Oleg's Blog

In this post I'll try to gather some of the most interesting facts and researches I've found in this area.

The one from the SAGE Website:

Effects of music on work performance, in this case, software design, may be explained by increases in state positive affect. Data from 56 (male = 41, female = 15) developers were obtained from four different Canadian software companies. Data were collected in the participants’ actual work environments over five weeks. Results indicated that state positive affect and quality-of-work were lowest with no music, while time-on-task was longest when music was removed. Narrative responses revealed the value of music listening for positive mood change and enhanced perception on design while working. Evidence is provided of the presence of a learning curve in the use of music for positive mood alteration.

Another interesting research by Christine Phillips:

Interestingly, participants in the Classical music condition performed better despite the fact that they contributed more off-task comments to one another than the No Music condition and about the same number of off-task comments as the Punk music group. Most of the off-task comments were personal in nature (i.e., emoticons, jokes)...

And yet another interesting article by the member of masterpapers.com. Sharon White:

...music can improve efficiency in repetitive tasks. They also concluded that any music that is played should be “lively and upbeat”, and the length and scheduling of the music are important. Some of the experiments involved the music being played in intervals rather than continuously. The results suggested that this was the best way to improve the efficiency

and more of it:

The original statement “The use of music enhances the working environment of the IT professional” may be the case in some instances, however, as shown, the odds of pleasing every employee are very slim. In the attempt to please every single employee, some essentials are lost. For example, giving every employee headphones to listen to his own music on, keeps everyone happy, but employees who don’t hear conversations may lose some efficiency, and the workplace can even, possibly, become a dangerous environment to work in due to alarms or warnings not being heard. If music is going to be played across the office as a whole, considerations have to be made. The considerations such as speaker placement, music genre and whether music is played in intervals or continuously, have to be well thought through so as not to annoy or aggravate certain employees. All decisions need to be carefully thought through, so as to please every employee, therefore getting the most efficient workforce possible. As studies have shown, the best music to play to get the most out of the workforce is soft, slow, instrumental, repetitive music, rather than fast, loud, lyrical music.

See also: my blog post about the music for a work.