groups. They play every genre of music, do radio theater, produce their own newscasts, and all kinds of other stuff.
As a matter of fact, let me just give them a plug, because I do love this station: WMNF - Community Radio

I've always loved letting my mind create the pictures while listening to the radio.
It's peaceful and natural and intellectually stimulating.
TV is usually like being crudely force-fed.

Good topic!

I am a CBC radio junkie....It is mostly talk radio and such, but they do have music as well. I like it because there are no commercials so I don't feel like i'm poisoning myself by listening to it..lol...I don't even watch tv and any show i do watch is downloaded, but I would choose radio over television anyday.

Somewhere in my collection of vinyl, I have one of W.C. Fields and Charlie McCarthy. It's hilarious, and I love listening to it and imagining them in a studio recording it...

I don't listen to the radio. I listen to my own selection of music.

On games that have fake radios (the GTA series), I'll listen to those. They usually come with a lot of crazy humor.

I hardly listen to the radio unless it's short.fast.loud, which is a program that plays my type of music. But I usually forget to tune in. I guess it's because I don't even have a stereo, but I have a TV tuner that gets me radio stations and an alarm clock with radio.
I just listen to my iPod and go to Last.fm.

I hate the radio thingy, I never know what comes up next. Also, I listen to albums, not random songs, so the radio is clearly not for me.

I want to get either XM or Sirius radio one of these days.

I have the TV on, but I rarely watch it. I use it to filter out other noises.

Commercials aren't necessarily a bad thing, although I do not agree with them on radio. I did once however buy one product based entirely on an ad I saw on tv. Normally ads don''t appeal to me, but this one was different, it was for a video game that I would have otherwise never played, and got me into the genre I love most, role playing games. I owe a lot to that commercial, if it were not for it, I would never have had the great experiences I have with Final Fantasy, Xenosaga, and other RPGs. I love the genre simply because of the styles of gameplay, and becuase of the beautiful stories they are designed to tell.

As for radio, I am yet to find a station that has the music I am into, without much other stuff, and there are not many radio shows I have found that I like. However I did like CBC radio as a kid.

I dont like listening to radio shows but I like the idea of being on them.

There are very few radio programs that play the music I'm into. The classical stations play the wrong sort of classical, the pop stations play the wrong sort of pop, and there's only one electronica/sound art show on that I know of, and it takes place at 11pm on a Sunday, and I tend not to be conscious at that time. But I do like listening to music. I like listening to the same song over and over again.

When I watch TV I just process the information I see and hear. When I listen to music I use my imagination to make up the visual part. I feel that music gets my imagination moving, so it's often distracting for me if I'm doing something that requires me mind to be on the task and not making up scenes to fit with the music.

I absolutely hate radio though. I like listening to my favorite music from CDs/mp3, but I hate listening to the radio, both because the quality of the sound is often bad and because the radio plays boring music and there are way too many ads and talking in between, so it's just annoying background noise to me.