The journalist has studied how sounds affect productivity. The study revealed that silence is the best suited for complex mental tasks: “As usual in the office, mostly working in open space. This means that around constantly ringing phones, chatting colleagues, is an interview or a job interview. And even on adjacent floor constantly fixing something, thundering jackhammers and drills.”
Despite the distracting sounds must work to create content. I have to constantly wear headphones. What to listen to on headphones, if not music? I honestly tried to listen to on Spotify list of songs for focused work. Most of this music was as if I was in the old planetarium. Had to return to the genre that is called “soft synth-pop with lyrics which does not burden the brain.”
But increasingly question whether replacing one distracting sound to others? Even more depressing is the likelihood that the sound track degrades the quality of the lyrics, influencing thoughts until they become the article or note. To find out what was happening, turned to the wand-the wand — Google Academy. It turned out that the confidence that background music helps to scribble lyrics in batches, erroneous. Chief assistant in office work — silence.
In one study, titled “Music to help productivity,” it was discovered that music helps to improve performance. However, the participants did repetitive work in the factory, checking the metal parts on the conveyor. A surge of productivity, noted by scientists, is the result of the fact that music has saved them from boredom and helped to maintain vigilance. It also helps to explain further research showed that music helps surgeons to better cope with their work.
“A large part of his time neurosurgeons drilled the bones of the skull,” explains Daniel Levitin (Daniel Levitin), neurologist and author of “This Is Your Brain on Music”. “In a sense, this is reminiscent of the work of the trucker. If all goes without complications, the task of the surgeon is quite boring and repetitive, and therefore there is a need for something that helps you stay psychologically cheerful.”
When the silence and the music began to explore with the help of sophisticated tests, it became clear that people work better under conditions of silence. In a study conducted in the 80s of the twentieth century, the researchers offered the participants to count backwards while listening to either energetic or relaxing music, or staying in silence. Those who listened to the cheerful tunes, coped with the problem worst. The best result was shown by those who listened to the silence.
What fun the music is, the harder it is to concentrate. Music with words is bad on the verbal tasks, says Levitin. Music with lots of variations hinders productivity, even if the person enjoys it. Music and speech compared to white noise caused in experimental irritability and worsen the result in the math tests and the memory test.
Some studies – those who used music for meditation or quiet classical music showed a weak positive the results of the impact of background noise on performance of tasks. Music without words has proved to be less distracting. A number of staff whose performance has improved, invented a special trick not to be distracted by music. A study involving middle school students, to listen to the singles “Bad Day” during the reading, showed that almost three-quarters of the subjects worse have passed the test for understanding. But those who are able to adequately cope with the building, “developed cognitive strategies to focus on learning tasks, ignoring background stimuli”.
The reason lies in the fact that most people cannot perceive a few things. Poetry and spoken texts, absorb the attention, along with a flashing light or a strong smell.