Can you study while listening to music?

[ranjit]

Let's end this debate once and for all

[Derek]

I for one cannot. Music wrests my attention too aggressively from anything else I might be doing. Most of my coworkers have music going in their headphones all day. I can't comprehend it. I wouldn't get a darn thing done.

[j_tour]

No.  I can't do anything at all while listening to music.  Maybe wash dishes or clean my desk, something like that.

I was "seeing" a girl a long time ago who really liked listening to Mozart operas, you know what I mean.  That was a very annoying brief relationship.

Not a multitasker.

ETA that's not quite true.  I can drink corn liquor while listening to music, smoke tobacco, sip coffee, just not stuff that involves using language other than musical notation. That's about my limit.

[ranjit]

I for one cannot. Music wrests my attention too aggressively from anything else I might be doing. Most of my coworkers have music going in their headphones all day. I can't comprehend it. I wouldn't get a darn thing done.

No.  I can't do anything at all while listening to music.  Maybe wash dishes or clean my desk, something like that.

I'm the same. My hypothesis is that musicians (which includes all people who think seriously about music) would be unable to study or do any mentally engaging task while listening to music.

[stevensk]

Absolutely NO!

[quantum]

Hasn't really worked for me.  When I listen to music, I study the music that enters my ears.  

Another related question would be: what do those that do listen to music while studying feel it gives them?  I know there are people that really need that background muzak running in order to complete non music related tasks.  

For me, silence is magical when studying or in deep thought.  

[perfect_pitch]

Actually... I can only hypothesize, but I believe for people with Perfect Pitch, they can.

Because their ability to hear something so clearly note for note, pitch for pitch etc requires so little thought, they don't usually have to concentrate on listening to the music to experience it, and therefore for me; I find listening to classical music does really help me focus.

What USUALLY distracts me is words, background noises, traffic etc... so for me - classical music is focus music.

[ranjit]

Another related question would be: what do those that do listen to music while studying feel it gives them?  I know there are people that really need that background muzak running in order to complete non music related tasks.

It makes studying less boring. I'm too lazy to study much. If I could have music running in the background while studying, I would get much more done, simply because I would spend much more time. Same goes for any other task.

[outin]

I can if the music is not too interesting. In fact I prefer to do many things while listening to music because it helps me cope with boring things. And studying was usually quite boring. Luckily I never have to study boring things anymore, only things I really want/need to know

[visitor]

I had a lot of time to do trial and error [ie std high school, 6 years university, then about 3 more years graduate and post bacc study), I can do both but almost always am more effective with music vs without, also there were exceptions to the type of studying being done, pre lecture reading and new material review review and memorization benefited form music as measured by class readiness in answering questions and by understanding new material presented and test scores, highly complex and abstract thought such has key high let science mechanisms and working problems  and writing  also benefited more from music
Interestingly when I did no music I found I had to go to a public space with decent traffic and low level activity to trigger a similar amount of focus
However practicing exams ie old tests etc I made sure to mimmick testing conditions of quiet since the silence cam be distracting so I made sure that kind of study and prep was dine without music and lots of noise (recall happens better when you memorize in an environment similar to thay which you will need to recall later ie tests etc )