Does Listening to Music Have a Negative Impact on Creativity? (slashgear.com) 79
We've all heard the studies. AmiMoJo quotes the health and science editor of Slashgear: A new study has found that listening to music may have a negative impact on creativity. This is contrary to the popular idea that music and creativity often go hand in hand. According to the researchers, the negative impact was found even in cases where the music had a positive impact on mood and was liked by the person listening to it. However, background noise didn't have the same effect...
Unlike music, the noise in a library provided a "steady state" environment, which had less of a disruptive effect on participants. Though studying with background music may not completely obliterate someone's ability to think creatively, the research indicates that you may do your best work without it.
But what do Slashdot's readers think? Do you listen to music when you're working -- or do you prefer the steady sounds of silence? Share your own experiences in the comments.
Does listening to music have a negative impact on creativity?
Unlike music, the noise in a library provided a "steady state" environment, which had less of a disruptive effect on participants. Though studying with background music may not completely obliterate someone's ability to think creatively, the research indicates that you may do your best work without it.
But what do Slashdot's readers think? Do you listen to music when you're working -- or do you prefer the steady sounds of silence? Share your own experiences in the comments.
Does listening to music have a negative impact on creativity?
Comment (Score:2)
First dupe!
Re; First dupe! (Score:2)
Indeed, these careless "editors" - I use the term as loosely as possible - don't even know what they've already published just days before.
https://entertainment.slashdot... [slashdot.org]
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Re:Re; First dupe! (Score:4, Funny)
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Apparently, the editors listen to music while they work.
Yeah, we know (Score:5, Informative)
You told us three days ago [slashdot.org].
What next? Is Apple working on future products which will blow us away?
Here is my insightful comment (Score:3)
I was going to say something, but I forgot what it was. Baby shark doo doo doo
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This article was posted right before "Missing Out On Deep Sleep Causes Alzheimer's Plaques to Build Up". It is not a mistake. It is a cry for help.
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If the Indian artillery & airstrikes don't get him first.
It must (Score:5, Funny)
Or Slashdot editors would have found something new to post.
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[Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition.]
Hilarious that it did that whilst letting the ASCII-art swastikas above through unmolested!
Who would have guessed... (Score:4, Insightful)
... listening ot music consumes resources that the attention system in the brain needs to focus on the problem at hand. More distraction = less resources. A giant no brainer there. But I guess it's a slow newsday at slashdot.
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Music contains meaning and your brain will still pre-process it while white noise is ignored.
Music is meant, created, to be listened to. To use music as 'elevator' music is and insult to the musicians and their art even if you actually like it.
Background Noise? (Score:2)
You mean the 50 incessantly jabbering fuckwits in this shitty open office environment?
If I didn't have the music to drown them out, the only creative work I would do would involve figuring out how to kill them all.
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If I didn't have the music to drown them out, the only creative work I would do would involve figuring out how to kill them all.
I usually don't believe in it, but I think you might be my soulmate.
Depends on the music you are listening to (Score:4, Interesting)
Certainly loud and obnoxious sounds would have a detrimental effect on creativity, but soft new age music should promote relaxation and introspection. I find ocean and gentle rain ambient sounds especially inspirational.
Re:Depends on the music you are listening to (Score:4, Funny)
Yawny will put you to sleep, then you can dream about terrible new age 'music'.
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Loud and obnoxious music floods your mind with loud and obnoxious thoughts, completely removing your ability to think for yourself.
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You're thinking of music with words triggering your language processing centers.
Just as _terrible_ boring music triggers your 'god this sucks, get me out of here' fight/flight centers.
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No but (Score:1)
Maybe it has an impact on memory...
What is old is new again (Score:4, Insightful)
I am old enough to remember when Robert Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance [wikipedia.org] was first published. I think he settled this question well enough back then but there is just no way his message could grow past its apparent obscurity.
Fast forward a few decades and I am helping my girlfriends early-teen sons with their homework. They cannot even conceive of even sitting down to do it without a CD (that era) with some obnoxious bang bang BANG bang noise being distorted out of some nearby speaker. They are bright enough but their concentration is shit for what seems to me to be obvious reason. I can turn it off when I'm there and explain what is going on but the instant I am gone they start up the noise again and they must be entertained. Their grades remained crap and they barely passed high school. I got a serious case of oldfartitis.
Creative work does have a domain where outside stimulus such as favorite music might be helpful. Few musicians create worthwhile new works without listening to what came before. Even cross-genre. Maybe particularly so.
But at some point the passive reception mode has to be changed to forward focus mode. And for that you have to lose the need to be stimulated and focus on the task at hand. It can be hard work.
As Ursula Le Guin once pointed out: many writers make the mistake of confusing feeling creative with actually being creative. She was talking about taking drugs not music but I think it is pretty much the same.
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TL;DR version.
He relates a story about taking his motorcycle in for a repair. The staff there has heavy rock music blasting over the speakers on the shop floor. They do a shitty job on his bike. He explains the connection -- the workers at the shop really don't care about their craftsmanship and one indication of that (other than doing a shitty job) is that they think their work environment has to have this head-banging entertainment to be palatable. He goes on from there.
You are by far not the o
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The only conclusion found from that book is that obsessive schizophrenics tend to need a captive audience for their "genius" - and if it is not present they will invent one.
Pirsig was a schizophrenic who ended up being treated with ECT and later had to stop giving interviews after hearing his own voice coming from a TV he was passing by.
It was showing one of his earlier interviews but he was so freaked out by "hearing voices" again, he was afraid he was loosing touch with reality, again.
The entire book is a
Deja vu - (Score:1)
Learn to write (Score:2)
A total train-wreck of a sentence.
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"unlike listening to music" (an action) is compared to "the group that" (some people). A type mismatch.
It's like saying Mozart's symphonies aren't as good as Beethoven. At what, tennis? Hardly surprising, since he has two more arms.
P.S. That comma after "was" shouldn't be there. And "different" and "difference" should be in quotes, since you're referring to the word itself rather than what it means.
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Western Classical Music Enhances Creativity (Score:2)
The situation in Japan suggests that Western classical music enhances creativity.
According to a report [francemusique.com] by France Musique, "as soon as they enter primary school [in Japan], children have several hours of music lessons each week and the subject is as important as mathematics or history are. Moreover, almost [all schools] have their own orchestra with their stock of [musical] instruments." Many such children eventually become the engineers who develop products which are best in their class. Examples of such
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:Define music? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find good music even more distracting because I'm paying attention to how great it is.
Wrong question (Score:4, Insightful)
Lyrics kill creativity. (Score:2)
Most of what people do involves words, and anything that throws words at you -- like most pop music -- is going to give you cognitive dissonance.
Stick to instrumental music if it's words you need to create. If you're doing something strictly visual, or where the words are already determined, then words in your music probably don't matter so much.
Familar music is not a distraction (Score:2)