by Nurdok on 8/14/15, 3:13 PM with 44 comments
by kps on 8/14/15, 4:19 PM
During the 1960s, researchers at Cornell University conducted a series
of tests on the effects of working with music. They polled a group of
computer science students and divided the students into two groups, those
who liked to have music in the background while they worked (studied) and
those who did not. Then they put half of each group together in a silent
room, and the other half of each group in a different room equipped with
earphones and a musical selection. Participants in both rooms were given
a Fortran programming problem to work out from specification. To no
one's surprise, participants in the two rooms performed about the same
in speed and accuracy of programming. As any kid who does his arithmetic
homework with the music on knows, the part of the brain required for
arithmetic and related logic is unbothered by music—there's another
brain center that listens to the music.
The Cornell experiment, however, contained a hidden wild card. The
specification required that an output data stream be formed through a
series of manipulations on numbers in the input data stream. For example,
participants had to shift each number two digits to the left and then
divide by one hundred and so on, perhaps completing a dozen operations
in total. Although the specification never said it, the net effect of
all the operations was that each output number was necessarily equal to
its input number. Some people realized this and others did not. Of those
who figured it out, the overwhelming majority came from the quiet room.by gwern on 8/14/15, 4:45 PM
"Background music has been found to have beneficial, detrimental, or no effect on a variety of behavioral and psychological outcome measures. This article reports a meta-analysis that attempts to summarize the impact of background music. A global analysis shows a null effect, but a detailed examination of the studies that allow the calculation of effects sizes reveals that this null effect is most probably due to averaging out specific effects. In our analysis, the probability of detecting such specific effects was not very high as a result of the scarcity of studies that allowed the calculation of respective effect sizes. Nonetheless, we could identify several such cases: a comparison of studies that examined background music compared to no music indicates that background music disturbs the reading process, has some small detrimental effects on memory, but has a positive impact on emotional reactions and improves achievements in sports. A comparison of different types of background music reveals that the tempo of the music influences the tempo of activities that are performed while being exposed to background music. It is suggested that effort should be made to develop more specific theories about the impact of background music and to increase the methodological quality of relevant studies."
(It's worth noting that despite a lot of theorizing and a few results, there's still not a lot of evidence for personality traits mattering much, and it's definitely worth noting that there's a fairly consistent pattern of small negative mental effects even when people claim music helps.)
by mmatants on 8/14/15, 4:02 PM
Fair enough. However, this does not account for a whole class of subtle little interactions and questions that might be inconsequential one at a time but add up in aggregate to a whole new useful body of communication.
It's when you turn to a co-worker to ask a quick question and open your mouth and then pause because you see them with headphones on, and then give up on asking the question, because the question is actually tiny.
In many many cases, that's how it should be - people deserve their focus time, and we know how much programmer distraction costs. But there is also huge value in team members being available, in the serendipitous "overheard" tidbits that often save duplicated effort, keep the team cohesive and un-siloed. In kind exchanges, not requests to RTFM.
My point being that some (not all!) periods of time deserve to be "open office hours", where people sacrifice some of their focus and invite others to bug them seemingly frivolously. That means taking off headphones and letting oneself be distracted, soliciting easy quick questions. It may seem to conflict a lot of individual productivity advice, but it can help grow the brain trust of the team as a whole.
by endymi0n on 8/14/15, 4:07 PM
by DanAndersen on 8/14/15, 3:49 PM
I would agree with this. I'll typically listen to very ambient spacey music, something without strong beats or lyrics. Once I hear a person in my music it becomes frustrating. Alternately, I'll choose a few video game soundtracks, out of the belief that they're designed to be engaging without being distracting.
by iQuercus on 8/14/15, 3:49 PM
One has to wonder, if your goal is productivity, could it be more effective to just have a cup of coffee/tea? Maybe with some cream and sugar to help get some glucose to your brain as well?
by bryans on 8/14/15, 5:16 PM
At higher volumes, music will drown your internal monologue. If you find that your brain tends to constantly bikeshed instead of being productive, louder music will probably help with this. The downside is that if you are the type of person who focuses on lyrics instead of melody, you may find yourself more easily distracted by them. Something else to consider is that music containing very loud bass (think dubstep) might actually be detrimental to focus at higher volumes.
At lower volumes, the issue with lyrics goes away, but your internal monologue persists. A counter-intuitive benefit (though usually at very low volumes), is that you tend to lose a lot of the quieter frequencies in the music, and your brain starts to process everything differently while it attempts to fill in the blanks or discern unintelligible lyrics. This can actually lead to more creative potential for some people. I can reliably recreate this on-demand, and it has greatly helped with both songwriting and programming over the years. Though, to be honest, I end up blasting death metal 99% of the time, because it's just more fun when it's loud.
Then there is the Goldilocks zone. The perfect volume for you, and you alone. It is a very small decibel range and can be very difficult to find, especially considering the drastically different audio production between albums. But if you can manage to find it, you'll notice that lyrics and dynamics don't distract you, it drowns out the monologue, and likely helps with creativity.
Source: None. This is completely anecdotal, albeit from many people.
by Retric on 8/14/15, 3:43 PM
by fapjacks on 8/14/15, 8:10 PM
I cannot listen to any kind of music while programming except ambient/chillout electronic (Solar Fields, Carbon-Based Lifeforms, Sync24, Aes Dana, Asura, etc). This music has no lyrics, and most importantly gets me into flow extremely quickly and keeps me there longer than if I didn't listen to music. When I am in flow, I have personal "genius breakthroughs", full stop. If there is a benefit to working in a quiet room, I have never noticed it over the twenty years I've been programming.
by debarshisarkar on 8/14/15, 5:49 PM
by Pigo on 8/14/15, 4:59 PM
by spectrum1234 on 8/14/15, 4:10 PM
by nirmel on 8/14/15, 5:10 PM
Some companies and managers don’t like you listening to music. They argue that your headphones will isolate you from possible important interactions with others and that a person who spends their days listening to music cannot do their job well. These are not solid arguments for me. If someone wants to interact with you, they will definitely find a way to get your attention.
by mhurwi on 8/14/15, 3:59 PM
https://brainshiftradio.com/about.html
Their web app plays 2 tracks simultaneously: rhythm & ambient. Personally, I listen to 'focus' tracks constantly while working.
by jph on 8/14/15, 3:46 PM
by DEinspanjer on 8/14/15, 3:54 PM
by ww520 on 8/14/15, 4:50 PM
by hybby on 8/14/15, 4:01 PM
however, the act of simply having headphones on my head makes me a great deal more productive! the number of drive-bys i receive at my desk drops dramatically when i go into antisocial mode.