FOCUS SOUND TEST
Does background sound help YOUR focus?
Compare silence, pink noise and calm instrumental ambience on the same short attention task. Find what works for you today.
3 short blocks · About 3 minutes
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01 / GET READY
First, find a gentle volume.
Try a little pink noise. Keep the sound just audible. Then keep the same volume through all three blocks.
Headphones recommended. Start with your device volume low. Do not turn it up to force an effect. Stop if sound feels uncomfortable.
Same task. Three sound settings.
Tap the blue circle; hold back on the orange square. You can practise before a block. The order of the three sound settings is shuffled. Use the same headphones, device and surroundings throughout.
Sound helps some people. Silence helps others.
A 2024 meta-analysis found a small average benefit from white or pink noise for people with ADHD or elevated symptoms (g ≈ 0.25), and a small negative effect in comparison groups (g ≈ −0.21). It found no brown-noise studies. That is evidence about task performance, not a treatment recommendation.
A 2023 study found that lyrics slightly hurt memory and reading performance (d ≈ −0.3). Instrumental music showed no clear benefit or harm. A 2018 meta-analysis also found that background sound slightly impaired reading, with speech and lyrics especially distracting.
This is a personal experiment, not a validated assessment of attention or ADHD. A result on this task may not apply to reading, studying or another day. Our generated ambience has no lyrics.