Even if you think you are relaxing, the reality is that your productivity is plummeting at the same rate
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New Code
PsychologyMarch 30, 2021
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Humanity can currently be divided into two broad categories: people who claim to be deconcentrated when music is playing in the background, and people who claim to concentrate more. And, although it sounds ugly to say so, since the latter perceive that they are right, the truth is that they are very wrong. At least according to what is detached from an investigation made recently by psychologists from multiple British universities and which are echoed in the medium Xataka. The conclusion is quite firm: background music makes it difficult for us to be productive in all cases.
That nuance of “in all cases” is very important. Because many people will be thinking that a song in Spanish that you know by heart is not the same as a song in Mesopotamian or a piece of instrumental music without any type of lyrics. But yes. Surprisingly enough, the study shows that any variety of background music acts as “a sensory stimulus that influences people’s cognitive performance“, in the words of the experts of Engadget. You can keep fooling others, even yourself if you want to, but science is quite clear.
Working without music: slow, unwilling, inefficient
Working with music: motivated, fully distracted, inefficient– Ardefunado (@Ardefiesty) March 9, 2021
Specifically, the researchers subjected multiple people to word-related creativity experiments. One of them consisted of giving them several words and then asking them to find an associated word that could be combined with all the words to form common concepts. This is how they discovered that people’s mental capacities worsened when they faced the game with background music. No matter what music. The scientific motive? According to scientists, music has the ability to disrupt verbal working memory. It’s a drag on performance.
Another very different thing is that music can make you feel happier, so that work work or academic work becomes more enjoyable. Nobody is going to close Spotify the next time you work or study. But from a productivity standpoint, it’s detrimental and it’s okay to take it into account. But what about background noise? Well in that case it depends. In general terms, the noise in which they occur changes in frequency, pitch or timbre is also very disruptive. This is why we have a hard time concentrating with people chattering around us. Our brain attends to changes.
Working with music is relaxing☺️
– Vale???? (@valentinaurbin_) March 7, 2021
On the contrary, and as demonstrated another investigation 2012, published in the specialized magazine Journal of Consumer Research, “a moderate or low level of ambient noise improves performance in creative tasks“. That is the reason that we can easily concentrate in libraries or that, in parks, the noise of birds or a fountain does not distract us hardly. It is a question of both decibels and uniformity in noise In short, if what you want is to concentrate fully, it is best to find a space with tenuous and homogeneous ambient noise. And no music of any kind!
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