Music has been an outlet for stress since its creation. Now being in the twenty-first century, music is ready for listening pleasure at the click of a button. It’s no wonder why so many students listen to music when doing schoolwork. This instantaneous stress-reliever definitely  elevates some of the torture surrounding tedious academic work. So there must be a catch, nothing seems to come that easy. Less stress and completing school work seems like an impossible feat, right? The on-going battle of  whether music has a positive or negative effect on a student's academic success has been a war waged by students, parents, teachers, and the researchers studying this topic for decades. Most parents and teachers can agree that they believe that all music does when a student is trying to complete work is distract them. Thus becoming a detriment to their overall success as a student. On the other side of the coin, most students will agree that listening to music while doing schoolwork is the only possible way for the schoolwork to even be completed. Being a student myself, I whole-heartidly agree that music during times of academia is a saving grace, the light at the end of the tunnel if you will. There have been many times that I have found myself up to my ears in schoolwork and the only thing driving me to complete these assignments, besides my grades obviously, is that I will be accompanied by a great playlist. Although I may be extremely biased regarding this topic, I have found that most of the researchers studying this topic tend to leave their own opinions out of their arguments. Not only have the researchers left their own preferences aside, but they explore all aspects of listening to music while studying. Those aspects being the genre, speed, lyrical presence, as well as the students affinity or lack thereof,  towards the music. Although it is a heavily debated topic, listening to music while completing academic tasks positively influences a student's academic success by providing stress relief and cognitive stimulation.

For example, college student Elana Goodwin makes an interesting argument in her article, Do or Don’t: Study While Listening to Music. Goodwin’s article touches upon the opinions and studies of multiple individuals who have tried to uncover the truth behind music and academics. Even though her article contains varying results, some stating that music harms students far more than it helps them, while others argue that it depends on the type of music a student does accounting to. Goodwin’s findings land her somewhere in the middle, stating that because of the stress-relieving effects music tends to have on students, music can be a beneficial aspect of studying, under a few conditions. Goodwin argues that if a student were to have a very easily  distracted personality then they would probably succeed in a quiet environment, however, if a student were to be an avid multitasker, the right type of music could create a relaxed, productive environment for said student. Goodwin discusses that for the right people, music can be an important part of academic success. 

On the other hand, in David Cutler's argument “Don’t Listen to Music While Studying”, he obviously has a strong affinity towards listening to music while studying. His argument comes from an interesting angle, due to the fact that as a college student Cutler was always engulfed in a good song while completing schoolwork. His reason being that he felt more at ease while doing schoolwork surrounded my music. However, Cutler argument does a full three-sixty when he discusses students listening to music from the perspective of a teacher and after speaking with Nick Perham, who studied this topic in depth. His argument becomes one of total aversion towards students listening to music while studying, saying that the music does nothing but distract the student. Cutler completely dismisses his previous notion that music can act as a form of stress-relief to some students. He states that music inhibits students from comprehending the information they are learning. Although David Cutler presents a convincing argument, it does not discredit the fact that music can be a helpful tool to some students while they complete schoolwork. Music is proven to be a cognitive stimulate for most individuals, training the brain to prepare for academic work. Music is also a proven stress reliever, this is an extremely important for college-age students who suffer through enough academic stress as it is. David Cutler was once a college student, who succeed while listening to his favorite song. He is aware of the positive effects music has to offer, so his reason for discrediting them is baffling. 

William R Klemm, also known as the memory medic, discusses the effects music has on the studious individual through a scientific lens. He examines many scenarios of music being a helpful or harmful tool for students to utilize.  He references other researchers who have explored this topic and discovered what some call “The Mozart Effect” (Klemm). Which is the process of improving an individual's memory by exposing them to classical music. Klemm suggests that this could be one in the same for students who listen to music while studying. Even though most students are not listening to mozart in their free-time, Klemm states that if a student were to listen to pleasurable music there could be one of two results. On result being that the “extraneous stimuli”, or excessive stimulation of the brain would inhibit students from retaining information for an extended period of time (Klemm). The other result being that while individuals listen to music they enjoy, dopamine is released in an individual's brain, dopamine has been proven to promote learning that results in rewards, or in this case good grades. Klemm then tested this theory, having two groups of people memorize the same fifty-four japanese symbols, which sounds pretty impossible to accomplish regardless of the study environment. One group memorized while listening to music they enjoyed, and the other memorized while listening to neutral music, after said memorization they were tested. The results being that while the students who studied to neutral music learned and absorbed the the material in a more efficient manner, the individuals who listened to pleasurable music performed better on the exam. Dr Klemm also theorized that if an individual has more experience with the technical aspects of music, they will most likely be more distracted by music because they will be listening with an ear that is trained to pay attention to the structural formation of music. 

Nick Perham, an often referenced psychologist, who has studied the consequences of listing to music while studying, comprised an experiment to test his theories. However instead of just testing music as a whole, Perham divided his experiment into five categories. Those categories being a quiet environment, a steady-state speech environment, a changing-state speech environment, liked music, and finally disliked music. He created an exam for his test subjects to take while immersed in one of the five categories. His findings were that liked music and disliked music surprisingly had the same effect on the individual. Whereas the quiet and steady-state speech environments had the most successful results and the changing-state-speech had the most harmful effects of the individual success. The steady-state speech would be a steady noise in the background of a student's mind, like a air-conditioner or a steady faucet drip, where changing-state speech is modeled after a period trying to converse with an individual at random times throughout the academic process, taking their mind away from their work. Even though Perham’s findings do not support the arguments presented by Goodwin or Klemm, where the academic success is dependent on the person and their personality, he still presents relevant information that could relate to the population as a whole and not a specific individual. 

