Do people always listen to music? I only do it occasionally to enjoy and stimulate me. I think i saw a study years ago, that always noise stresses your brain out long term, be it street noise or music.
I have a tracking setup for spotify. I listen to music during work most of the day, typically between 11-17 with peaks at 1pm. Average at 40-60k minutes a year. Longest session being around 11 hours.
It helps me focus. But I'd be interested in seeing that study.
A quick google hints that people who always have music on and "fear" silence, do so to avoid negative thoughts or emotions. And the usual studies about constant background noise making you sick. But there's too much noise (lol) about "The perfect music to calm you down" and similiar crap, nothing specific yet. And i have work to do.
Edit: and (a highly technical) one, that reading comphension goes down with background music.
Editedit: sounds somehow agressive. No bad intent. Though i personally like silence.
It's true, I'm conscious of avoiding silence.
Music works when I'm working on a task that requires focus, but I need something more engaging when cooking, for example, like spoken word - podcasts, audiobooks, movies, YouTube.
I'll give you my dilemma:
would you rather have constant noise that is not in your control? or would you rather have constant noise in the form of music that you enjoy? thats my case in school and the case of many others in cities, where its a choice between the sound of crowds (with occasional shocking loud noises) or music you can control. one is far less stressful at the end of the day