"Need" might be strong, but I am okay with music players. My ADHD self is able to focus many times better if I have certain kinds of music playing to block out nearly talking and other distracting sounds.

I gave my 16yo ADHD kid an mp3 player with hours of “ADHD focus” music on it.

It’s proven very useful a few times where a few ND-unaware teachers have confiscated phones that the ND kids use to help them focus.

They don’t get it to use it whenever they want but there are some situations where they are allowed to use it and where having a phone is tricky given the lack of trust some teachers have.

Old school technology fallbacks are sometimes useful. Who knew.

Listening to music can help people focus.

music players were often essential for my ability to stay focussed on my work and reading.

For the walk home

I mostly just listened during homeroom and lunch period. But once I was sent to in-schoool-suspension in high school in the early 2000s for listening to my mp3 player (Diamond Rio PMP300) after I finished taking the yearly standardized tests the state used to judge schools.