We seem to enjoy listening to music. Anecdotally, when I’ve gone on “music fasts”, music starts to sound much better and I develop cravings for music. This may indicate that this is a treadmill system, such that listening to music does not produce lasting improvements in mood. (That is, if enjoyment stems from relative change in quality/quantity of music and not from absolute quality/quantity, then we likely cannot obtain a lasting benefit.)
Frequency of music-listening correlates (.18) with conscientiousness. I’d guess the causation’s in the wrong direction, though.
Listening to random music (e.g. a multi-genre playlist on shuffle) will randomize emotion and mindstate. Entropic influences on sorta-optimized things (e.g. mindstate) are usually harmful. And the music-listening people do nowadays is very unlike EEA conditions, which is usually bad.
(These are the product of 30 minutes of googling; I’m asking you, not telling you.)
Here are some ways we could change our music-listening patterns:
Music modifies emotion. We could use this to induce specific useful emotions. For instance, for productivity, one could listen to a long epic music mix.
Stop listening to music entirely, and switch to variousvarietiesof ambient noise. Moderate ambient noise seems to be best for thinking.
Use music only as reinforcement for desired activities. I wrote a plugin to implement this for Anki. Additionally, music benefits exercise, so we might listen to music only at the gym. The treadmill-like nature of music enjoyment (see above) may be helpful here, as it would serve to regulate e.g. exercise frequency—infrequent exercise would create music cravings which would increase exercise frequency, and vice versa.
Listen only to educational music. Unfortunately, not much educational music for adults exists. We could get around this by overlaying regular music with text-to-speeched educational material or with audiobooks.
* I’ve been doing quantitative attention-allocation optimization lately, and “figure out whether to stop listening to music again” has one of the highest expected-utilons-per-time of all the interventions I’ve considered but not yet implemented.
Hallam, Susan. 2012. “The Effects of Background Music on Health and Wellbeing.” In Music, Health, and Wellbeing, edited by Raymond A. R. MacDonald, Gunter Kreutz, and Laura Mitchell. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199586974.003.0032.
Wait, where did “randomizes” come from? The study you link and the standard view says that music can induce specific emotions. The point of the study is that emotions induced by music can carry over into other areas, which suggests we might optimize when we use specific types of music. The study you link about music and accidents also suggests specific music decreased risks.
All the papers I’m immediately seeing on Google Scholar suggest there is no association between background music and studying effectiveness, or if there is, it’s only negative for those that don’t usually study to music. If that’s accurate, either people are already fairly aware of whether music distracts them, they would adapt to it given time, or they don’t know what kinds of music are effective for them due to lack of experience.
When I listen to music, I usually do so by putting a long multi-genre playlist on shuffle. That’s what I was thinking of when I wrote that; I’ll edit it.
Listening to music selected to induce specific emotions seems like it could be useful. For instance, for motivation, it might be useful to play a long epic music mix.
Alright, that makes more sense. Random music can randomize emotional state, just like random drugs can randomize physical state. Personally, I listen to a single artist at a time.
Yeah. I may not feel as strongly as you about this, but I still feel music is something intrinsically valuable to me. At least something about is is, and I haven’t yet found a better substitute for it. If I stop listening to music entirely, I feel like the world is a bit more devoid of value to me. It might make sense to talk about this for those who don’t feel strongly about the matter, but for me personally this starts to drift into the Straw Vulcan territory.
Related only indirectly: for me, pink noise seems to work much more effectively in masking distractions than white noise, to the point that I can tolerate a much higher volume.
One distinction that might matter here is between instrumental music and music with lyrics.
Anecdotally, I think lyric-free music, as background music, distracts me less, and I’ve tried to remember to listen to e.g. instrumental jazz or prog rock when I want to hear music while studying something.
I don’t really think that randomizing the the right word. Certain music has certain emotional effects on me. If I want to feel those effects I can play the music.
Certain Bachata music brings to my mind the emotions that I felt during dancing Bachata to those songs. Before dancing Bachata music did nothing for me.
Very well noticed. Music takes a lot of our time and attention (and a bit of money) for giving a bit of pleasure (and very little information). Music used to give lots of (but seldom) pleasure and associate this with social situations you had an impact on.
I listen to music only if I am in the mood for it. If the music I want to hear matches the feelings I have. But this happens only a few times a month. I like music (thus not being one of the 5% who can’t) but I’m quite choosy and my preference doesn’t align with popular trends. I think listening to it all the time is a waste of time and depreciates the value of the music (makes it everyday; nothing has a chance to stand out and do make an impact).
