Nearly 50% of Students With High GPAs Listen to EDM While Studying, Survey Finds

Confirmed: electronic music is a productive genre to listen to while studying. 

A new study conducted by College Rover found that lo-fi and EDM were among the top genres to study to, with the former behind only pop music, which comprised 44% of respondents.

The genres with the loftiest percentage of students with high GPAs were classical, instrumental, indie, jazz and folk. People with high GPAs of 3.5 or above were four times more likely to listen to instrumental music than metal while studying. Conversely, people with GPAs of 2.5 or lower said rap is their favorite genre to play while studying.

The team of researchers surveyed over 1,000 students to gather insights on their studying soundtracks. They also utilized Spotify's API to analyze study playlists and discover which songs correlate with higher academic achievement.

The top pop artists included Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and SZA, who were also the three favorites among female students. Male students also enjoyed The Weeknd, but their other two favorite artists were chart-topping rappers 21 Savage and Kendrick Lamar. Favorite EDM artists included Aphex Twin, ODESZA and DROELOE.

The study noted that music with a lot of lyrics are not as conducive to cognitive ability. Research published in the National Library of Medicine found that lyrics interfere with cognitive tasks. Moreover, Spotify has spent a lot of time researching their study playlists to ensure maximum efficiency. Spotify automatically sets loudness normalization to -14dB LUFS, but the study playlists averaged -16dB LUFS to help students focus.

You can read the full study here.