Music and Writing

I was listening to the StackOverflow podcast (number 69) went over, among other things, the topic of programmers listening to music and some of Jeff and Joel's anecdotal evidence of how it affects programmers' concentration.

I am not a programmer. I did a little coding while in college, and while I probably should have considered staying in that track or something related to it I did not...I became a techy tech. But when it comes to listening to something that is potentially distracting while concentrating on something else, I do this quite a bit.

My Aspergian tendencies make me more comfortable when I'm not disturbed from what I'm concentrating on. Sometimes it doesn't work very well because we're always being distracted by people walking in, interrupting with questions totally unrelated to what I'm there to work on, or phone calls (the bane of any work environment, I think). I used to try listening to my iPod at times when I wasn't even supposed to be interacting with people but then I got into "trouble" because "someone" felt I was unapproachable when wearing headphones (um...wasn't that the rule to begin with?). So I was forced to return to the less efficient way of interacting with my routines with more interruptions.

That said, I have noticed that there are certain things that are impaired in unexpected ways when listening to my iPod. I know it's not music, per se, but rather it is basically listening to audio content while performing some other task. I normally listen to podcasts. StackOverflow. Pseudopod. I Should Be Writing. The Writing Show. Escape Pod. MacOS Ken. And more. Can you tell I love my podcasts? It's like my version of NPR. I've discovered that if I'm trying to do something like writing, concentrating on a repair to a system, basically anything that takes more than rote actions, I find I can't retain the information form the podcast. It's like parts of it just disappear from time...I can't recall anything for periods of the podcast.

Another observation. I am trying to write a first draft of a novel. My goal has been 500 words a day. My writing area is usually at my desk, which is in the living room near the TV and the family. It's a long story as to why it has ended up there, but this is about observations on listening to something while concentrating on another task. anyway, I when I'm at that desk trying to work on the story I usually end up doing this in the evening. I get distracted easily by conversations, the television, the four year old, and even the fidgeting of other people. (It's weird since Aspergians are supposed to be very focused on things, supposedly...).

To help isolate myself I put on a set of headphones and listen to a loop of music videos I fetched from YouTube. It's basically the same list I've heard many other times and once in awhile I'll add one or two more. The background noise helps me focus a little more. I typically get somewhere between 400 and 700 words after roughly an hour of work under these conditions.

If I go somewhere else and work in quiet for an hour, I've hit upwards 1,000 to 1,100 words or more on average.

This tells me that, for me, music or other sounds while concentrating on a task is a distraction. I'm not a neuroscientist, but as I recall the brain breaks tasks down and processes various tasks in ways that don't break down into what to us are logical units. Even when making sentences, bits and pieces, like the nouns, the verbs, the structure of the sentence coming out of your mouth...are pulled from different areas of the brain to be assembled in another part before erupting from your speak hole.

So I'm thinking that music or listening to audio content stimulates parts of the brain that otherwise are part of the creative process.

It doesn't seem so bad when listening to music that I've listened to a hundred times before. It's like once the brain has something imprinted and it's not something that is being operated on...analyzed, thought about, etc...then it is background noise that helps drown out some of the ambient noises. It obviously isn't completely unprocessed in the mind, but it does have different effects depending on how it is "memorized" or imprinted in memory.

There is obviously some disconnect that people have with perception vs. reality in dealing with distractions. Countless studies have shown that texting while driving, talking on the phone while driving, even eating while driving increase your chances dramatically of being involved in an accident. Yet hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people do this every day. I've often said that adults are really kids with bank accounts and more responsibilities...as much as many don't acknowledge it, adults have the same "it won't happen to me" attitude that idiot teenagers carry when taking irresponsible risks. I think adults quash some of the impulses...perhaps through experience their impulse control becomes a little more refined...but at heart, I know that people are still having that attitude poke through in different ways (like seeing someone reading the @#$ newspaper while driving down the freeway. If that isn't dangerous and irresponsible, I don't know what is.)

A huge number of people while say that XYZ helps them when in reality studies show that it's a distraction, or that they're actually being counterproductive. What it comes down to is that some people get into certain habits that they are comfortable with. For people like me, I need to try to isolate myself from distractions while concentrating on things that take deep or creative thought.

How about you? Have you noticed any affect from listening to something while concentrating on an unrelated task?