I am not much of a music listener, and my iPod is mostly used for podcasts, but when I do listen to songs I obsess about play counts.

Probably because I am not much of a music listener I rely on iTunes to tell me what I like and the two smart playlists with recently played and most played songs are essential here. I consider it productive work to set the iPod to shuffle and skip or don't skip through what it throws at me, building up useful statistics in the process. I pause playback when leaving the room in order not to get inaccurate numbers. When I am only listening with half an ear while doing other things and catch myself having sat through a song I didn't like instead of skipping it, I panic. I am concerned if play counts should be recorded at all when I am only listening with half an ear while doing other things. I worry about the loss of information when I listen to Cissy's iPod, and about the implications of her listening to mine. The thing I hate most about the dying battery in our beat-up fifth generation iPod with the broken screen (five years old, but still my main player since I cannot get myself to buy a replacement iPod Touch since that model has gone so long without an update) is that when it suddenly shuts down, it tends to lose play counts. Never mind that I have to continue walking in silence for half an hour and later figure out where to resume playing in the middle of the two-hour podcast episode, I'll never be able to find the three great songs again, that I had just discovered in shuffle mode.