Whether you should listen to music while studying depends on many factors and if you misinterpret yourself, your decision could be detrimental to study effectiveness.
1. Personal Preferences
Depending on personal focus and environmental factors, you could study better with or without music.
The best way to find which type you are, you should experiment with both. To make sure you are doing it with no bias, you should keep track of your progress in each study session and do at least 3 experiment sessions for each.
Pick one you like and perform better with.
2. Choose your music carefully
If you decide to listen to music while studying, make sure to pick the correct music for the job. Lofi, jazz and classical are great as they aren’t to disturbing or distracting, try to avoid rock or pop as they could distract you.
If your main focus is just to get studying done for example when working on an unimportant and unfun subject, then you can listen to harder music if it makes the work more doable.
3. The science of music while studying
One study explains how when 4 groups were made, one with students studying in silent, one with students studying with music with lyrics they liked, one with music with lyrics they didn’t like and one with music without lyrics.
The best performers were people studying in silence and people with music with no lyrics.
The study explained that the findings were the way they are because music with lyrics(good or bad), can take up processing space for new learning.
1. Music type matters
Students in the study mentioned before performed slightly better with music they liked compared to music they didn’t like.
2. Instrumental is better than lyrical music for studying
3. Avoid experimental or complicated music, go for normal, neutral music.
Instrumental and simpler music makes it easier to focus and remember things, for more on this visit this article.
4. Potential Benefits of music
Music can be a deciding factor to study or not to study for many people. Music can be motivating, encouraging, mood lifting and even help you focus and remember.
5. Potential Disadvantages to music
1. Music can negatively affect working memory
Working memory is vital for processing new information and could be affected by music.
2. Music can lower reading comprehension
3. Music can affect recalling information during study times
During an exam, you may not be able to recall certain bits of information due to the exam not allowing music. You will not be used to it and will not be able to focus as much.
6. Conclusion
In terms of what you should pick, music while studying should be a personal decision of what you value more: performance, enjoyability or practicality.
It also matters what you are studying as different things could be more boring or easier to study with music.
Where you study also matters as you could need music to block out other distractions.
It all comes down to personal preference and your own efficiency and experimentation.