Some time ago, I started to notice I was getting distracted by listening to too much music. I'd put off things I needed to do, because I was caught up in whatever song I was listening to, even though technically it would only take a couple minutes to switch the song to my mp3 player. Even worse, my mind would wander to the music while I was doing other things, like reading or studying or even just surfing the net. Like the music was sapping a part of my concentration.
A week ago, I decided I'd do an experiment. I'd switch to no music when I'm home. And so it's been for the past week. In this post I'm gonna talk about some of the things I've observed so far.
GENUINE ADDICTION
The first few days without music, I felt a compelling urge to listen to put some music on. This tells me that at some level, music really was an addiction for me. Sometimes I'd think of some song, and an urge to play it would follow. That still happens now, a week into the experiment.
It's the kind of thing where, if I wasn't paying close attention, I could easily put some music on "by accident", without even thinking about it. It was deeply ingrained into my daily habits.
WHITE NOISE IS GOOD
After the first couple days, I started "cheating" by playing nature sounds instead of music. It felt weird when I was in my office and there were NO sounds except the sounds of my environment. So I let music take fill the role of white noise, a constant background noise to keep me from being distracted by every little sound around me.
Nature sounds have a few important differences from music:
TRICKY MIND: THE VIDEO GAME TRAP
Around the fifth day, after publishing my previous post on this subject, I suddenly got an urge to play through an old video game, Final Fantasy 7, in Japanese. Of course, the Japanese part is important because it serves as a "justifier": basically an excuse to play the game. Which is fine. But here's the catch... FF7 is, of course, chock full of catchy music. And I wasn't even thinking about that (well, consciously at least; I'm sure the whole thing was just a trick from the addicted part of my brain to get another fix of music).
After playing for a couple hours (and, it IS a great way to learn more Japanese, by the way) I suddenly realized, hey, I'm really just doing this for the music, aren't I. So I shut off the music and played silent. Very quickly, a lot of the game's appeal vanished. Not that I have anything against video games, far from it. But all of a sudden, I just didn't feel any big urges to keep playing. I was less "immersed" in the game. Which is just as well, since I've already played it in English and know how it goes...
MUSIC OUTSIDE THE HOME/OFFICE IS AWESOME
My experiment doesn't include the times when I'm out and about. Obviously I can't avoid music completely, music is everywhere. One of the side effects I noticed pretty early in the experiment was that it makes music sound better when I'm out. For example, the elevator music they play at the gym, sounds a lot better. Which is good motivation to go to the gym. Last night when I went to get drunk, a band started playing some music that normally I wouldn't be into at all. Music which wasn't my type at all. But, it was strangely good.
I'm starting to think of music as being like an energy charge. When I listen to a certain type of music, I get aligned with that music, I get charged with it, and it makes less room for other types of music. The stronger I get aligned with one type, the less room for others. Nature sounds are effectively "music neutral", and as all that "charging" dissipates, I suddenly become much more open minded toward new music I hear. That's a good thing.
I think for most people, anything which gives more motivation to go out and have adventures, is good. When I'm old and looking back on my life, I doubt I'll remember much about what music I listened to while surfing the internet.
BETTER LANGUAGE STUDYING
I already wrote a separate article about how I seem to study languages better without music. Since it's the Summer, I haven't been doing a lot of mathematics study, so I'm not sure whether I'd get similar benefits there, though I don't see why I wouldn't. But school is only about a week away, and I'm taking a very high level logic class this quarter, so unless the experiment halts for some totally unforeseen reason, I'll find out soon enough.
LESS URGE TO CRANK THE VOLUME UP
A phenomenon I noticed about music is, it's very tempting to crank up the volume when a favorite song is playing, or even just a favorite part of a favorite song. And then your ears adjust to the rise, so it seems normal. Then another favorite song comes on, and the process repeats. It doesn't take that long before the music is really loud, and yet your ears have adjusted so you don't even get anything for it except the temporary thrill.
With constant background noise, there is no "favorite part", so none of this becomes an issue.
