The iPhone commercial parody on YouTube with genius filmmaker David Lynch hit the mark for me. His insight about people watching movies on iPhones, I'm paraphrasing--"You think you've seen the movie after watching it on your iPhone, but you'll be cheated. You haven't seen the movie."--could also be applied to music.
Just because you were listening to music while text messaging your boy/girlfriend doesn't mean you've actually heard the music. Exposure to music, art, film, what have you, is not the same as active engagement. It's kind of like having sex while watching Lost or Law & Order, which might not necessarily be a bad thing, but it does say something about the sex.
So the question is, do you ever just listen to music--without also doing something else at the same time?
Or do you--
Read
Cook
Work
Exercise
Commute to work
Or ________
while listening to music?
And when you just listen, does it change your feelings about the music?