Some people enjoy studying to music, while others find it distracting. Do music and studying go well together? Is listening to music good for concentration? In this article, we tell you all about the power of music...
How do you study? In silence or to music? At home or in the library? People who study in a café with headphones on will tell you they concentrate better that way. But is it really true?
Is listening to music while studying a good idea?
When it comes to studying, everyone has their own way of doing things. And that's normal: learning methods vary according to the type of learner: visual, aural, solitary... But what about music? Does it help or distract?
In 2014, Nick Perham and Harriet Currie conducted a study to determine whether listening to music improved understanding and retention of lessons read. To do this, they divided students into four groups:
- The first group studied in silence
- The second group studied while listening to their favorite music
- The third group studied while listening to music they hated
- The fourth group studied by listening to music without lyrics.
Once they'd read their lessons, the students took a test, and had to say whether they'd managed to concentrate and guess whether they'd passed the test. And the results were astonishing!
What kind of music should I listen to while studying?
You'd think you'd learn better by listening to your favorite music, wouldn't you? And yet, the students who had revised in silence had 61% correct answers, compared with 37% correct answers for those who had studied with their favorite music. So studying in silence is more effective! Especially if you're studying a foreign language: it's hard to retain French vocabulary if you're listening to English songs.
Even more surprisingly, students who listened to music they didn't like only got 38% right. Good or bad music, the result is the same: you learn less well! If you really need music to study (for example, to isolate yourself from outside noise), it would seem that music without lyrics is the right compromise.
Why does music prevent us from studying?
When we study or try to learn new things, we use our "working memory". And if we listen to music at the same time (especially music with lyrics), it's going to take up space in this working memory: we then find ourselves in a cognitive double-task situation. It's logical: your brain has trouble doing two things at the same time. It cannot process the lesson and concentrate on the lyrics at the same time.
So, what about studying in a coffee shop? In this case, random overheard conversations might be more annoying than music while studying: slow music or blank noise can be helpful.
In conclusion, it would seem that people who listen to music during their revisions do so purely out of habit, without really seeing any improvement. If this is your case, it might be worth trying a revision session without music, or with different music, to see if you retain your lessons better! You could also try replacing your music with relaxing sounds (waves, nature, rain, etc.).
Is It Okay to Listen to Music While Studying?">