Coffee shop ambience for working: why it helps and what to use
Plenty of people work better in a cafe than at home. Part of the reason may be the sound. Here is what research says, and how to get that sound without leaving the house.
What the study found
The study most people cite is "Is Noise Always Bad? Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition" by Ravi Mehta, Rui Zhu and Amar Cheema, published in the Journal of Consumer Research in 2012. They tested different background noise levels. A moderate level, around 70 decibels, did better on creative tasks than a low level of around 50 decibels. A high level, around 85 decibels, did worse.
That is one set of experiments about creative tasks, mostly done in a lab. It does not show that cafe noise helps everyone or helps with every kind of work. For careful tasks, such as checking numbers, many people prefer quiet. Treat it as a reason to try, not a rule.
Ways to get the sound at home
- Video loops. Search for "coffee shop ambience" and you will find hours of cups, murmur and jazz. Free, but you are in a browser tab full of other videos and ads.
- Ambient sound apps and sites. Several offer cafe sound with a volume mix. Check the current free limits on each.
- Lo-fi radio and playlists. Music, not crowd noise. Good if speech distracts you.
- A virtual cafe. Midnight Cafe has rooms with a record player that plays lo-fi and jazz records for everyone present, and a radio. There is no crowd sound, but there are other people in the room, and you can see them move and chat. It is free, runs in a browser tab and is new, so rooms are often quiet.
Tips that work with any of them
- Keep the volume low enough that you could still hold a conversation over it.
- Switch to plain music or silence for tasks that need close attention.
- Use the same sound every time you start work. After a while it becomes a signal to begin.