If you have time to kill I’d recommend listening to audio books instead. Not only stories (though there are some that contain valuable concepts esp. for younger listeners; I’d love to see an HPMoR audiobook). But maybe you can spend your time even better.
Music is one more domain of human preferrence that has been ‘subverted’ by our society. From whatever origin through a socially well-integrated function of bringing people together and increase social exchange it’s major remaining effect (measured by person-time spent) is to direct attention into the sphere of music meaning and economics (what sounds good, who likes what, how to sell/buy and play it).
This actually reduces chances of social interaction because everybody in the bus/train/street is listening to (or reading) something. And you can’t relate to that. But maybe that is a compensation for the masses of online-interactions that you have instead (which are less personal though).
Another consideration: earworms. I find getting a song stuck in my head to be somewhat aversive.
Edgar Allan Poe puts it this way:
It is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the ringing in our ears, or rather in our memories, of the burthen of some ordinary song, or some unimpressive snatches from an opera. Nor will we be the less tormented if the song in itself be good, or the opera air meritorious.
Should we listen to music? This seems like a high-value thing to think about.* Some considerations:
Music masks distractions. But we can get the same effect through alternatives such as white noise, calming environmental noise, or ambient social noise.
Music creates distractions. It causes interruptions. It forces us to switch our attention between tasks. For instance, listening to music while driving increases the risk of accidents.
We seem to enjoy listening to music. Anecdotally, when I’ve gone on “music fasts”, music starts to sound much better and I develop cravings for music. This may indicate that this is a treadmill system, such that listening to music does not produce lasting improvements in mood. (That is, if enjoyment stems from relative change in quality/quantity of music and not from absolute quality/quantity, then we likely cannot obtain a lasting benefit.)
Frequency of music-listening correlates (.18) with conscientiousness. I’d guess the causation’s in the wrong direction, though.
Listening to random music (e.g. a multi-genre playlist on shuffle) will randomize emotion and mindstate. Entropic influences on sorta-optimized things (e.g. mindstate) are usually harmful. And the music-listening people do nowadays is very unlike EEA conditions, which is usually bad.
(These are the product of 30 minutes of googling; I’m asking you, not telling you.)
Here are some ways we could change our music-listening patterns:
Music modifies emotion. We could use this to induce specific useful emotions. For instance, for productivity, one could listen to a long epic music mix.
Stop listening to music entirely, and switch to various varieties of ambient noise. Moderate ambient noise seems to be best for thinking.
Use music only as reinforcement for desired activities. I wrote a plugin to implement this for Anki. Additionally, music benefits exercise, so we might listen to music only at the gym. The treadmill-like nature of music enjoyment (see above) may be helpful here, as it would serve to regulate e.g. exercise frequency—infrequent exercise would create music cravings which would increase exercise frequency, and vice versa.
Listen only to educational music. Unfortunately, not much educational music for adults exists. We could get around this by overlaying regular music with text-to-speeched educational material or with audiobooks.
* I’ve been doing quantitative attention-allocation optimization lately, and “figure out whether to stop listening to music again” has one of the highest expected-utilons-per-time of all the interventions I’ve considered but not yet implemented.
I went through the literature on background music in September 2012; here is a dump of 38 paper references. Abstracts can be found by searching here and I can provide full texts on request.
Six papers that I starred in my reference manager (with links to full texts):
Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas, Montserrat Gomà-i-Freixanet, Adrian Furnham, and Anna Muro. 2009. “Personality, Self-Estimated Intelligence, and Uses of Music: A Spanish Replication and Extension Using Structural Equation Modeling.” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 3 (3): 149–155. doi:10.1037/a0015342.
Dobbs, Stacey, Adrian Furnham, and Alastair McClelland. 2011. “The Effect of Background Music and Noise on the Cognitive Test Performance of Introverts and Extraverts.” Applied Cognitive Psychology 25 (2) (March 23): 307–313. doi:10.1002/acp.1692.
Hallam, Susan. 2012. “The Effects of Background Music on Health and Wellbeing.” In Music, Health, and Wellbeing, edited by Raymond A. R. MacDonald, Gunter Kreutz, and Laura Mitchell. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199586974.003.0032.
Perham, Nick, and Joanne Vizard. 2011. “Can Preference for Background Music Mediate the Irrelevant Sound Effect?” Applied Cognitive Psychology 25 (4) (July 20): 625–631. doi:10.1002/acp.1731.
