Can music help you study more effectively, or is it just a distraction?

Well, as the journalist H.L. Mencken once said:

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

I’ve been curious about this question for quite a long time, and I’ve always secretly hoped the answer came down in favor of music, as I’ve been studying with music for years and have always enjoyed it.

However, after looking at a bunch of the research that’s been done, the main thing I can tell you at this point with any confidence is that we don’t actually know. There are answers going in both directions.

To give you more detail, we’re going to look into some of that research; however, I have a ton of experience with this myself, and I’d like to lead in with it first.