Byline: Robert MacMillan

In a recent Random Access , I referenced a study that concluded you can tell a lot about someone's personality by analyzing the playlists on his or her iPod . Not long after that, I found myself standing at a red light in midtown Manhattan noticing that nearly everyone around me had white wires winding from their ears into their pockets.

It was then that it occurred to me that the study was right. I was looking at little white devices that held the key to what makes these people click. And that is where the iPod goes beyond cool and into profound. It's a less accurate -- but more interesting -- tool for psychological analysis -- a Myers-Briggs for the digital age.

The study, conducted by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Palo Alto Research Center , is by no means exhaustive in its pursuit of accuracy. As CNET's News.com noted , it's "more anthropological than representative. The researchers interviewed 13 people at an unnamed office about their use of iTunes and their perceptions of other people based on playlist-reading."

The workers were taking part in an increasingly common exercise -- using space on the company's computer network to share music. (Try looking at some of the parts of your computer network shared by the whole office. You might be surprised by what you find.)

"Along with the culling of items in personal playlists, the researchers detailed the way that people browsed and judged other people's collections," News.com reported. "In general, people reported that music libraries didn't dramatically change their perception of their co-workers--except for one or two people who seemed a little too attached to the most current pop hits."

News.com said that the phenomenon of "playlist anxiety" is not new, noting that college students experienced similar feelings when Apple Computer started letting them stream music from other people's hard drives onto their networks.