Is noise completely unnecessary?

Many of you may have experienced that during the test, you were worried about the rumbling of people around you and the sound of flipping paper, and you lost your concentration. Software developer Ekin Öcalan wrote on his blog about whether such noise is completely unnecessary.

Noise --by Ekin Öcalan --Sustainable Productivity
https://ekin.substack.com/p/noise

There are various noises in our daily lives, such as the noise of construction work being done in the neighborhood, the noise generated by trains and trucks, and the voices of colleagues. Due to the epidemic of the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19), the number of occupations that allow working from home has increased, but after all, there is noise at home as well.

It is self-evident that excessive noise reduces productivity, but according to Öcalan, the real reason that general noise impairs productivity is that 'content interferes with concentration.' For example, in the case of a colleague's voice, at first you only hear the content of the conversation in fragments, but before you know it, you listen to the entire conversation instead of the fragment of the conversation, and eventually you lose your concentration. Even if you listen to music using noise canceling, when your favorite song comes out after a while, the memories of listening to that song live will naturally come to your mind, and you will end up concentrating. May be scraped off. In fact, a study was published in 2020 that 'when working on complex tasks, the performance is better if you don't listen to music.'

What kind of music do you listen to at work to improve your performance? --GIGAZINE

However, not all noise is bad. 'Stochastic resonance ', a phenomenon in which mixing noise has a positive effect on performance, has been confirmed in various fields. It has been confirmed that applying a noisy electric field to paddlefish, which is known to detect and prey on small fish, improves its predatory ability.

Moderate 'noise' may boost human performance-GIGAZINE

In relation to noise, Öcalan recommends the book 'Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing' by neuroscientist Andrew Smart, an expert in image imaging of the brain in language processing. Good: The autopilot function of the brain that produces ideas) ”, according to this book,“ There are many situations where you can actually increase the signal by adding an appropriate amount of noise. ”

People who can do it are good at: Auto-pilot function of the brain that creates ideas | Andrew Smart, Andrew Smart, Rikako Tsukizawa | Books | Mail order | Amazon

Öcalan argued that 'noise that doesn't draw attention can increase productivity' and 'most of the noise that exists in our daily lives and at work reduces productivity.' An environment like a background music with no familiar rhythms or a cafe with only unconventional conversations is the best environment for me to perform well in any intellectual work. '