Programmer Workplace Music and Productivity

Question

The company I work for (large manufacturing/engineering) has subscribed to a Muzak service and plays a mixture of soft rock, pop, and country music all day long in our building. While the music selection is designed to be as inane as possible, I still find it distracting. Neither am I unique from the other developers on my team: we all find it irritating at worst and distracting at best. It should be clear that we all listen to music of our choosing at times with personal headphones, but we like the option of making the choice when to do so.

So I wonder:

a) Is there anyone else whose company insists on playing any music for all employees without respite during the workday?

b) Is there any evidence that we can provide to show that this is distracting and likely to reduce productivity for people whose jobs require a degree of concentration and mental effort? So far I can point to the following:

• Joel Spolsky has some pertinent essays The Development Abstraction Layer and A Field Guide to Developers.

• The book Peopleware documents a study comparing good and bad performers based on environmental conditions in chapter 8.

Please let me know of any other anecdotal or statistical or study related data that I can use to make my case. If you think this is not worth the attention or effort, I'd be interested to hear why from that angle as well.

Answer 1

If they did that here I'd buy better headphones. I already have headphones but its mainly to drown out the hacking noises from the guy with bad allergies and the 3-4 hours a day of "back in vietnam" conversation two of the older guys tend to talk about.

Most places treat sys-admins/devs pretty poorly as far as "working conditions to maximize effectiveness". It makes sense at the bigger places since they go by "how many admins should I have" which is benchmarked against other companies.

I'd much prefer to have half as many coworkers but have them all be talented and in twice as good of an environment with twice as good of tools. That will never happen in businesses where IT/IS is a support service.

Answer 2

Many people, including myself, find music to be incredibly soothing and it enhances concentration. I cannot site a study at the moment, but I have certainly read things that indicate a cacophonous workplace is going to be a distraction, but that is because the sounds are jumbled and incoherent. If there is music, or a steady rhythm to focus on, it may be easier to edit out all the noise from irrelevant things (other co-workers, telephones, photocopiers, etc.)

That being said, I usually listen to my own music with headphones on. I have ADD so I cannot focus very well without music. This of course means that you can just buy a pair of hefty headphones for something like $20 (prices subject to change) and just put those on to block out the sounds that you aren't interested in listening to.

Ultimately on the score of bringing it up to management, I personally think that subscribing to such a service would be a waste of money as it is impossible to tailor it to make sure people enjoy it, so the best you can do is hope it doesn't bother too many people. However, because it is going to be largly inoffensive, and they probably did it because they were trying to enhance the working environment by masking the interfering incidental noise, and you can fairly easily solve the situation yourself (with headphones) I don't think bringing it up is really purposeful.

Answer 3

From EFFECTS OF MUSIC ON TASK PERFORMANCE:

Results show that people who listened to music of their own selection were able to perform better than those with no music who performed better than those who listened to music they disliked.

Answer 4

I honestly don't know how people DON'T listen to music all day when they work. Hearing the sounds of the busy office and constant keyboard typing by other people is the real distraction for me.

You don't need a study - get some headphones. If you are the only person dissatisfied, they aren't going to stop it.

Answer 5

I have a great set of headphones - and I put them in all day regardless of whether or not i'm listening to music. Without the music, they double as earplugs.

Also, as others have said - i do listen to music pretty much all day long, and don't see how people can live without that. BUT - the music I listen to is music of my choice - having Muzak would drive me nuts. I'd seriously consider investing in a nice set of earbuds - both the Sony and Skullcandy ones that I have work well as earplugs.