Rondon 1

Daniel Rondon
Prof. Branson
Writing 2
27 May 2016
School House of Rock
Intro
Studies show that music can increase brain activity and problem solving abilities. Fox
and Embrey found that assembly line workers performed better when exposed to music
compared to working in silence, arguing that the effects of background music could be related
to the concepts of 'arousal', 'auto-arousal' and the reticular activating system of the brain (202).
Moreover, Teresa Lesiuk observed that computer programmers were more efficient when they
listened to music as they wrote code, concluding that music listening in some work
environments evokes positive effects or mild positive feelings, which in turn increase
performance on tasks requiring creative output (185). Studies also show a relationship between
music and writing ability. SE Ransdell, for example, examined the effects of background music
on college students word processed writing and found that students abilities to write and
process words decreased while listening to music. Silent control writing fluency, Ransdell
argues, was reliably correlated with writing effectiveness or quality (Ransdell 146). My own
study provided similar results, revealing a correlation between whether or not I was listening to
music while writing and my level of productivity. However, as seen more clearly later on in the
Results and Discussion sections, my data tends to contradict the assertion that music
decreases writing productivity.

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Methods
To collect my data, I recorded all of my writing habits from Monday, May 2nd to
Sunday, May 8th in a writing log that kept track of information such as the time of day, genre,
length (productivity), audience and purpose, and method of the writing while also noting where I
was writing, my interest in the writing, and any other tasks I was doing while writing. I had a log
for each day with each log separated into two parts: one part was for texting and the second part
was for all other forms of writing. After I collected a weeks worth of data, I began to code my
data numerically so I could easily graph and compare my data. An excerpt of the coded data for
non-texting writing can be seen in Table 1.
Table 1
Length

Time

School

Location

Activity

Music

Method

Interest

471

480

614

27

690

The time of day was converted into minutes passed since the beginning of the day;
productivity was measured and compared employing word count (insinuating that more words
signifies higher productivity); the purpose was coded 0 = school work and 1 = non-school work;
the method of writing was coded 0 = hand-written and 1 = technological; the interest in writing
was coded using a scale of 1 to 5 (see Table 2) with 1 = not interested at all, 2 = not interested,
3 = no preference , 4 = interested, and 5 = very interested; my physical activity was coded
0 = not active and 1 = active; and my music listening was coded 0 = not listening to music and
1 = listening to music.

Rondon 3
Table 2

After comparing numerous constructs and units of analysis and searching for correlation,
the main constructs that I found to be related were music, interest, and productivity. While only
looking at those three variables, I grouped the data into two sections: texting and non-texting,
and then I grouped each of those sections into two sub-sections: school work and non-school
work. From there I analyzed the data using charts and comparing statistics, such as means, of
each data group regarding music, interest, and productivity.
Results

Table 3
Length
(Words)

Texting
Non-Texting
Total

11.22396
300.1875
52.50446

Time
(Military)

1711.411
1300.2
1628.099

School
(0 = for
school, 1 =
not for
school)
0.921875
0.1
0.811659

Location (0 = in
dorm, 1 = not in
dorm)

0.234375
0.425
0.264574

Activity (0 =
not active, 1
= active)

0.166667
0
0.143498

Music (0 = no
music, 1 =
music)

Method (0 =
writing, 1 =
typing)

0.822917
0.575
0.780269

1
0.45
0.90583

Interest

3.229167
3.075
3.224215

As you can see in Table 3 above, the average time of day that I write is at 4:28 pm, 81%
of my writing is not for school, 74% of my writing happens in the dorms, I am active 14% of the
time that I write, I listen to music 78% of the time while I write, 91% of my writing is done
through technology, and on average I am only slightly interested in my writing. Below, Graphs 1
2, 3, and 4 (in green) show histograms of my levels of interest for homework (music and no
music) and texting (music and no music):

n (size)

192
40
232

Rondon 4

Graph 1

Graph 1 is fairly normal with a slight skew

left, indicating a greater overall interest.

Graph 2

Graph 2 is fairly normal with more frequency at

the lower interests, indicating a lesser overall
interest.

n = 17, = 3.352941
n = 23, = 2.869565
Graph 3

The data for Graph 3 is mainly at the interest level

of 3, indicating a small variance in the interest
level.

