CAFFEINE BOOST
BEAN
THERAPY The hum of a coffee shop can boost your creativity. Now, this is just a
click away
Pulling up a seat at your favourite
coffee shop may be the most efficient way to write a paper or finish a work
project. And now a new website lets you bring the coffee shop to your cubicle.
The site, called Coffitivity, was
inspired by recent research showing that the whoosh of espresso machines and
caffeinated chatter typical of most coffee shops creates just the right level
of background noise to stimulate creativity. The website, which is free, plays
an ambient coffee shop soundtrack that, according to researchers, helps people
concentrate.
In a series of experiments that
looked at the effects of noise on creative thinking, researchers at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had participants brainstorm ideas
for new products while they were exposed to varying levels of background noise.
Their results, published in The Journal of Consumer Research, found that a
level of ambient noise typical of a bustling coffee shop or a television
playing in a living room, about 70 decibels, enhanced performance compared with
the relative quiet of 50 decibels.
A higher level of noise, however,
about 85 decibels, roughly the noise level generated by a blender or a garbage
disposal, was too distracting, the researchers found.
Ravi Mehta, an assistant professor
of business administration at the university who led the research, said that
extreme quiet tends to sharpen your focus, which can prevent you from thinking
in the abstract.
“This is why if you’re too focused
on a problem and you’re not able to solve it,” Dr Mehta said, “you leave it for
some time and then come back to it and you get the solution.”
But moderate levels can distract
people just enough so that they think more broadly. “It helps you think outside
the box,” he said.
The benefits of moderate noise,
however, apply only to creative tasks. Projects that require paying close
attention to detail, like proofreading a paper or doing your taxes, Dr Mehta
said, are performed better in quiet environments.
In other studies, he and his
colleagues have found that exposure to certain colours can play a role as well.
Switching the colour of your computer’s background screen to blue enhances
performance on creative tasks, for example, while making it red helps with
detailoriented tasks. Large, open rooms with high ceilings may also promote creative
thinking, they found.
The creators of the Coffitivity site
struck upon their idea after brainstorming on an unrelated start-up in the
Richmond, Virginia area.
“We had been in and out of coffee
shops, and we were getting really good work done,” said ACe Callwood, a founder
of the site and the coordinator for entrepreneurship at the Virginia
Commonwealth University business school.
One member of the team, Justin
Kauszler, noticed that when he returned to his regular work space, in a subdued
and sterile office, his productivity took a nose-dive. When Kauszler’s boss
shot down his request to leave the office and work from a coffee shop, he and
his colleagues decided that they would bring their favourite coffee houses to
their computers.
With some borrowed audio equipment
in hand, they eventually hit on a spot with the ideal noise level, a place
called Harrison Street Cafe.
“It had just the right mix of
everything,” Callwood said. “You could get the coffee machine, and you had
people talking and eating. It has two levels, and we got the vibe upstairs and
downstairs.”
Coffitivity started on March 4, and
that day it got about 120 page views. “I think our moms looked at it a hundred
times,” Callwood joked. Since then, traffic has “exploded,” he said. “Seoul,
Korea, is our top user city. New York City is second, followed by London, LA
and Chicago.”
Callwood and his colleagues at
Coffitivity say they are now in the process of creating an app and adding new
coffee shop soundtracks tailored to specific countries.
- Anahad O’Connor THE NEW YORK TIMES
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