In this article, I explore how the interplay between music consumption and self-construction is experienced by Norwegians who frequently use streaming services on smartphones. Accordingly, the interplay unfolds in a situation characterized by (a) an abundance of legally available music tracks and (b) low technical barriers for music listening, discovery, management, and sharing. This implies a major shift when compared to previous conditions for music consumption, and it provides the foundation upon which I developed the analysis. The article relies on qualitative material gathered in focus group discussions with smartphone streaming users in Oslo in September 2013. The findings suggest that the instant access to millions of songs yields a tension between intimacy and detachment in users’ relationship to music. In such an environment of numerous music consumption alternatives, freedom of choice is embraced, but apparently accompanied with a craving for scarcity. These opposing tendencies in the experience of music consumption are interpreted and acted on by the individual in the reflexive and social processes of self-construction. Thus, I propose that the self should be included into what in domestication studies has been coined “the articulations of media technologies.” The articulation of the self equips this analytical framework with a fourth pillar in addition to the previous three: object, content, and context. Moreover, the articulation of the self highlights a dimension that seems crucial to content consumption at large in the smartphone age.
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