How Cafe Noise Stimulates Your Creativity

Sit in your favorite cafe and you may be able to finish a paper or work plan efficiently. Now, a new website has moved the cafe into your cubicle.

The site, called Coffitivity, is inspired by a recent study that shows that the hissing of steam coffee machines and caffeine-stimulated chatter in most cafes generate a lot of ambient noise, just enough to stimulate people's creativity. The free site broadcasts a segment of ambient noise from a cafe, which, according to researchers, helps people focus.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (University of Illinois at)

Urbana-Champaign) researchers conducted a series of studies aimed at studying the effects of noise on creative thinking, and participants who were exposed to different levels of ambient noise were asked to brainstorm the new product. The study was published in the Journal of Consumer Studies (The Journal of Consumer)

Research) found that the ambient noise in a bustling cafe or TV living room is about 70 decibels, which can improve people's performance compared to the relatively quiet noise of 50 decibels.

However, the researchers found that a higher noise level of 85 decibels, roughly equivalent to the level of noise emitted by a blender or garbage disposal, would be too distracting.

Ravi Mehta, an assistant professor of business administration at the university who led the experiment, said that an extremely quiet environment can keep you focused, which can also prevent you from thinking abstractly.

"because of this, if you focus on a problem, you will find that you can't solve it," Dr. Mita said. "you put it off for a while, and when you start over, the problem will be solved."

A moderate amount of noise can distract people a little bit, so they can think about a wider range of problems. "it helps you get out of your mindset," Dr. Mita said.

However, the benefits of moderate noise apply only to creative tasks. Projects that require close attention to detail, such as proofreading papers or filing taxes, can do better in a quiet environment, Mita says.

He and his colleagues conducted other experiments and found that specific colors could also work. For example, changing the background color of your computer screen to blue can enhance the performance of creative tasks, while changing it to red will help you accomplish detail-oriented tasks. They also found that spacious, empty rooms with high ceilings may also contribute to creative thinking.

The founder of Coffitivity came up with the idea of a startup project in Richmond, Va., and the two projects were not related.

"We used to go to cafes and worked very well there," said Virginia Commonwealth, a co-founder of the site.

Says ACe Callwood, entrepreneurship coordinator at University) Business School.

One of the team members, Justin Kozler (Justin)

Kauszler) noticed that every time he returned to his usual workplace, a gloomy, monotonous office, his creativity plummeted. He asked his boss to leave the office and work in a cafe, which was rejected, so he and his colleagues decided to move their favorite cafe to the front of the computer.

Armed with some borrowed recording equipment, they finally found a place with ideal noise levels, which is the Harrison Street Cafe (Harrison Street Cafe).

"it's just the right mix of sounds," Cowwood said. "you can hear the coffee maker, people talking and eating. The cafe has two floors, and we recorded the sound of the upper and lower floors. "

Coffitivity launched on March 4 and garnered 120 page views that day. "I guess our mothers ordered it hundreds of times," Cowwood said.

Since then, website traffic has "soared", he said: "Seoul, South Korea is the city that contributes the most traffic. The second city is New York. Then there are London, Los Angeles and Chicago. "

Colwood and his colleagues at Coffitivity say they are developing apps and will tailor new cafe background sounds to different countries.

"Australians obviously don't like American accents," he said. "some Australians have asked us to make different sound effects."

"A rabbi came to us and said, 'Hey, there's a Jewish learning center where you can hear a very unique Hebrew sound,' and he asked if we could put this kind of audio on the website. We told him that if he could get us audio, we would use it. "