Does listening to music help you study? Here are our tips

For music-loving students who live with earphones in their ears it is customary to study by listening to their favorite playlists on Spotify.

This habit has attracted the attention of some researchers and psychologists, who have wondered how much it affects mnemonic activity and increased school performance.

Does listening to music makes the brain more focused on the work it has to do or distract it, and is it counterproductive? Unfortunately, there was no scientific evidence for this, as the studies carried out had conflicting results.

A first study carried out by the University of Dayton divided a group of people into two groups, who were asked to study the first and the second without the help of music.

This study found that the greatest results were achieved by individuals in the group who studied with headphones on their ears, although overall values indicate that non listeners received superior performance!

In short, among the listeners, most had low performance, while a small group had excellent performance.

This suggests that it really depends on the person rather than general parameters.

MUSIC AND STUDY: THE CONS

Another study, conducted by the medical department of Stanford University in 2014, played music to a group of 18 boys (10 boys and 8 girls) while they were studying and undergoing an MRI scan.

The result was first and foremost confirmation of the influence of music on learning, but it was also found that the greatest activation of the cerebral organ took place during breaks between songs.

The aforementioned influence would therefore have been negative, reducing the learning capacity, which increased in moments of silence.

Such research, therefore, would put in a bad light the simultaneous development of the two activities, as the human brain would not devote itself totally to study, dispersing part of its potential in following the course of the melodies. For a distracted mind it is in fact easier to get lost between the notes of a pleasant song than to study a boring time for an exam.

According to this current of thought, putting on headphones while you have your head between the books is counterproductive, causing a lower quality of study and a useless waste of time.

MUSIC AND STUDY: THE PROS

Of the other school of thought, the favorable one, there is a professor of neuroscience in Cardiff, Dean Burnett, who says that music makes our unconscious attention system, which being involuntary is deeper and more instinctive than the conscious one, less prone to distraction. According to Burnett, therefore, music does not favour concentration in the proper sense, but rather makes sure that it does not diminish in response to external stimuli.

His advice is therefore to study with headphones to increase performance.

WHAT GENRE TO LISTEN TO?

Faced with the absence of a real scientific irrefutability, however, it has been found an influence of some characteristics such as the propensity to be introverted or extroverted?: those who identify themselves in the first category is not recommended to listen to music (obviously referred to the study) while the second is the opposite.

Also the music genre listened to seems to significantly influence brain activity: this is due to the different activation of the brain areas during the study. The organ in question can in fact be divided into right area, provided for creative processes, and left the area, more inclined to logic.

In order to favour the first area, the creative area, which intervenes more during the study of linguistic subjects such as English or Spanish and the artistic ones, it would be better to listen to rock music or generally animated melodies rather than lighter genres or even classical music, which instead is the best for subjects such as mathematics or the humanities, which affect the left part of the brain.

It is also preferable not to listen to songs in which there is a vocal line because it is easier for our brain to focus on the text rather than the time to study.

To conclude, although there are some guidelines to follow, much depends on person to person, the best option is the most obvious: try it on yourself and listen to music if it promotes concentration or eliminate the element of distraction if it is.