With the growing production of iPods, MP3 players, and earphones, recorded music has become increasingly accessible to students. As accessibility music grows, so does the debate about whether listening to music while learning or studying has a positive or negative effect on the learning process. Studies have suggested that both sides of the issue have validity. However, research suggests that listening to music while doing schoolwork, with guidelines, should not affect the learning process negatively and, in fact, may be beneficial.
Some people argue that listening to music, especially music with lyrics, is detrimental when doing homework or studying. For example, they contend that the lyrics are the distracting factor. Glenn Schellenberg, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, believes that “cognitive limitations” prohibit most people from doing two activities at once, like studying and listening to music simultaneously (Castello). Cognitive limitations relate to how much information a person can process at one time. Schellenberg contends that those who are already processing the limits of their cognitive capacity won’t understand the information that they read. Other research evidence, however, supports the argument that listening to music while completing schoolwork changes how the listener feels, and often makes them calm. The lyrics are distracting to some degree; however, the music in general is the calming factor. Listening to music without lyrics, therefore, would appear to be beneficial and not interfering with cognitive processing, while students complete learning tasks.
The power of music and its effect on memory has been shown to be quite amazing. Music written by Mozart during the Baroque era had a 60 beats per minute pattern for each of his songs. Dr. George Lozanov, a Bulgarian psychologist, designed a way to teach foreign language to students in a shorter time than typical learners (O’Donnell). By using the 60 beats per minute system, Lozanov taught students to learn and remember 1,000 vocabulary words and phrases in one day (O’Donnell). In a follow up, students were able to recall 100 percent of what they learned, even after four years with no studying. This suggests that students can listen to Mozart or Bach and remember most of what they read or studied to a superior degree, as well as retain what they learned.
Through everyday student activities, levels of stress often begin to rise. School, work, and even missing the bus can cause stress. While completing schoolwork, being stressed makes students slower in performing tasks. In addition, reading comprehension is poor, and people have a “narrow focus of attention” (Padnani). By listening to music during a task, the levels of cortisol (stress hormone) are decreased, reducing negative mood. Researchers created a study done on patients who were about to undergo surgery. The patients were randomly chosen to either listen to music or take anti-anxiety medication. Scientists tracked patients’ level of anxiety and the level of the stress hormone, cortisol. The participants who listened to music had less anxiety than those who took the anti-anxiety drug (Landau).
For teenagers in their last years of high school, stress can be a big burden to carry. For many, coming home to the hustle and bustle of daily life is stressful and many resort to plugging earphones into their ears and relaxing with some music to calm them down. Blasting “thrilling” music into their ears can be a way to relax teenagers’ hectic minds. “Experiencing and even anticipating thrilling music releases the neurotransmitter dopamine, a "pleasure" chemical in the brain that is linked to tangible rewards like food, drugs and sex,” said scientists who did research on the measurement of dopamine responses in the brain (Paddock). The also stated that “the enjoyable stimuli of music heightened arousal, which would increase task performance.” In other words, a stress free person working is better than a frenzied, stress induced one. “When you’re in a positive mood, you’re able to take in more options” (Padnani).
For those who are in a busy environment, listening to music can help tune out unwanted noise. Whether people are “trapped in a cubicle” (Padnani) or working at home, the environment that they are in can have a huge impact on their working capacity and ability. Even in school, the shuffling of papers and the whispers of students can be distracting. Dr. Lesiuk, an assistant professor of musical therapy at the University of Miami, found that those who listened to music completed tasks more quickly, than those who were bothered by the sounds of the environment that they were in (Lesiuk). Background music has been found to increase the speed of spatial processing and the accuracy of linguistic processing (Angel) which allows minds to stay focused on the target task.
An English student at Croatan High School, Victoria Becker, was interviewed. She believed that listening to music while she worked increased her speed of working. While writing an essay, she was able to write three pages in forty-five minutes while listening to music, versus a longer time period to write an essay without music. She stated that “listening to music with a steady beat helped her to stay focused on the task at hand and made her a lot less distracted by the surrounding noises in her environment.” Furthermore, from this, one can see how listening to music can improve task performance, especially when the student is working in a chatty environment.
A study done from computer programming companies further proves the point. Fifty-six participants from the computer companies were studied over a five week period, and the variables for the study were State Positive Affect, the Quality-of-Work, and Time-on-Task. The participants listened to music four of the five weeks and during week four, music was not allowed. Dr. Lesiuk discovered that the all the variables were high during the music weeks and they dropped dramatically during week four. After week four, the State Positive Affect and the mood of each participant rose, as well as the quality-of-work and the time-on-task. The evidence of this study overwhelmingly supports the point that music listening in some work environments produces positive affect and increases performance on creative tasks.

While listening to music may alleviate stress and be helpful in calming down students while they study, there are many who believe that guidelines should be put in place, especially in a classroom setting. A teacher, Elona Hartjes, shares her insights in a blog where she posts helpful tips to teachers. She blogged about a survey she found that stated that 32 percent of 1,613 employees listened to music while working through the use of an iPod, MP3 player, or a similar device. She then stated that she thought listening to music was helpful to many students that she encountered because she knew that peoples’ brains take in everything, like a pencil drop or noise. However, she believes that teachers should not allow their students to listen to music while a teacher was teaching a lesson. Her point is valid, because teachers are at school to teach students and people should not take advantage of being able to listen to music. She also says that students should be allowed to listen to music before and after a lesson being taught. Studies have shown that listening to music before a task assists a persons work during a task. Listening to music during a lesson has been shown to impair students’ ability to recall information.

Hartjes proposed specific guidelines, or rules, for students while in class. The guidelines would allow students to listen to music without being distracting to those around them. She took into account the different students that she would encounter and she came to the conclusion that students should be allowed to listen to music if they only used their own source of earphones: sharing was not permitted. She also said that students should “listen to music that they knew and loved” because the unfamiliar music would be distracting. With this in mind, listening to music should not be a problem.

Should students listen to music while they perform schoolwork? Is there a better method for relieving stress than listening to music? The answer to some may be no, but the statistics prove that listening to music is helpful. Students tend to resort to listening to music when they are stressed, over-worked, and tired. Parents should not prohibit their children from listening to music, because listening to music before or during a task can be beneficial. Parents have differing opinions, as do teachers, but when guidelines are put into place, the distracting part of listening to music will be a thing of the past. "Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it even if we so desired" (O’Donnell quoted on his website).