While I can accept that music would be less distracting that office chatter, I simply don't understand the concept that music is better than silence. I can work with music, but if I need to concentrate on something intensely, like a complex coding problem or making decisions based on a large amount of data, I need silence
This is interesting and I can relate..to an extent. I've done a lot of experimentation with selective attention (from listening to 4 or 6 audio streams -- a few ebooks, music, some recrodings, audio memos etc) simultaneously and moniotoring productivity and performance. No official conclusions, but general hunch is that when doing the more "routine stuff" background music makes things much smoother. I was in a bookstore perusing iphone programming, math, biochem, and atheism books (GREAT section they were all clumped together xD) and they had some weird jazz and then some french music on. I'd never be like "hhmm can I have that soundtrack?!" but for a moment of maybe 3-4 minutes when the music stopped, that once very rich and isnightful section felt really awkward and dead. Obviously for certain tasks, silence ftw, but for some things music is invaluable. Maybe it's when around other people, music feels better than dead silence . pregnant pauses. idk lol.
...and the only conclusion ever reached by sociologists is: "Some do, some don't!"
a brilliant, veracious, and truthful surmise!
The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. -- Paul Erlich