A few nights ago I was studying my Chinese homework at my desk in my dorm, and one of my room mates sat down next to me and opened his textbook. What happened next was absolutely awful. He started blasting music. As I was writing the characters and talking to myself in my head I couldn’t concentrate. All I heard was Lil Uzi bouncing around in my head. I then politely asked him to put his headphones on and began to investigate how some people can study with music and if it actually helps.
I was quite surprised throughout the research I conducted, because every single study I read, the answers were the same. It depends. This article discusses five different groups that were tested on. Not to my surprise the groups that either listened to music or had randoms digits sounded out in the background had substantially lower scores than the two groups who had a repetitive sound or no sound at all. Even though the three groups who listened to music had lower scores their scores varied, which made me think I just didn’t enjoy the music being played at the time.
After I read that article I then asked my room mate how he could possibly listen to music while he studied and read. His reply was that he never really thought about it, and that it was something he did all through high school. I then asked him what his GPA was about the same as mine. I never listened to music and studied in high school. So I’m going to ask you, my classmates, do you listen to music while you study? Or are you like me and can’t bare sound in your head while you’re trying to retain information? Feedback would be appreciated I’m excited to read what you all have to say.
This is very interesting. I find that when I listen to music at certain points I tune it out and am very focused on what I am studying. In the same respect, it also depends on what I am studying or doing homework on. When I’m writing a paper it almost pushes me along in the writing process, especially when i’m not surfing for music, but it I just put on a station on Pandora. Then there are times, like right now as I’m typing, that I have Family Guy playing in the background while I’m doing this blog work. I truly do think it depends on the person. In high school I did the same thing as well. It calms me in a way and allows me to focus.
I really like J-POP and K-POP very much. So I always listen to music when I study. Actually now I write this comment and listen a song named “Russian Roulette”. There is no denying that sometimes music makes me distract. But comparing to songs, some regular or irregular slight sounds, such as the sound of cicadas, easily distract me and make me anxiety. And the research’s result is that there is no significant difference between test scores with five groups. So everyone actually just select the way they like. Listening to music when I study can make me more pleasant. It is enough valuable. I think having a good mood doing everything is very important. Also, sometimes results is not the most important but the process is.
I was just talking about this today! I can NOT study with any distractions, whether it be noise or movement. I often see people studying on the Hub’s wooden stairs across from Jamba Juice, and I just stare in wonder. How do they concentrate like that? One of my friends is one of these Hub study persons, and she was actually valedictorian of her high school class–so I don’t doubt her studying habits’ legitimacy. Still, studying with any distraction at all will never cease to amaze me.
This article here ** http://www.medicaldaily.com/pulse/9-study-tips-will-help-students-study-smarter-based-science-351842 **, written by Samantha Olson, lists 9 different scienticially-proven ways to study. The one that stands out to me most is that you should not study for more than 30 minutes. Often times as students, we find ourselves cramming for a test for hours. It seems counterproductive to take frequent breaks, as it seems to slow down our productivity, but studying for shorter spurts of time actually helps you retain information!
So while I will not be studying in the Hub any time soon, despite the delicious aroma of sushi wafting about, I will consider the listicle.
I can’t listen to music while doing schoolwork at ALL. It’s impossible. It gets me worked up because I will just sing the song lyrics rather than actually do my homework. I was recently just talking to my roommate and she was with some other friends studying and they were blasting music and she was like I literally couldn’t stand to be in the room. It’s so distracting to me. I have tried every genre of music too. Anything from country to pop and even classical music. Nothing works for me, sometimes even being next to someone whose not doing work is hard for me because it gets me so distracted. I found this article that gives the positives and negatives while listening to music while doing homework. http://education.seattlepi.com/listening-music-doing-homework-affect-grade-school-1365.html Check it out!!
I’ve found that I can listen to music only during certain assignments. If I’m reading a textbook or going over notes, I do not listen to music. The lyrics I’m listening to combined with the words I’m reading just create a jumbled mess of thoughts in my head that aren’t even relevant to what I’m trying to retain. However, I find that listening to music while I’m writing an article or an essay actually helps my creative process. I think that certain songs can relate to the theme or mood of whatever i’m writing. I find that when this is the case, I can think more clearly and have a more in-depth experience to whatever topic I’m writing about. However, my psych professor said that listening to any type of music while studying actually takes some of our focus away from the task at hand. The reason behind it is that our brain is stimulated regardless of the song having lyrics or not. He believed (due to results of studies he had read about) that anything shifting our focus away from retaining the class material would be detrimental (even slightly) to our grade. Here’s a link an article that discusses how music affects the brain and how it can stimulate memories and act as a therapy for some diseases. —->http://www.npr.org/2011/06/01/136859090/the-power-of-music-to-affect-the-brain
This article was very interesting to me because I have always had this same question. My best friend in high school couldn’t do work without music but its the complete opposite for me. Music distracts me from focusing on my work and I can’t get anything done with it blasting in my ears. I am also a very easily distracted person so i need complete silence and isolation while trying to study. This study done supports my side, it says that the vocals in the songs do take away from your focus and prevent you from doing your best. Although it did say that instrumental music might be more helpful than non, this might be something that I should try. Overall I think it really just depends on the person. Do whatever helps you the most!
This is very interesting. I find that when I listen to music at certain points I tune it out and am very focused on what I am studying. In the same respect, it also depends on what I am studying or doing homework on. When I’m writing a paper it almost pushes me along in the writing process, especially when i’m not surfing for music, but it I just put on a station on Pandora. Then there are times, like right now as I’m typing, that I have Family Guy playing in the background while I’m doing this blog work. I truly do think it depends on the person. In high school I did the same thing as well. It calms me in a way and allows me to focus.
I’m so glad you wrote about this!! I’ve been trying to figure out the same thing– I never listened to music while studying in high school, but I knew so many people who did. Since I’ve been in college though, I’ve been studying a lot more in public places. I’ve found that I can’t focus if there is talking going on around me. I’ve also found that the same thing goes if I’m listening to any sort of lyrical music, or instrumental music to a theme I’m familiar with. This presented itself as a problem as studying needs to happen, and I don’t want to just study in my dorm all the time. Because I really do love music, I went to Spotify to see if they had any solutions to my problem. What I found changed the way I studied. There’s a category under “browse” on the Spotify app called “focus.” When I saw this, I was extremely skeptical, but decided to give it a go. There is a huge variety of stations that I have yet to try out, but the station called “deep focus” is now my go-to anytime I’m in state of inability to focus in on something that I need to get done. I don’t know if this strategy works for everyone, but it’s worth trying if you’re open to the idea!