Productivity and music: an unbreakable cycle

Graphic by Monika Krueger

By Stephanie Weber

Sitting at a coffee shop waiting for my overpriced drink, I think to myself Can I study here? The line is out the door, the tables are too small to hold both my laptop and phone at the same time, and the music is cranked too high. They’re playing The Cranberries’ Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? (1993) on repeat. The last time I was here Pitbull and Shakira were playing on the aux, and once binaural white noise was playing. This place is supposed to be a mecca of productivity, but I can’t even focus on sending a text, let alone writing a research paper.

The next logical step is to go to the back rooms of the all-silent Iwasaki library. Yet every person there seems to have over-the-ear headphones on, totally in the zone. Just recently, I was sitting across from someone who was bumping his head up and down, left to right, as if he was in Drake’s recording studio. He was mouthing the words to a song, and I could hear his music blasting, past my earbuds and into my ears. I wondered, How can he focus with all this music? and What is he listening to?

Spotify has sections on its homepage called “Student,” “Instrumental,” and “Ambient,” full of carefully curated playlists to help people focus. Starbucks even has a profile where listeners can access playlists titled “Starbucks Coffeehouse Pop,” Starbucks Acoustic,” and “Starbucks Jazz.” There’s a playlist for any type of work you’re doing with ambient noise in the background. A website even exists that plays coffeehouse music but lets the user change the ambient background noise. If I listen to music while studying, it’s usually classical, lo-fi beats, hyper pop, or my Khruangbin-inspired playlist full of psychedelic and global funk music sung in non-English languages. I also love the soundtracks of Phantom Thread (2017) and Downton Abbey (2010-2015). But some people in my life described their study soundtracks differently.

After submitting my friends to fill out a Google form, all of them answered that they listen to music when they do homework. Some listen to songs with words in them like rap, hip-hop, and rock, while others solely listen to instrumental music like jazz or ambient electronic. The array of responses was interesting when asked, “Do you think that listening to music helps you?” About half of the respondents said that listening to music is distracting, while the other half said that music is helpful for tuning things out and getting in the zone. One respondent even said that listening to music while studying is helpful to gauge time. 

Mostly it depends on the assignment at hand. For reading, most of my friends said that it was too challenging to focus on two sets of words simultaneously, but for writing, music is fair game. Writing is especially cool because some of my friends listen to music with a similar mood or tone as the stuff they’re working on, something I never considered doing. Music is a great tool for setting the mood but not so much for concentration despite the pushed corporate messaging about increasing productivity.

Sometimes listeners can’t choose what they want to hear or if they want to listen to music at all. The aesthetics of study spaces like cafés, work offices, and libraries, cater to different productivity needs, attuned to whether consumers want to work in loud, “creative” environments or in enough silence to hear their own thoughts. “Does music help you study” generates over 2.4 billion hits on Google, ranging from academic papers to Reddit threads. Some researchers say that listening to music can help with focus and concentration, while others argue that music distracts from the task at hand.

In terms of the former, music can help improve mood, motivation, and concentration, as well as increasing memory and brain stimulation. Classical music is most often cited as bringing in these benefits. There are a plethora of intelligence types, so merging musical intelligence with book smarts might work well for some people. But listening to music while studying can also be distracting, reducing memory level, and lowering reading comprehension. The latter explains that multitasking is hard for the brain and when studying, students should mimic the conditions present when they would be taking the exam. Some tips for what kind of music to listen to are to avoid music with lyrics or experimental music (there goes listening to hyper pop), such as slow and instrumental music. Keeping the volume low and streaming commercial free can also be helpful.

Coming to a conclusion about the connection between music and productivity is difficult because every learning style is different. But if music may not help with studying or productivity, the push to listen to music while doing work is so music streaming services and other businesses can make money. Coffee shop conglomerates and companies focused on “hive mind collaboration” can force their workers (and students) to work harder and better. Even music companies like Apple Music, Spotify, or YouTube Music promote study playlist tracks but require users to sign up for an account or subscribe for their services. 

Growing up, I remember advertisements on my local radio station that promoted listening to the station at work—people would even call in from their jobs to win concert tickets or place requests. While working for one company, a consumer is simultaneously promoting and marketing for another. On the flip side, some workplaces don’t allow music at all; a “no headphone” policy is enforced and employees risk consequences for breaking it. Of course, the notion of professionalism is at play here, but also access to digital screens. If a worker is on Spotify, maybe skipping a song or finding a different playlist, a text could come that they’ll answer, and then they’ll go to Instagram, TikTok, or shop online. But this is still in the vein of increasing productivity, since these workplace guidelines are used to encourage workers to produce more work and at a quicker pace, something that can be exhausting and unhealthy in the long run.

Rather than being consumed by the ever-growing reality of digital distractions, as students we have to consider if music is actually beneficial. Maybe it is or it isn’t, but garnering a sense of autonomy about study habits and education learning is more important than listening to a favorite song but doing poor work.