I've noticed that music seems to help me focus while programming but makes long-form writing harder.
As usual, has already assembled a nice bibliography: gwern.net/Music-distract
Only one paper on writing (10m essays); finds a modest (-) effect: gwern.net/docs/music-dis
Conversation
I also found this experiment on the impact of background speech on writing, which had longer writing tasks and more pronounced results: researchgate.net/profile/Guoli_
1
2
There are many studies on the impact of music on reading comprehension, which average out to a modest negative effect, but with some variation depending on type of music. Review: gwern.net/docs/music-dis
3
6
Can’t find much on music and programming, but this study found modest positive impact (attributed to affect) of music on “computer information systems” work: gwern.net/docs/music-dis
Not an ideal method: asking people to stop listening to music for a week, looking at impact.
