Questioning the Value of Music

Is music just quieting my thoughts? Is listening to music a waste of time? Does it detract more from my focus and attention than I like to think it does? What do I get out of listening to music?

I've been trying to encourage myself to blog more often, and even as I thought to myself that I should write this blog post, I thought, "Maybe I should put on some music first?" And therein lies the problem. I must spend a lot of time dealing with playing music. It doesn't sound like a lot of time every time I want to put music on to select a music player (Rhythmbox, Google Play, Grooveshark, Turntable, last.fm), decide what type of music I'm in the mood for, what will satisfy that mood (a whole album, a playlist I've already created, the (internet) radio (which one?)), then put it on and listen to. Maybe that only takes five minutes or so each time I put on music, but do that 3 or 4 times a day (morning, after lunch, when I get home)? And how about every time my playlist runs out or I get bored of the mood? Heaven forbid I'm turntabling with a friend. That could easily be almost an hour of my day!

Even aside from the overhead it takes to put the music on, certainly it must take some of my brain to listen to the music. Surely it detracts some of my focus from the task at hand. It does depend on the task. For example, I think music goes great with cleaning, but any music with lyrics seriously distracts me if I'm trying to read.

Even if I'm not trying to focus on something specific, maybe music is just quieting my thoughts. Maybe I'd be a much more productive thinker if I didn't listen to so much music. I love singing along and dancing, but what else could I be doing if there weren't always a song playing in the background? At this point I feel like I'm listening to music even when I'm not. It seems that I've always got a song stuck in my head. Sometimes the same song for many days, even weeks. And though it feels good to scratch that itch of listening to the song, it doesn't seem to cure the earworm. It seems like I must be wasting precious brain cycles and neural energy!

So what to do. Part of me yearns to examine exactly how music affects my productivity, but I can't really think of a systematic way to do that. What would I measure? I think I'll just take some time not listening to music. Especially at work. We'll see if I notice anything. Buh! I'll start next week...