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Do Headphones Help Or Hurt Productivity?
Hugh Pickens writes "Derek Thompson writes that there is an excellent chance you are wearing, or within arm's reach of, a pair of headphones or earbuds. To visit a modern office place is to walk into a room with a dozen songs playing simultaneously but to hear none of them. In survey after survey, office workers report with confidence that music makes us happier, better at concentrating, and more productive. But science says we're full of it, writes Thompson. 'Listening to music hurts our ability to recall other stimuli, and any pop song — loud or soft — reduces overall performance for both extroverts and introverts.' So if headphones are so bad for productivity, why do so many people at work have headphones? The answer is that personal music creates a shield both for listeners and for those walking around usm says Thompson. 'I am here, but I am separate. In a wreck of people and activity, two plastic pieces connected by a wire create an aura of privacy.' We assume that people wearing them are busy or oblivious, so now people wear them to appear busy or oblivious — even without music. Wearing soundless headphones is now a common solution to productivity blocks. 'If music evolved as a social glue for the species — as a way to make groups and keep them together — headphones allow music to be enjoyed friendlessly — as a way to savor our privacy, in heightened solitude,' concludes Thompson. 'In a crowded world, real estate is the ultimate scarce resource, and a headphone is a small invisible fence around our minds — making space, creating separation, helping us listen to ourselves.'"
Consider the results of an experiment I first saw described in Peopleware (scroll down to "Creative Space"). The researchers compared performance at Fortran programming between people in quiet rooms and people in rooms with music. The good news is that performance was about the same. The bad news was:
There was a hidden wildcard. The specification required an output data stream be formed through a series of manipulations on numbers in the input data stream. Although unspecified, the net effect of all the operations was that each output number was equal to its input number. Of those students who figured this out, the overwhelming majority came from the quiet room.
The part of your brain that listens to music is apparently also the part that notices odd things in your code, and it can't do two things at once.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
As others have pointed out, music is probably a far better distraction than random noises that people around you are making with their discussions and what not.
What I do is to put a song on repeat. There are a bunch of songs that I have heard so many times that I don't even notice that they're playing anymore, and that allows me to concentrate on whatever it is I'm trying to figure out.
When I hear people talking or walking around or anything that I cannot control, I'm distracted because I'm trying to figure out what is causing that noise and am taken out of my "figure things out" shell.
silence > music > office noise
I would agree with this, except I would put classical music and/or binaural music above silence, as both have been shown to improve concentration and reduce learning and recall times.
Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
I've found that any music with recognizable words is too much of a distraction. My brain gets stuck keeping along with the song instead of working on the code.
So most of my "coding music" consists of soundtracks - both film (complete Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, plus a few others) and video game (every Final Fantasy, every Zelda, and a bunch more). No words for my brain to get distracted by parsing, and no more accidentally typing in the lyrics to "Flight of Icarus" instead of actual code.
Weirdly, it only happens for words I can understand. Languages I just flat-out don't know, like German or Japanese, are fine. And any Latin mangled badly enough for me to not understand it (see: most modern songs in Latin (I'm looking at you, Uematsu - that is NOT where the emphasis goes on "interius"!)) also flies right by. I've even discovered that incomprehensibly-sung English gets ignored as well, although I simultaneously discovered that I do *not* like death metal.
...so I am not a passive listener. There is no such thing as "background music" for me. I can either listen to music or concentrate on the task at hand. I supposed it could be considered a curse (like perfect pitch, which I do not have, thank gods), but I cannot imagine life any other way.
I worked in a bullpen in my last job (and this was one of the main reasons I quit without notice one day when I get too fed up with it). The software engineers weren't the problem; they're generally quiet. The problem was all the stupid managers constantly walking by, wanting to stop and chit-chat, or talk with my manager endlessly (he sat across from me), sit their ass on my desk while I'm trying to work, or worse tap me on the back when I had my headphones on. The other problem was the stupid loud air-conditioning unit in the ceiling directly over my desk that would drone for the entire day until 5PM sharp, when it suddenly became much quieter.
I had to stop wearing my headphones because of the assholes sneaking up on me all the time and nearly giving me a heart attack, and it eventually drove me nuts enough that when my manager gave me shit about coming to work too late (staying late to make up for it wasn't good enough for him, even though my productivity was far, far higher after 5PM when the noise and commotion all stopped), I threw a resignation letter at him and walked out.
My advice: never take a job in a bullpen environment.
Because denying your child the use of headphones is so respectful.
Everyone needs a little privacy from time to time, especially kids. Denying them their privacy, even if said privacy is escaping into a pair of headphones for a little while, seems to me almost abusive. I listened on the headphones because I was considerate of the fact that other people don't want to listen to my music. Take that away from me, and now your comfort level means as much to me as mine obviously does to you, i.e., jack fucking squat.
I grew up an Army brat with a typical 'spare the rod and spoil the child' stepfather that treated me like one of his troops and pulled shit just like the GP (I remember once he denied me the right to a lamp in my room for 3 days after "talking back" because he knew I enjoyed reading, true fucking story). All his bullshit resulted in was years of resentment that it took me into well into my adulthood to rationalize to the point where we're able to actually have a relationship at all, and it damaged not only our relationship but my relationship with my mother as well.
I don't have kids, but believe me, he taught me a lot of ways not to treat my children when I do eventually have them. I suspect GP is doing well on that front, as well.
Did anyone actually read the linked article?
Even the article doesn't support the broad conclusion. For a given test, music made performance worse. It's ridiculous to extrapolate that to any kind of real-world situation. WTF? And people here express a belief in science!
http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/11767/1/Will-Background-Music-Improve-Your-Concentration.html
I've been known to do that. I'd wear noise cancelling headphones, so I don't hear idle chatter, doors opening and closing, phones ringing, or all the rest of the nonsense that is associated with an office. Sometimes I'd have music playing, sometimes I wouldn't.