LESS DISTRACTING TO OFFICE MATES
Along the same lines as the above section, when I'm in the office I always try to pay attention to how loud my music is, I don't wanna turn it so loud that my office mates can hear it through my headphones. Without any urge to turn the volume up at good parts, it never becomes a problem. And even if the sound does leak, I think nature sounds would be less distracting to my mates than the eurodance/techno/synthpop I normally listen to.
GETTING MORE WORK DONE
Overall, I find I'm getting more work done now. Before starting the experiment, I'd spend a lot of time just flipping through youtube searches finding new songs to listen to; and watching the music videos, when they're catchy enough. Just a few minutes, but it quickly adds up. I'm not even sure how much overall time I normally spend doing that, summed up over an average day. Probably a significant amount! That's not to say there's anything wrong with music videos or surfing youtube. Both are pretty cool, but like anything else, should be done in moderation.
MORE CONSTANT BASE STATE
I've written a little about this in my Introduction to the Nimbus Quest. There's a big drawback to things which give a cheap, easy boost of state, which is that the boost never lasts and when it wears off, you end up feeling out-of-state. Well, music is a perfect example of an easy outside boost of state. When I find some fresh new music, and I listen to it, my state goes through the roof. But a lot of the time, I'd just me listening to songs I've heard too many times before, and it would actually lower my state.
During this experiment, the fluctuation from music is gone. That lets me focus more on building solid lasting inner state, as described in the Nimbus Quest.
CONCLUSION
So far, the experiment is a success. I'll write another report in another week. Right now I'm not certain how long I intend to keep the experiment up. If these results continue, I might just continue it indefinitely. But I'd like to eventually experiment around with adding music back in, but in more careful moderation. Afterall, as long as one isn't addicted, music is a beautiful wonderful part of life!
Here are the other articles on Music Addiction.
Fighting Music Addiction: An Experiment
Drilling Flashcards Without Music
Fighting Music Addiction: Week 2
Fighting Music Addiction: Week 3
A week ago, I decided I'd do an experiment. I'd switch to no music when I'm home. And so it's been for the past week. In this post I'm gonna talk about some of the things I've observed so far.
GENUINE ADDICTION
The first few days without music, I felt a compelling urge to listen to put some music on. This tells me that at some level, music really was an addiction for me. Sometimes I'd think of some song, and an urge to play it would follow. That still happens now, a week into the experiment.
It's the kind of thing where, if I wasn't paying close attention, I could easily put some music on "by accident", without even thinking about it. It was deeply ingrained into my daily habits.
WHITE NOISE IS GOOD
After the first couple days, I started "cheating" by playing nature sounds instead of music. It felt weird when I was in my office and there were NO sounds except the sounds of my environment. So I let music take fill the role of white noise, a constant background noise to keep me from being distracted by every little sound around me.
Nature sounds have a few important differences from music:
- Nature sounds lack the percussion of modern music, so are less distracting
- Nature sounds are constant, so they're easier to "stop in the middle of a song", and a constant white noise is much less distracting.
- Nature sounds aren't catchy... you won't get a waterfall "stuck in your head" (if you do, seek professional help)
- Nature sounds don't have wicked sweet music videos that I get tempted to waste hours and hours watching
- Nature sounds are mood-neutral: whether I'm feeling calm or excited, has no bearing on the appropriateness of a waterfall or mountain spring.
- Nature sounds are less addicting in general.
TRICKY MIND: THE VIDEO GAME TRAP
Around the fifth day, after publishing my previous post on this subject, I suddenly got an urge to play through an old video game, Final Fantasy 7, in Japanese. Of course, the Japanese part is important because it serves as a "justifier": basically an excuse to play the game. Which is fine. But here's the catch... FF7 is, of course, chock full of catchy music. And I wasn't even thinking about that (well, consciously at least; I'm sure the whole thing was just a trick from the addicted part of my brain to get another fix of music).
After playing for a couple hours (and, it IS a great way to learn more Japanese, by the way) I suddenly realized, hey, I'm really just doing this for the music, aren't I. So I shut off the music and played silent. Very quickly, a lot of the game's appeal vanished. Not that I have anything against video games, far from it. But all of a sudden, I just didn't feel any big urges to keep playing. I was less "immersed" in the game. Which is just as well, since I've already played it in English and know how it goes...