Another source that supports the claim that the success of music and academia is dependent on the person in the BBC video, conducted by psychologist Victoria Williamson. She presents the claim that if an individual is completely bored within a task they are completing but are listening to music they enjoy in the background, they will be more likely to remain focused because part of their mind is surrounded with something that the individual actually enjoys. To prove her point Dr. Williamson speaks with two students who complete academic assignments in two completely different ways. Amin, a freshly graduated double major in astrophysics and political science studies while jamming out to electronic dance music or rock, where Teniola, an international business student, finds that she becomes very distracted when music is present during here times of study. Amin claims that he has discovered that he performs better on his politic assignments when he listens to rock music because it motivates him and allows him to focus. He also states that while studying astrophysics he enjoys listening to electronic dance music because it allows him to gather his thoughts in a more precise manner. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum Teniola can not listen to any outside noise when completing assignments, she claims that she can process her information a lot faster when encompassed by silence. Dr. Williamson relates these two individuals on a scale she describes as a “u shaped curve” (Williamson). On said, curve the  two points at the bottom are known as the non-optimal places. One side being boredom, mind wandering, and low attention, while the other side is comprised of stress, overstimulation, and panic. Williamson states that for the right person, music can prohibit an individual from landing at the bottom. That right person would be an extravert. Williamson discusses the differences between introverts and extraverts when it comes to listening to music. For an introvert silence is valuable, introverts tend to have more stimulation within themselves, therefore they do not need to seek external stimulation, meaning they will perform better in a silent environment. Whereas extraverts lack internal stimulation, so they try a find stimulation externally, in this case that would be music, meaning that extraverts actually perform better in a music filled environment. 

In Arielle Dolegui’s article the Impact of listening to music on cognitive performance, she, like Nick Perham, discusses how the genre of music affects a student's cognitive performance.   Dolegui acknowledges the stress-relieving effects music has to offer to over-worked students, through the research she has conducted, she believes that listening to music while completing academic work has harmful effects on the student.  She comes to this conclusion because most students study to their preferred genre when completing schoolwork and students tend to focus on the song they are listening to rather than their work, especially when they enjoy the song. Dolegui references a study performed by Smith and Morris (1997), which tested students in repeating a list of number backwards, some students listening to their preferred genre of music, others listening to “sedative music”, and the last group listened to nothing but silence (Dolegui). The results being that students performed best when in a silent environment and the worst when they were listening to music they enjoyed. The sedative music, or relaxing music, landed the test students somewhere in the middles of silence and preferred music. However, interestly enough, Dolegui also addresses personality types and how music affects their academic performance. She discusses the difference between introverts and extraverts, stating that extraverts would outperform introverts when in the presence of music. Even though extraverts would perform better than introverts, Dolegui holds strong that both types of individuals performance is impaired when surrounded by music. She claims that there was an overall decline of success when the individuals listened to music as compared to when they completed the assignments is complete silence.  

Within Shelby Archuleta’s argument she does not fully support the notion of listening to music while studying, but she does admit there are more distracting options. For example, speech is more distracting then music, so if an individual were to listen to music in order to drown out surrounding conversations, music would be a better option than having conversations as a student's background noise. However she contradicts herself by stating, that depending on the type of music a students is listening to, it can be just as distracting as overhearing a conversation. Archuleta also discusses an interview which she conducted with a teacher, who plays music during her history classes, because she is a firm believer that music during academic times gives her students a “more emotional look at the era” and some music can “calm down and focus” the students (Archuleta).

Even though music is always being debated, Charles Calderwood, Phillip Ackerman, and Erin Conklin, discuss multiple things that could easily distract a student when they are completing schoolwork. Within this experiment they tested how students perform academically when they are multitasking. They explored cellphone use, internet use, music set up, actually listening to music, checking email, and leaving the room.The results were extremely surprising. Although it is not completely shocking, students were most distracted by cellphone use. Followed by internet use, music set up, than actually listening to music. The shocking information being that listening to music was tested to be more distracting than watching TV. This unbelievable fact was followed by checking email, then leaving the room. This experiment provides a very interesting point of view. Being able to test multiple multitasking habits and compare which becomes the most detrimental, opens many doors for students to improve. Most students can not go longer than thirty minutes before having to check their phone, so it is reasonable to assume most students will check their phone during study times, so when students are doing multiple tasks while completing their work, they will be that much more distracted. If students were to try and choose one element, besides cellphone use, the can do while completing work, they might be more successful at multitasking and completing work than their peers.  

Although it is a heavily debated topic, listening to music while completing academic tasks positively influences a student's academic success by providing stress relief and cognitive stimulation. Music has always been a key component to many student’s study habits and many students will admit they have gotten into at least one argument with another individual who believes music is a detriment to a student's academic success. However throughout the research that I have conducted throughout the semester, I believe that the success students will have when listening to music fully depends on the type of personality the student has. If a student is more extraverted and an avid multitasker they will have a higher success rate the and introverted, easily   distracted individual.           