The Connection Between Music and The Attention Span of a Student

Music Improves Concentration: Board of Education

With the cell phone policy put into effect, it is relatively new to board members, educators, and students how their electronic devices should be used. Some interpret it differently and allow for vivid or little to no usage at all. Students are always on the cellular devices almost the whole day and with the new implemented cellphone policy, this gives them a chance to use them in school. With all of the good and bad uses of them, educators are not fully embracing those that could be beneficial to learning. With more research, set rules can be acquired that can even help students improve their learning and focus.

Music is something wonderful that everyone loves to listen to, and it can change our mood or strengthen a certain mood we are currently in. From Dr. Masha Godkin, (a professor in the Department of Marriage and Family Sciences at NCU) studies show that music is able to activate both the left and right sides of the brain allowing to help learning and memory. Not all types of music are able to help, only specific genres. Classical music is a good example of productive study music, there are no lyrics to distract you and it is generally a quiet, background type of music. Putting yourself in a student's shoes, you would not really want to listen to that, but something more recent from the “digital age”. This is where electronic music with slower tempos can give the same effect as classical music. The mood of a song can also impact how someone performs a task. Sad music can bring down someone's blood pressure and heart rate, causing them to be less productive when completing something. The volume of the music is the most important, you should be able to concentrate on studying while you listen to your music in the background. Music at a too loud of a volume causes people to tap their foot to the beat and become fully immersed in it, not allowing them to concentrate on the task itself. If music were to be implemented with studying during class time, this new approach can paint a picture of students as more focused and willing to learn.

Students being glued to their phones like leeches during class and this time should be controlled, even when listening to music. Quiet times, like reading or doing classwork should be put together with music to allow for the highest amount of productivity. The brain has a conscious system that directs our focus on what we want to concentrate on and a unconscious system that is picked up by our senses. Surprisingly, our unconscious system is distracted much easily by small noises movements. Music, at a low volume is able to in a way distract and fill up the unconscious system so it is not distracted by anything else. With nothing to distract the unconscious system, the conscious system is able to focus and concentrate on school work and studying. With this knowledge, teachers can have all of their students concentrating with no students making distractions to throw off the focus of the entire class. Personally, whenever someone does something distracting in class, like sneezing or a sound coming from outside occurs, it always throws off my focus and I can not get in “the zone” again. Sneezing leads to the whole class saying bless you and noises outside lead to a whole conversation of what it was. With quiet and filling music flowing into your ears, there are no distractions to throw off your focus. Concentration and focus is an immense issue with so many distractions and if music is the only solution to this problem, then it should be the one to solve it, and not be left alone.

Educators may argue that students will find a way to “cheat” the system and use their phones not for productive purposes, but for their own personal needs. There are plenty of ways to prevent this from happening to make sure students are doing what they are supposed to be doing. One low budget option would be to create an app that only plays certain “productive study music” at a certain volume. Teachers would receive a notification on their computer if the student left the app while still being on their electronic device. Another option would be to give students the option to purchase (or for schools in a better financial situation, provide) small, cheap music players with certain certified “brain stimulating” songs that would help focus and productivity. Teachers should not allow students to be listening to music for every activity, but only those that require concentration with a task that can be completely individually. By controlling how music is listened to in the classroom, this can assure teachers that their students are truly doing what they are supposed to be doing with their task.

With students nowadays always using their electronic devices, educators can make this addiction productive, and suitable in the classroom environment. Monitored “brain” music is the solution to help students focus and concentrate on their tasks at hand. With more education towards how we can implement electronics in the classroom, the learning environment for students can be greatly impacted for the better. Music is a wonderful thing and shouldn’t just be used to enjoy and be listened to in someone's free time, but to be brought into the classroom to be embraced as a learning tool.