Words versus Music: Content Needs Room to Grow

I've been wondering about the effects of listening to music vs. words in audio. From commuting to workouts, I listen to tons of audio. Based on music sales and theft, I'm guessing you do too. The question is: is the audio pure distraction or does it play some role in your long-term personal mental development? And if the latter, what should be on your iPod? This matters whether the "personal development" is your own or that of your children. (Warning: this overall topic may be a recurring theme in DoxSpot.) Too keep things clear--at least to start--we'll talk about a stark contrast of pure content (words) vs. pure melody (music without understandable words), even with the understanding that lots (most?) falls in the middle. I've done some experimentation. My question was simple: Are intellectual results of a workout greater listening to substantive content (e.g. non-fiction audiobooks, talk radio, etc.) or to my moderately varied musical playlist? And the answer is simple: the former is content and the latter is concept development. Words are the seed. Music is the soil. Without content, your musings and music-marinated daydreams have the value of a 24-hour Charmin toilet paper commercial marathon. But without development, your NPR-enriched thinking is a glorified junior high book report. More to come on this....