One thing I was advised about it though was, occasionally I'd talk to myself a little. Usually a "Hmm", or "ah ha", or even quiet rambling about the problem as I was working through it. Since I couldn't hear myself talk, my internal dialogue would sometimes not be internal.
I usually managed to quell interruptions by explaining to people that there is a startup time for doing any work. Interruptions reset that time. So if it takes 5 minutes to mentally get back into what I was doing, and they stop by to ask me something every 15 minutes, they've delayed the work they want done by 20 minutes per hour, plus as long as they were talking. I was always clear to let people know when their request was done, so they learned not to interrupt to see if I was done yet.
They'd also see multiple shells open, all doing something different or pending email responses to complete a task, so their interruptions didn't only hurt task, but others too.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Cube spaces are excellent for various things. You can prepare notes that say "shut up", wad them up, and lob them over the wall without anyone noticing who sent it. When they start getting pissy saying "Who threw the note at me that said shut up?" Everyone else would admit to it.
If they didn't get the clue, a stockpile of "borrowed" desk items (pens, highlighters, staplers, etc) would start following. It only takes a few staplers to the head for them to realize that they're too being too loud.
That, or transcribing their not-work-related conversations, and anonymously sending them to their supervisor.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
"No Headphone"
I do not wear headphone, and in my office and in my home I do not turn on the radio either
When I surf online, I do not stream any music
I carry out my work without having to listen to any "background noise", and I find that I can focus better without hearing anything that's annoying
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I agree. My office is an enclosed space where all 6 of us can hear every word the other 5 say. One fellow is extremely talkative, as well as louder than most, whether on the phone, or receiving visitors in his cubical. Some mornings I can go without headphones for an hour or so, while everyone is busy sifting through email, but it is rare to find me without Pandora playing for the rest of the day.
Without headphones I can barely concentrate on anytihng. Between the loud conversation to my left, the loud typing to my right, and the bridge-club-like terminal conversation behind me, personal music is the only thing that keeps me sane and productive.
I really don't think you can make a generalization about whether any type of music, even classical, helps or hinders concentration. I'm a musical person -- I've been singing in choirs and barbershop groups almost my entire life -- so I pay *very* close attention to music. I can't help it; even if it's music I can't stand I am compelled to listen closely to the melody (if there is any) and lyrics (if there are any). So for me, any type of background music overrides my ability to concentrate on anything else.
Instead, I listen to music to help ease the boredom of mindless physical work, like my daily walks for exercise or the rare occasion I get out of my chair and do yardwork, etc. Then it doesn't matter that I put my body on autopilot while my brain focuses on the music; in fact it helps because the time goes by so much faster.
There's that old joke about why is it we turn down the radio when we're looking for an unfamiliar street -- it's precisely *because* the music is a distraction. In the same way, whenever I have tried to enjoy my music while I'm working I lose focus and frequently forget where I left off. My attention span is fragile enough without the additional burden of a shiny audible toy.
Which brings me to a refutation of TFS: When I do use headphones, it's not because I am protecting myself from the rest of the world. Rather, it's because I am protecting the rest of the world from me. It's an unwritten social contract: You don't make me listen to that obnoxious rap, and I won't make you listen to the Side Street Ramblers belting out "Bye Bye Blackbird" with a tenor who can shatter the windows in your car.
silence > music > office noise
I would agree with this, except I would put classical music and/or binaural music above silence, as both have been shown to improve concentration and reduce learning and recall times.
Hmmm... I can't believe I've made it this far into the comments and nobody has mentioned trance (and related electronic genres). Unlike classical, you don't have the dynamics leaving you straining to hear over your co-workers one minute, deafened by a crescendo the next. The repetition and lack of lyrics keep it from being distracting. Just pick something fairly textured and it sublimates all those inane conversations going on around you (as you wonder why you're in the middle of a call center while idiots paid less than you have quiet, private offices so they can do serious intellectual work like making PowerPoint presentations).
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I'd have to qualify that with "ambient music I know well". Yesterday when the links to the wonderful kickstarted version of the Goldberg Variations was released, I found myself closing my eyes and just absorbing the music. I opened them about 15 minutes later, completely relaxed, and having accomplished exactly *nothing* in that time!
High energy repetitive ambient house or electronica, with no more than a few meaningless lyrics, stuff I've heard before, those I can work to. Beautifully performed classical music, not so much. Metal would have me reaching for earplugs. Jazz seems specifically designed to break my concentration. Rap makes me flee. And country music actually makes me angry.
I believe that everyone who reads this will have their own very specific, very personal opinions about what is good music to "improve concentration". A poll or study only reveal common traits that indicate what percentages of each genre you should stock in a jukebox, but do not a useful, personalized recommendation make.
John
I find that the real trick in listening to music to get things done lies in picking the right music.
1) Pick music you are completely familiar with. If you know a song well, you won't be listening closely to the words or music, they way you do when you first hear a song. The more you have listened to it the better, because you are likely to tune it out consciously.
2) Pick music without lyrics. Even if you hit point #1, every now and then your brain might find a vocal phrase to latch on to. No lyrics, nothing to think about.
I find that movie scores and video game soundtracks work very well. Techno and industrial is also good, because it is very rhythmic. Oh, and ditch those shitty ear buds, and get some good noise cancelling headphones. The music sounds better with a good bass driver, and they keep out distracting outside noise much better. For just $50 you can get some great earphones that will last for years. When I get in the zone with some music to drown out outside noise, I can crank out code for hours.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!