MUSIC OUTSIDE THE HOME/OFFICE IS AWESOME
My experiment doesn't include the times when I'm out and about. Obviously I can't avoid music completely, music is everywhere. One of the side effects I noticed pretty early in the experiment was that it makes music sound better when I'm out. For example, the elevator music they play at the gym, sounds a lot better. Which is good motivation to go to the gym. Last night when I went to get drunk, a band started playing some music that normally I wouldn't be into at all. Music which wasn't my type at all. But, it was strangely good.
I'm starting to think of music as being like an energy charge. When I listen to a certain type of music, I get aligned with that music, I get charged with it, and it makes less room for other types of music. The stronger I get aligned with one type, the less room for others. Nature sounds are effectively "music neutral", and as all that "charging" dissipates, I suddenly become much more open minded toward new music I hear. That's a good thing.
I think for most people, anything which gives more motivation to go out and have adventures, is good. When I'm old and looking back on my life, I doubt I'll remember much about what music I listened to while surfing the internet.
BETTER LANGUAGE STUDYING
I already wrote a separate article about how I seem to study languages better without music. Since it's the Summer, I haven't been doing a lot of mathematics study, so I'm not sure whether I'd get similar benefits there, though I don't see why I wouldn't. But school is only about a week away, and I'm taking a very high level logic class this quarter, so unless the experiment halts for some totally unforeseen reason, I'll find out soon enough.
LESS URGE TO CRANK THE VOLUME UP
A phenomenon I noticed about music is, it's very tempting to crank up the volume when a favorite song is playing, or even just a favorite part of a favorite song. And then your ears adjust to the rise, so it seems normal. Then another favorite song comes on, and the process repeats. It doesn't take that long before the music is really loud, and yet your ears have adjusted so you don't even get anything for it except the temporary thrill.
With constant background noise, there is no "favorite part", so none of this becomes an issue.
LESS DISTRACTING TO OFFICE MATES
Along the same lines as the above section, when I'm in the office I always try to pay attention to how loud my music is, I don't wanna turn it so loud that my office mates can hear it through my headphones. Without any urge to turn the volume up at good parts, it never becomes a problem. And even if the sound does leak, I think nature sounds would be less distracting to my mates than the eurodance/techno/synthpop I normally listen to.
GETTING MORE WORK DONE
Overall, I find I'm getting more work done now. Before starting the experiment, I'd spend a lot of time just flipping through youtube searches finding new songs to listen to; and watching the music videos, when they're catchy enough. Just a few minutes, but it quickly adds up. I'm not even sure how much overall time I normally spend doing that, summed up over an average day. Probably a significant amount! That's not to say there's anything wrong with music videos or surfing youtube. Both are pretty cool, but like anything else, should be done in moderation.
MORE CONSTANT BASE STATE
I've written a little about this in my Introduction to the Nimbus Quest. There's a big drawback to things which give a cheap, easy boost of state, which is that the boost never lasts and when it wears off, you end up feeling out-of-state. Well, music is a perfect example of an easy outside boost of state. When I find some fresh new music, and I listen to it, my state goes through the roof. But a lot of the time, I'd just me listening to songs I've heard too many times before, and it would actually lower my state.
During this experiment, the fluctuation from music is gone. That lets me focus more on building solid lasting inner state, as described in the Nimbus Quest.
CONCLUSION
So far, the experiment is a success. I'll write another report in another week. Right now I'm not certain how long I intend to keep the experiment up. If these results continue, I might just continue it indefinitely. But I'd like to eventually experiment around with adding music back in, but in more careful moderation. Afterall, as long as one isn't addicted, music is a beautiful wonderful part of life!
Here are the other articles on Music Addiction.
Fighting Music Addiction: An Experiment
Drilling Flashcards Without Music
Fighting Music Addiction: Week 2
Fighting Music Addiction: Week 3
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1 comments:
For me, it depends on the time of day. In the morning I can't stand to have music playing, but in the evening I am a bit addicted!
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