Graph 4

Graph 4 is skew left, indicating that the

interest is typically high, with some variance.
n = 158, = 3.246835

n = 34, = 3.147059

The data indicates that when I write (not including texting), I am significantly less
interested in the task if I am listening to music. I have an average interest level of 3.35 with no
music and an average interest level of 2.86 with music. However, when I text, I am slightly more
interested in the task if I am listening to music. Text messaging produces an average interest
level of 3.25 with music and an average interest level of 3.15 with no music. However, since I
have a large sample size with texting (n = 192), a difference of .1 on the interest scale is still
significant. From these findings, it appears that music increases my interest in texting, but
decreases my interest in homework.

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Graphs 5, 6, 7, and 8 (in blue) are histograms of the word count for homework (music
and no music) and texting (music and no music):
Graph 5
Graph 5 is skew
right, indicating that
the word count is
typically low with
some outliers.

n = 16, = 132.4375

Graph 6

Graph 6 more evenly spread

out with a peak at the 100
word count rage, indicating
a wide variety in word
count, and a generally large
word count.
n = 16, = 467.9375

Graph 7

The graph is fairly

normal with a slight
skew right,
indicating that the
majority of the word
counts is small with
some variance.
n = 34, = 10.70588

Graph 8

The graph is skew

right, indicating a
large variance in the
word count, with the
majority of the word
counts being small.
n = 158, = 11.33544

Rondon 6
When I write (not including texting), my word count (and therefore productivity) is much
lower if I am listening to music. I have an average word count of 132 words with no music but
an average word count of 468 words with music. When I text, there is very little difference
between my word counts without music (10.7 words) and with music (11.3 words). However,
when I listen to music, I have a greater variance in my text word count, and the max word count
(45 words) is reasonably more sizeable that the max word count without music (22 words). From
these findings, I concluded that music slightly increases the lengths of my texts and largely
increases the productivity of my writing.
To get a more in-depth view of my data, I then split up my figures into eight subgroups
with the first split done by homework and texting, the next split by school related work and
personal work, and the last split by music and no music.
After analyzing these small groups of data, it is clear that for homework and texting,
music does not influence my personal writing. However, music diminishes my interest in school
work writing (from 3.29 to 2.86) while intensifying my interest in school-related texts, such as
discussing homework and organizing projects (from 2.86 to 3.38). For every sub-category, music
alters the length and productivity of my writing. For work (personal and school-related), my
average word count is significantly greater when I listen to music. For texting, music
considerably broadens my word count for school related topics, while moderately reducing my
word count for personal text messages. Overall, after sorting and analyzing my data, I
established that listening to music generally enhances my writing productivity, while lowering
my interest in non-texting writing.

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Discussion
My research partly coincides with past studies, but still makes logical sense and reflect
my writing habits and process. Like other studies, I found that music typically enhanced my
productivity through the increase in word count. This seems reasonable because one conclusion
from Lesiuks study determined that when music evokes a pleasant mood and an increased
arousal state, participants perform better on nonmusical tasks (173). I thoroughly enjoy listening
to music and feel invigorated when I listen to music while working. I cannot focus on a task if I
work in silence since I often get tired and lose my desire to complete work, so music is an ideal
stimulant and mood enhancer.
However, the results from my study differ from research on interest in writing, like
Lesiuks and Foxs studies, which found that music heightened attentiveness toward tasks. I
found that my interest in a writing task, not including texting, declined while listening to music.
My research aligns more with Ransdell, which found that music can, like background speech,
disrupt writing fluency (146). When working on a complex task, such as writing, music cripples
my ability to remain focused and interested, but while doing something nonacademic like
texting, music increases my participation in conversations. An explanation for this phenomena
can also be that since music stimulates brain activity and improves mood, my brain is highly
functional and therefore more productive, but the improved mood results in a greater focus on
social activities, such as texting, rather than other forms of writing. Additional research on how
music impacts certain areas of the brain would clarify why I was more productive in my writing
but more interested in other things when listening to music. In general, music arouses my mood
and brain, resulting in an enhanced writing efficiency, but distracts me from my work as I fixate
more on less work-related activities.

Rondon 8
Works Cited
Fox, J.G., and E.D. Embrey. Music- an Aid to Productivity (1972): 202-05. Ergonomics Information
Analysis Center. Web. 14 May 2016.
Fox, J.G. "Background Music and Industrial EfficiencyA Review." Applied Ergonomics 2.2 (1971):
70-73. Ergonomics Information Analysis Centre. Web. 17 May 2016.
Lesiuk, Teresa. "The Effect of Music Listening on Work Performance." Psychology of Music 33.2
(2005): 173-91. Society for Education. Web. 14 May 2016.
Ransdell, S.E., and L. Gilroy. "The Effects of Background Music on Word Processed
Writing." Computers in Human Behavior 17.2 (2001): 141-48. Pergamon. Web. 18 May 2016.