Sharing a digital music collection with co-workers can be fraught with social perils, a study of US office workers has revealed. Amy Voida and colleagues from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Palo Alto Research Center in California, US, interviewed 13 US office workers who routinely listened to each others’ music via their company's computer network, using Apple's iTunes music software. Participants confessed to forming judgements about co-workers based on the taste - or lack of taste - revealed by their music collection. Many also admitted to tailoring their own music library to project a particular persona, and some said they deliberately hid particularly embarrassing tracks from others. iTunes provides a simple way to manage music files and can be used to upload songs to an iPod music player or buy tracks from the iTunes Music Store. But another feature lets users share songs across a computer network. Activating the sharing function lets others view and listen to playlists stored in a computer's library.
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