Schellenberg, E. Glenn. 2012. “Cognitive Performance after Listening to Music: A Review of the Mozart Effect.” In Music, Health, and Wellbeing, edited by Raymond A. R. MacDonald, Gunter Kreutz, and Laura Mitchell. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199586974.003.0022.
Waterhouse, Lynn. 2006. “Multiple Intelligences, the Mozart Effect, and Emotional Intelligence: A Critical Review.” Educational Psychologist 41 (4) (December): 207–225. doi:10.1207/s15326985ep4104_1.
One-word summary of the academic literature on the effects of listening to background music (as of September 2012): unclear
Get RescueTime or something similar and flip a coin every day to decide whether or not to listen to music. After a while patterns might emerge.
Wait, where did “randomizes” come from? The study you link and the standard view says that music can induce specific emotions. The point of the study is that emotions induced by music can carry over into other areas, which suggests we might optimize when we use specific types of music. The study you link about music and accidents also suggests specific music decreased risks.
All the papers I’m immediately seeing on Google Scholar suggest there is no association between background music and studying effectiveness, or if there is, it’s only negative for those that don’t usually study to music. If that’s accurate, either people are already fairly aware of whether music distracts them, they would adapt to it given time, or they don’t know what kinds of music are effective for them due to lack of experience.
When I listen to music, I usually do so by putting a long multi-genre playlist on shuffle. That’s what I was thinking of when I wrote that; I’ll edit it.
Listening to music selected to induce specific emotions seems like it could be useful. For instance, for motivation, it might be useful to play a long epic music mix.
Alright, that makes more sense. Random music can randomize emotional state, just like random drugs can randomize physical state. Personally, I listen to a single artist at a time.
Music is one of the primary joys and pleasures in my life. It is not optional for me.
Yeah. I may not feel as strongly as you about this, but I still feel music is something intrinsically valuable to me. At least something about is is, and I haven’t yet found a better substitute for it. If I stop listening to music entirely, I feel like the world is a bit more devoid of value to me. It might make sense to talk about this for those who don’t feel strongly about the matter, but for me personally this starts to drift into the Straw Vulcan territory.
If you’re just looking to maximize pleasure, perhaps you should schedule music fasts.
Obligatory link: http://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php
This not only includes noises like white, it also has soundscapes and music/noise hybrid things and a suprisingly effective isochronic generator.
Related only indirectly: for me, pink noise seems to work much more effectively in masking distractions than white noise, to the point that I can tolerate a much higher volume.
One distinction that might matter here is between instrumental music and music with lyrics.
Anecdotally, I think lyric-free music, as background music, distracts me less, and I’ve tried to remember to listen to e.g. instrumental jazz or prog rock when I want to hear music while studying something.
I don’t really think that randomizing the the right word. Certain music has certain emotional effects on me. If I want to feel those effects I can play the music.
Certain Bachata music brings to my mind the emotions that I felt during dancing Bachata to those songs. Before dancing Bachata music did nothing for me.
Interesting question I have yet never seen. Sounds obvious in hindsight, but all good questions are.
Very well noticed. Music takes a lot of our time and attention (and a bit of money) for giving a bit of pleasure (and very little information). Music used to give lots of (but seldom) pleasure and associate this with social situations you had an impact on.
I listen to music only if I am in the mood for it. If the music I want to hear matches the feelings I have. But this happens only a few times a month. I like music (thus not being one of the 5% who can’t) but I’m quite choosy and my preference doesn’t align with popular trends. I think listening to it all the time is a waste of time and depreciates the value of the music (makes it everyday; nothing has a chance to stand out and do make an impact).
If you have time to kill I’d recommend listening to audio books instead. Not only stories (though there are some that contain valuable concepts esp. for younger listeners; I’d love to see an HPMoR audiobook). But maybe you can spend your time even better.
Music is one more domain of human preferrence that has been ‘subverted’ by our society. From whatever origin through a socially well-integrated function of bringing people together and increase social exchange it’s major remaining effect (measured by person-time spent) is to direct attention into the sphere of music meaning and economics (what sounds good, who likes what, how to sell/buy and play it).
This actually reduces chances of social interaction because everybody in the bus/train/street is listening to (or reading) something. And you can’t relate to that. But maybe that is a compensation for the masses of online-interactions that you have instead (which are less personal though).
Another consideration: earworms. I find getting a song stuck in my head to be somewhat aversive.
Edgar Allan Poe puts it this way:
It takes about a minute for something bad to annoy me. It takes multiple days for something good to annoy me.